A Student Who Dares to Shout, "Wolf! Wolf!" Even after We've Had that Lesson

In my Outlook Inbox there are more than 1000 unread e-messages , but I got a very welcomed message from Yoshiko, a remarkable former student from John Adams days.  I'll write more about her message later.  Since I have an appointment with Sunny Clark and Sam Santos tomorrow at 2:00 in the afternoon, I want to finish writing about students in distress and what to do when the student is only pretending to be in distress.  Here's that one:

          You're somewhat embarrassed to admit that you think a student is putting on an unconvincing performance when he enters the classroom for your noon class--staggering in, moaning, speaking in a whisper, just barely making it to his desk, where he puts his head down.  He reminds you of YOUR youthful  theatrics when you didn’t want to go to school or you  simply wanted attention.  In this very class you've done a lesson on "The Boy Who Cried Wolf,"  and he looks like the boy who would do that--just to get some attention.  But you don't want to be sarcastic or callous, so you refrain from saying, "Wolf!  Wolf!"  Instead you tell him you're  sorry if he's ill and suggest that he go to the Student Health Center.  You are not panic stricken.  

           However, some of your students see his state as critical, and since he says he is unable to walk over to the Students Health Center, you wind up calling the Student Health Center, whose staff tell you to call the Campus Police.  Soon both a  police officer and two health center workers show up and say he might be dehydrated.  You keep hoping that he'll either stop the act or pretend to make a dramatic recovery so the farce can end, but even after the health center staff have taken his vital signs and see all signs as normal, and even after they ask for information to call his father, he continues acting ill.  They could call him an ambulance, but that would be very expensive.  They say that they can not drive him, but they say that you can; it's your call.

          Now what?