Anxiety Attack

Seriously. I am having a full-blown anxiety attack, brought on just by reading a student's assignments. I couldn't even bring myself to read his entire "self evaluation." Apparently this kid thinks he is just too clever for anything as dull and insignificant as my course and that I cannot possibly have anything to offer him. He knows he's wonderful because he reminds himself of New York Post sports writer Mike Vaccaro--and because he's going to write for the school newspaper. Clearly he is therefore brilliant, and the fact that I expect him to write according to some kind of rules is just evidence that I'm an idiot and hate students.

Example of his brilliant thinking, in a freewrite in response to a quotation by Einstein about experiencing wonder: "This one time, my friend took a dookie in my backyard and my doge ate it. That was mysterious to me."

Another example: in a reading journal asking what the author's argument is: "She is trying to bore us out of our minds." Later, when asked for something to bring up for class discussion, "Her details are very descriptive and the place she is describing sounds nice, but it almost like if she was given more pages she would've [illegible] describing the dog crap she stepped in there."

Example: in his so-called self evaluation, in which he is meant to reflect on his strengths and weaknesses as a reader and writer: "Well, my mind kind of works like this: Hitting the monkey skulls, hitting the monkey skulls, knocking them all about, smooth surface, monkey. Hitting the monkey, hitting the monkey skulls, No, I'm the monkey! Flipping them up, kicking them, 'that's not in the rules!', who are you? You're no one, I got the bamboo, monkey."

He says he amuses himself. He is apparently easily amused. In his self-evaluation, he lavishes great praise about a teacher who "actually cared," evidenced by the fact that she understood kids can't write about what they're not interested in, so "all we had to do was write a 2 page essay about anything." Oh, yes: that's serious preparation for college--and for life as a professional writer (which he says he is destined to be), particularly in journalism. We know that newspapers are just wild to publish stream-of-consciousness solipsism that comes out of the ability to write 2 pages about "anything."

When I see him next, I am going to tell him that since he clearly doesn't need my class and has no respect for the material or for me, then he should go explore his career as a brilliant writer--and withdraw from my class. I don't need to take his shit, and I won't. But I'm still having an anxiety attack, largely because I am so fucking angry with the little asshole that I want to nail him to a wall and rip his head off. I want to tell him that he is an arrogant little prick with less brains than the monkeys he writes about and that he richly deserves the incredibly painful awakening that is coming to him, the one where he is shamed into understanding that he is seriously inadequate in every sense. I want to cut his ego into teeny, tiny shreds and set them on fire. I want to make him squirm--and, more to the point, I want to make him understand just how horrific his behavior and attitude are and make him ashamed of himself and how he has conducted himself in his assignments for me (which, honestly, would be more difficult than any of the rest of it).

And I know that feeling this way is only bad for me. It does nothing to help me handle the situation with him as an adult professional--and I do not know why that kind of snotty, disrespectful arrogance gets under my skin so immediately and with such volcanic results. What's it to me, after all, if some 18-year-old kid has delusions of grandeur? I don't have to teach him (and couldn't anyway, as long as he has that attitude). Someone else can try to reach him--or let him continue in his delusions. All I have to do is tell him that he is no longer in my class and let him go. He's one kid. He's just a kid. And even if he goes the rest of his life believing in his own magnificence, more power to him. He isn't worth the lint in my pockets, and here I am all worked up about him. These are the moments that I have to learn to manage better. I am calming down as I write this (though my cheeks still are flushed and my heart rate a little elevated), but what I devoutly hope is that I can learn to reframe my relationship with students like this kid in such a way that I don't have the rage reaction at all, instead of having it and then gradually working my way out of it.

I am a little nervous about being able to keep my temper with him on Thursday, but I just have to remember not to engage in any debate with him. As far as my classroom goes, I am God: I say what happens and there is no other choice. I'm not even going to give him a second chance: he's just plain out, as of right now. If he argues, I'll ask him if he seriously thinks it's a good idea to stay when he has insulted me so profoundly. If he still argues, I'll send him to Bruce--but I won't deal with him again.

I will photocopy his work before I eject him, though, in case he tries to bring up a grievance against me (though my syllabus says anything I consider disruptive is cause for ejection, and I do consider his attitude disruptive). Paul always points out that we cannot let one kid--or even a few--poison the classroom experience for everyone else, and given how I feel about this kid, he will poison things. If he were to stay in the class, I'd dread going there every day, because I'd have to keep such a tight rein on my temper. And that wouldn't be good for the kids who are there who honestly want the class to work and are trying. Many of them don't like the material any more than he does, but they're at least willing to give it a shot. And they deserve my attention. He doesn't deserve even as much of my energy as he's already claimed.

God this just makes me sick. I hate when this happens. But I am grateful that I saw his work now, that I no longer have the feeling that I have to somehow rescue him or turn him around, and that I already know what I'm going to do. In fact, I think I'm going to e-mail him and suggest that he come see me before class meets so we can get this over with. The sooner he's gone, the better.

I was going to try to do some more marking today, but I doubt I will. I'll carry it home with me, but I suspect I'm going to just carry it right back in exactly the same state. That's OK. I'll push like hell tomorrow and Wednesday, and I'll be back on track. I'm kind of sorry now that I have my writers' group tomorrow evening and conviviality (the evenings when colleagues meet to have a drink or two and chat) on Wednesday: I could use both evenings to work late. Ah well. Just means having to get up early instead. One way or another it all will work out. It always does. I think of Geoffrey Rush's character in Shakespeare in Love: whenever people ask him how something will work out, he just says, "It's a mystery." But work out it does.