Saturday, October 3, 2009

The Know-It-All Student

I have a know-it-all student this semester. (Well, I usually have at least one, but this one is especially obnoxious.) I don't know what to do with him. He is clearly very intelligent, but also very socially awkward. Here is the list of his offenses:

1. He raises his hand several times every class period, sometimes to ask obscure question, sometimes to add information that he thinks is important. (It usually isn't.)

2. Last Wednesday I asked a question and he was the first to raise his hand, as usual. I said, "someone besides C___." He sighed dramatically, and picked up a book and began to read.

3. Sometimes he makes little comments to his neighbors, which I can only assume are jokes, because it causes them to giggle.

4. On Friday we had a discussion of a text. It was student-led, but he still tried to dominate. I mean, he sat on the edge of his chair with his hand in the air like he was a fifth grader who needed to get permission to go pee.

I hate situations like this. I can't decide if he knows what he's doing and he's trying to annoy me or show how much smarter he is than everyone else in the class, or if he's really that socially awkward and doesn't realize what he's doing. I have the feeling that he wouldn't behave this way if I were a male, but I might just be oversensitive about that.

So far my strategy has been to ignore him whenever possible, but I think I might have to try something else. Ugh.

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