Open Thread Wednesday!

I had an incident that I just didn’t expect in my classroom nor have I had it before. It surprised me, and I wasn’t entirely certain how to handle it at the time. After reading and participating some of the previous profhacker threads on dealing with classroom disruptions, I can say this one wasn’t as cut and dried as I had envisioned the other scenarios discussed.

A student showed up appearing very tired, and ended up acting a bit belligerent during the early part of the lecture. Our classes are often in the vein of continuing ed, and he is one of my older students (close to my age) that works full time before coming to classes. He also has a ‘position of respect’ in the community (for the lack of a better phrase – I can’t give the details), so I was hesitant to just show him the door right away.

After the lecture started, he started complaining loudly about not being able to see the powerpoint slides and wondering how he was supposed to know “all this stuff” for few minutes, and making loud ‘hacking noises’ in his throat. None of his issues were problems the previous 5 weeks of the term, so the other students and I were a bit surprised. And he’d always spoken to me and his fellow students with considerable respect in the past. This was a small classroom, around 10 students. One of the students sniped back at him “We can all see it pretty clearly, dude”, and I quickly intervened. I asked him to take a seat closer to the front if it would help him. He settled down a bit, so I decided to let things be.

At that point I was trying to decide if he was drunk, extraordinarily tired, or both. I didn’t wish to exacerbate things, and so I made a conscious decision to let him remain as long as he wasn’t disrupting my lectures or bothering his fellow students. He was quieter, but still seemed agitated – even moved closer to the front for a time.

At the mid point break, only he and another student remained in the classroom. I spoke with him as politely as I could asking him if he was OK, because he looked very, very tired. He then unloaded about working for 20 straight hours (and other things), but declined to leave when I suggested it was in his best interests if he wasn’t well. He also seemed apologetic, and a bit more coherent.

He sat in the front when the second portion of the lecture started, but eventually started to doze off. He moved to the back of the room, stumbling and bumping into desks and chairs. And eventually he got up and left, after navigating his way out in a similar manner.

After a couple minutes of silence, I apologized to the other students and asked them their opinion of the situation. It wasn’t clear to anyone whether he was intoxicated (we couldn’t smell anything), but it was clear that it affected the students. And I’m wondering if I handled it properly after having a few hours to digest the incident.

I’m curious what others would have done in my situation or similar ones. I have a feeling if I had booted the student from the classroom right away, it may have backfired or escalated. And though I wasn’t concerned for my personal safety, I was worried about the other students.

I thoroughly agree with George on this one. You did precisely the right thing (from my perspective). Are you making plans to followup with the student? See how he’s doing today? Or just wait until your next class and move forward– not calling attention to the student’s (seeming) one misstep?

Thanks for the support. Not sure if I want to follow up, but have thought about it. It’s not a bad idea, though I’m personally not so inclined to do so. I may just send him a quick message.