What to do with an annoying student?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I’m an English teacher in China, and a teacher in another department recently sent a student my way. He is not an English student, but his English is quite good and he is clearly VERY enthusiastic.

Kind of insanely enthusiastic. He shows up at ALL my classes and sits front and center. As one of the only foreigners around, I usually let whoever wants to sit in on my classes. But they have the sense to sit in back, not sit there with their hands up the whole time. He spends every single second of my office hours in my office. I’ve actually seen him RUN to my office the moment I open the door. Since I live on campus, I run into him walking home, going to dinner…every day, he is there. Whenever there is a school event, he’s right there trying to get the seat next to me. He’s even shown up at my door (and was quite firmly told to go home.)

He clearly has some kind of major social problem. He is unable to engage in a real conversation, he just verbally ejaculates whatever is on the top of his head at the moment. When he talks he is so excited he trips over his own words. He can talk for three hours straight no problem, usually the same subjects over and over again. Every sentence with the same near hysterical enthusiasm. He makes it impossible to talk to my other students. He completely dominates every conversation. He’s like an eight year old on speed.

Another teacher got sick of it and told him pretty bluntly that he needs to calm down, back off and learn how to participate in conversation. He understood this- and apologized to me. It seems pretty clear that he has no friends and has decided to try his luck with teachers. And I do think he is a good kid. But I have about four hundred students. I can’t solve this kids’ social problems and I can’t give him all the attention he wants.

At the same time, I don’t want to kick him out of my classes or tell him he can’t come to office hours. I mean, I am there for my students. But at the same time, I can’t spend all of my office hours listening to this kids half crazed monologues. I did two hours of it today and I am really about to kill someone.

I do have lots of student friends (which is normal in this culture) and I don’t know how to explain why I’m happy to spend an hour after class having a deep conversation about the role of feminism in modern China, but I’m not willing to spend even ten minutes listening to him breathlessly tell me about the big Buddha statue in his hometown for the hundredth time.

Anyway, he is on the border of interfering with my other students, but not quite really. But he does make me dread going to school in the morning. What is my obligation to a student who wants to learn but is extremely annoying? How do I deal with this?

2

The question isn’t what is your obligation to him. It does sound like he IS interfering with your other students (at the very least, by making you be tense in the classroom, which affects your delivery). Try looking at it from the other end: what is your obligation to the other students, and specially to the ones who are officially your students?

As for what can you do, given that his behaviour is very immature, try giving him spelled-out rules. For example he, being an “unofficial student,” does not get office hours, must sit in the back of the class and is not allowed to move his hands further up than his desk. Mind you, the rules you set need to be rules that you are willing to enforce generally. And let’s hope he doesn’t get to be your official student…

3

Poor kid. my heart goes out to him. And good job to you too for being so tolerant!

I don’t have any experience from a teacher’s perpective, so can’t really help other than give my two-cents. I think you need to get it through to him somehow that there are rules that he needs to follow. It will be to his benefit in the long term for him to try to apply these rules to his life.

Rule 1. Make a question time (maybe the last 10 minutes of class, or so) and all questions have to wait until then. He, like all the other students need to follow the rule.

Rule 2. Office time. The teacher needs at least some time by himself in order to prepare for other classes. So he can’t spend ALL of that time talking to you.

Explain these rules kindly, and hopefully he will be able to control himself enough to follow them?

Good luck!

4

Dear, the guy is damn near stalking you. It sounds like he has the hots for you. Are there formal rules for degree of interaction that a student may have with a teacher? I would think that in China there would be more rigid rules for student conduct. Is he doing what we would call “auditing” here stateside? I’d just suck it down and lay down some rules. It’s not like you have anything to gain from being nice to this guy. Clearly state some rules. Sit in the back and shut up. Office hour visitations once a week with discussions solely limited to class materials. No interactions outside of class and office hours.

My sister is a sort of a social liaison administrator with the community at UC Davis and has to deal with all sorts of social misfits (homeless, amongst others) who “audit” classes, due to what I consider an overly lenient policy of allowing members of the community to attend classes. It’s cool in theory, but seems like a major pain in the ass for the instructors who are caught in that situation.

I’d go ahead and figure out exactly what the rules are for dealing with obnoxious students and try to formulate a plan to make my own life more pleasant. But, then, I’m kind of a dick.

5

I teach as well.
I have had over-eager students and usually have some luck by assigning them projects that are advanced to the point of shutting them up.
However, this guy is just auditing your classes.

One of many subjects I teach is psychology. By coincidence, I am teaching the chapter on psychological disorders this week.

Assuming this student is in his 20’s, and based upon what you have stated, I think it might be a good idea to have this student checked out for schizophrenia or bi-polar disease. This is usually the age that first signs of it appear, and there is medication that can help this person if they get diagnosed early.

Yes, it may be something as simple as he has a crush, or he simply wants to get to know a “foreigner”…but your description doesn’t sound like that is the case. Especially considering the same happened in other classes, and his behavior is erratic, to say the least.

I have no idea what resources are available at your school, but if there is a school psychologist, or counselor, I would strongly suggest this kid meet with them and get professional help.

6

Tough one. If you gp to a chinese admin or peer teacher, they’ll probably ban him from class. if there’s a peer teacher that will just give you advice, ask their opinion.

i would set some hard guidelines. auditing student so sit in the back and allowed to ask 1 question per session. office hours something like a maximum 5 minutes per day.

explain you have to be fair for real students, but want to accomodate. heck, if it actually works, can increase to 2 questions/comments per class. try to get the message across that he’s got the wrong approach & he doesn’t understand the concept. start with the groundl rules and see if he figures out & DEMONSTRATES the idea of quality and value-added concept. you’re actually helping by setting limits and it’s his responsibility to increase the quality and how he presents himself. you don’t have bandwidth to coach & mentor, but will give him a tiny forum.

best case - it actually works. worst case - he asks 1 question, and you can feel good about trying and have ammo if you need to cut him off.

too much to go into here, but a lot of cultural baggage, social maladjusted, maybe deeper problems.

7

I agree with DMark that it seems there’s more going on than just a person with no social skills. The level of energy and behavior that you’ve described seems more typical of a manic episode or pre-morbid schizophrenia than “simple” social delay. However, I don’t know Chinese culture at all, so I have no idea how they would approach a possible mental illness.

If there’s mental illness present, the suggestions of setting limits probably won’t work. However, I agree that they should be set and strongly enforced. I encourage you to explore how the school would handle the mental illness aspect, though.

8

My school is very low-tier, and we have a few students who aren’t quite balanced right (as well as lots of smart and hard working students, of course!) This kid is well known among students and I imagine his problems are familiar to the staff as well. In fact, I think he got directed my way by a fellow teacher who didn’t want to deal with him.

I know there is some mental health support, but I think it’s more for “I’m sad that my Grandma died” than serious problems. This place doesn’t strike me as a great place to be mentally ill. At least, I never seem to see or hear of mentally ill people. Anyway, students get a lot of supervision and I imagine someone in charge knows what is going on and is trying to make sure he is where it’s best for him to be.

His behavior isn’t really stalker like or crush like. He seems too immature for that (one of his favorite subjects is Harry Potter). His showing up at my house was prompted because he saw another foreign teacher get in an argument and wanted to make sure she was okay.

It’s more complete ignorance of social boundaries than a willful violation of them. He knows he isn’t socializing right, but he doesn’t understand how he should be acting. I can really see the kid trying his best to follow what other people are doing in a conversation, but when his turn to talk comes he just can’t quite do it right. And he knows it and doesn’t know what is going wrong or how to fix it. It kind of feels like the opposite of autism- he doesn’t know how to interpret social cues, but he’s channels that by being hypersocial instead of antisocial.

And it’s true, if I really don’t want to see this kid again all I’d have to do is say the word.

But I just wish there was something I could do. This kid probably hasn’t had a great life and isn’t heading out towards a great life. He comes from a small village and was one of the few people he knows who got into even a low-tier college. I think he really had a lot of dreams of how college was going to be and then he comes here and discovers that everyone is able to function in ways he just doesn’t get at all.

I hate to be yet another person rejecting him, you know? I guess it’s true, I don’t have the training for this. This is always the hard part of this job- seeing problems that you just can’t do anything about.

9

I’m not sure you would be “rejecting” him by sensitively educating him as to limits and proper behavior. As a teacher you enjoy considerable authority (perceived, even if not in reality). So I urge you to take control of the situation, and set clear boundaries. Doesn’t have to be done meanly, but for various reasons you should let him know the implications should he not respect your boundaries.

Realistically, if you have 400 students, what percentage of your time ought you be spending on this one kid - no matter how needy he is? Also, would doing so necessarily be a good thing for him? Or would he benefit more from a caring individual helping him take a small step towards improving his interpersonal awareness/skills?

As a starter, you might want to be a wall in terms of saying your relationship with him is limited to the contents of your class. You have no interest in anything he has to say about Harry Potter, his town’s Buddha, or whatever. You are a teacher, not his friend, confidante, counsellor, whatever. Sounds like he has a ton of difficulty understanding such distinctions. I agree with the many who have suggested that he may well have mental/emotional problems that are beyond your expertise or ability to address.

I don’t know how things are in China, but I’ll observe that you want to be careful that in trying to help him you don’t do anything that gives him any arguable grievance against you. Just saying, I’ve heard too many stories about how a superior’s best intentions were misperceived.

10

I’ve had a bit of experience dealing with socially immature students, and I second this advice. I also agree that you need to be very specific; he will follow your instructions to the letter. Of course, if we’re talking mental illness here, that’s something else entirely, but even then, specific rules will be helpful.

11

Ok, boundaries seem like a good thing.

Is it reasonable of me to set boundaries just for him? My office hours usually turn out to be rap sessions, with my students as well as students from other areas coming in and having really interesting small group discussions. It’s probably some of the best work I do here and it’s also the highlight of my week. I’d hate to lose that.

I did tell him that I’m not available outside of class/office hours. I think he understood that, but it’s complicated by the fact that for various practical and cultural reasons I do spend a lot of time with students outside of the classroom.

I like the “give him a project” idea. Maybe I will find a project for him and ask him to come in during the last 10 minutes of my offices hours to talk about his progress. For sure if he shows up in another class I will ask him to sit in back and explain that the activities are for enrolled students. I wish I could give him some guidance on the basics of conversation…

Once again, at any time I can ask a supervisor and I will never have to see this kid again. And I’m sure that will happen the moment I say anything, which is why I haven’t turned to a co-worker for help yet. So anyway, it’s not a huge problem. But I’d like to find a better solution than that.

12

I don’t have much to add, this sounds like a tough situation, you’ve gotten good advice, and it’s great of you to attempt to do some good with it.

In terms of giving him guidance on the basics of conversation, why not? Are you teaching English/ American culture? Maybe use that as an “in” in conjunction with giving him a project. Have him observe how English speakers take turns in a conversation or learn ways to appropriately ask questions.

13

I’m not a psychologist but he sounds like he could have Asperger’s Syndrome. From the wiki page:

Perhaps other Dopers who have experience dealing with people with AS could help you with this guy.

14

I am a behavior therapist for autistic children and I agree that this sounds like Asperger’s (which often is co-morbid with ADHD). I’ll just echo the advice given here that you need to set some clear rules for him. Auditing students must sit in the back, can only ask one question per class, can only take up 10 minutes of office hours, etc. If he is breaking these rules, you need to be polite but firm. “I’m sorry, it’s 3:10, and I need to speak with this other student.” If he breaks the rules, remind him that he must follow them or he will not be allowed to audit the class.

Giving him a project to do sounds like too much work on your part for a student who isn’t even in your class. It also sounds like discussion about this project could end up taking up way more of your time.