A student came by my office yesterday morning, about 11, to cancel the arrangement we'd made to discuss his project during my office hours (which was not really necessary, polite, and typical of this student who is at the diligent end of the spectrum).
Why did they want to cancel?
"Because I've had enough of today already"
Oh, how I wish I could play that card some days!
Oh, boy, do I know that feeling; in fact, I experienced it about the same time yesterday. But the best I could come up with was to tell the next student waiting in line for a conference that I needed to run down the hall to the bathroom. It was true, and bought me c. 3 minutes of breathing room (and made the conferences run even later than they already were), but had the "I've had enough of today" option been available, I would have been very, very tempted to take it.
ReplyDeleteAny chance your student is on the autism spectrum? A self-conscious limiting of exposure to stressful situations is typical of someone who has been taught how to manage his/her own social interactions in order to avoid the sort of 'meltdown' to which some people with autism are prone.
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