But (it is a truth universally acknowledged) blind people are hypersenstive to sound and touch, so he was fully aware of your nod from the slight rustle of your collar and faint movement of the air.
We have a student who is a ... bit worrying. Indeed, I refer to him (not so) jokingly as my "Problem Child" when discussing him with other faculty members. He took my Introductory Biology class last semester and is taking Zoology with me this semester. He's also taking Botany with a different instructor. As you might imagine, a lot of the students taking Zoology are also taking Botany.
This kid is ... different. He's quite bright, in the sense that he's good at memorizing stuff, but not so good at understanding, if you catch my drift. He has zero "people skills." For example, he once told a girl in the Intro Bio class that he thought she was stupid -- and was then genuinely puzzled as to why she was offended. On another occasion, he asked a student if she was pregnant -- when she said that she most-definitely was not pregnant, his response was: "How do you know?". On another occasion, he demanded to know if another student was an "illegal immigrant," based upon his belief that she didn't look like someone who would have been born in the U.S. Again, he was genuinely confused when she took offense at his question and comment.
As it stands, about half the students who are familiar with him just flat-out hate his guts, while the rest seem to have decided that he's autistic and so pity him -- but nonetheless try to avoid him. Such is what they tell me, anyway.
Interestingly, he seems to have latched onto me. During labs, he'll literally stand inches away from me (he seems to have no sense of personal space), and he'll follow me about like a shadow. As it happens, he has class that meets in the same room that I teach Intro Bio and that meets right after the Intro Bio class. Often, he'll arrive 10 or so minutes before I've finished with my class, and instead of going off to do something for awhile, he'll often just stand there in the doorway and stare. It's downright creepy. On one such occasion, I actually interrupted the class to tell him that his class wouldn't begin for another 20 minutes, so he shouldn't be standing in the doorway like that. So, he stepped away and -- I assumed -- went to do something else for awhile. Later, I found out from another instructor who happened to pass by, and from some of the students, that he'd simply stepped back out of my line of vision and continued to stand there, staring into the classroom.
This kid is very much a loner. He doesn't associate with anyone else and has flat-out said that he doesn't want to associate with anyone else. He has a superior attitude and makes it quite clear that he looks down upon his fellow students as his intellectual inferiors who are not really worthy of his time. Once, he was looking a bit ill, and I asked him if he was okay; he replied that he was feeling ill and I offered my sincere sympathy. His reply was, "I really don't want empathy."
Several other students have told me that they knew him from high school, and that it had been discovered during a random locker search that he kept a "hit list" of people who had earned his ire for one reason or another.
Interestingly, he's squeamish and germaphobic. He refuses to take part in the dissections during the Zoology labs, and won't go near anything he thinks might conceivably be either "infectious" or "gross." (Did I mention that he claims he wants to be a surgeon?)
A couple of weeks ago, as I was getting over a nasty respiratory infection, my fellow instructor happened to ask how I was as we were changing classes (this is the one in which my Problem Child is in the class immediately following mine). My response was to pull a roll of cough drops from my shirt pocket and tell her that I'd be fine, so long as I didn't run out of cough drops. Our Problem Child, upon witnessing this, immediately got up and went to the very back of the room -- presumably because he feared I might be infectious.
Anyway, my Zoology lab is taught in the same lab where we teach both Botany and Anatomy & Physiology. So, we keep items like dissection probes, scalpels -- and a couple of large butcher knives -- in some of the drawers. Naturally, students are not allowed to access the lab outside of normal classroom times.
On Thursday, at the beginning of the Zoology lab, I gave the students a quiz on the previous week's material, as is standard practice. As I was taking up the papers, I noticed that for one of the questions, my Problem Child had answered, "It doesn't matter, we're all doomed." Just a bit ... odd, that.
He didn't take part in the dissections, of course, but stood off by himself. At one point, another student asked if there were any extra probes, since his dissection kit was missing a probe. Without really thinking, I suppose, I told him to check a particular drawer. He quickly found a probe, but in opening the drawer, exposed the two large butcher knives that were inside.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw my Problem Child immediately head to the drawer and pull out one of the butcher knives. He began to flourish it with an expression on his face that I could only describe as sheer delight. As I described it to a colleague later, he looked like someone had just given him the best Christmas present that he could possibly imagine.
Another student was standing just a couple of feet away from him, and she quickly backed away with a very disturbed look on her face. I can hardly blame her. Perhaps I should have said "Put the knife away," but I feared that might make the situation even more tense. So instead, I dropped what I was doing and began to advance on him (I was behind him at the time, not in his line of sight).
I honestly thought I was going to have to physically subdue him and take the knife from him by force. Fortunately, though, he put the knife away after playing with it for a few seconds.
Now, to be absolutely clear, he never threatened anyone. In fact, I'd bet good money that he was so wrapped up in his own private fantasy -- whatever that might have been -- that he was completely unaware that anyone else was nearby. I'm certain he was completely unaware that he'd just made quite a few people very uncomfortable.
So, I discussed the incident later with the Department Chair and with the Botany/A&P instructor. We removed all potentially dangerous objects from the lab as a precaution. I also plan to discuss the incident with the Dean of Students. (He wasn't in on Friday, so I'll discuss it with him on Monday. Incidentally, this will be the second time I've gone to him with concerns about this particular student.)
On Friday, the Botany instructor noted that our Problem Child sat in his normal place in the classroom -- and nobody sat anywhere near him. Pretty-much everyone else sat near the emergency exit door. (She took a few of them aside after class to tell them that I'd informed her of the incident and that we'd removed all potentially dangerous objects from the lab.)
Now, to be scrupulously fair, this kid is probably perfectly harmless. But jeez! I hate that I have to find myself seriously thinking about what I might have to do should he show up to class one day with a knife or worse, a gun. My Department Chair tells me that they've dismissed students before whom they thought were mentally unstable. This kid may just be a candidate for dismissal on those grounds; he has never threatened anyone though, so I'm not sure there's anything that anyone can or even should do. I'm seeing the Dean of Students again, though, Monday a.m.
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“The greatest way to live with honor in this world is to be what we pretend to be.”
I wonder if the only big different between him and the couple autistic people I know, who you just described, is they learned the importance of friends. Having people that help them navigate the world of people and to straight out tell them, "That was rude" or "No, don't do that" but also not harbor any bad feelings after. At some point they learned things were manageable vs avoiding them.
So, I went to the Dean of Students and explained the incident. Given what happened on Thursday and my Problem Child's previous history, the Dean thinks that this is a serious-enough concern that he's bringing the student in for an interview.
And now I have a pretty good idea why you so often hear people say, "Why didn't somebody notice the signs and do something sooner?" after a school shooting. You know why? Because it's hard! This kid is probably completely harmless, but being brought to the Dean and grilled about this incident and doubtless asked lots of personal questions is surely going to be stressful for him. Best case scenario: he'll surely figure out that I'm the one who reported him, and he'll probably feel hurt and resentful. (Given how self-centered he seems to be, I'll bet dollars to doughnuts that he'll regard it as a "personal betrayal" on my part.) Worst case scenario: he gets expelled.
So, it's entirely possible that I've just pretty-much ruined some kid's life -- a kid who might otherwise have been okay if I'd just kept quiet. Even in a best-case scenario, he's almost-certainly going to feel resentful and betrayed.
And I can't help but feel terrible about that.
But I keep reminding myself that if there's even the slightest chance that he would harm himself or someone else, then I've done the right thing.
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“The greatest way to live with honor in this world is to be what we pretend to be.”
It's also entirely possible that you've just improved his life in the long run, even if he's not dangerous. His best case scenario on his current trajectory, with everyone just tiptoeing around him, would be to somehow pass all his classes (assuming he can somehow make up failing your class), get a diploma, and learn absolutely nothing about how the world works and how he can have a chance at success in it.
At least this way, he's been called out on unacceptable behavior. It may not sink in much (cf. the narcissist in the Oval Office), but this may be one of several whacks with the reality stick that it will take.
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"Her eyes in certain light were violet, and all her teeth were even. That's a rare, fair feature: even teeth. She smiled to excess, but she chewed with real distinction." - Eleanor of Aquitaine
I agree with Sock.
Given his choice of avoidance, I doubt anything will change for him unless people force him to confront it, and his time for that is running out as often normie adults wont sit spectrum people down and discuss things, but put a check mark by their name and slowly back away. I already expect that's been his experience with girls, since they don't owe random dude the mental effort. Combined with his behavior being scary, even if he doesn't realize it, and you end up with so many people tip toeing around him that years and years from now he'll end up set in his confused about society and hating it ways.
Take his germaphobia, my ex was a partial germaphobe but also kept rats and had good hands on vet/doctor/(why are your intestines hanging out, did you naw through all your sutures, I told them metal wire!) experience with them because she understood what does and doesn't get humans sick and what different gloves/masks protect you from. Some forms of germaphobia probably make for excellent surgeons because they are acutely aware of where their hands are, what they've touched and what those things have touched.
Currently it seems like he's pulling max avoidance while doing only the minimal to get by in social settings.
(Have you considered suggesting a career in admin sys/ops?)
I'm unsure if we have a TV show thread so I'll put this here,
The New Tick series is absolutely hilarious!
The first season matches if not surpasses the two previous incarnations which is saying a lot. Patrick Warburton is on board with the series (although he's not the Tick) as well as the voice actor of the animated series, who voices Midnight. It plays just the right amount of "superheros are absurb" and "superheros are neat" and jokes about the genre without ever sounding condescending to fans. I'd go so far as to say it's to Superhero flicks as Galaxy Quest is to StarTrek.
This and the Good Place have revitalized the notion that America can make smart and funny comedies.
I need to get back to The Good Place. I saw about half of season 1 and thought it was p. good, but I'm repeatedly told it gets much, much better from there (especially season 2). I'll have to add The Tick to my list of shows to watch, too. Peter Serafinowicz is p. much amazing.
In borderline related news, I also have a question that may be able to answer: Does the Kevin Bacon number count (1) plays, and (2) crew credits? This is important.
I recently realised that if the answer to both those questions is yes, I'm almost certain I have a Bacon number of at most 3. If 1 is yes but 2 is no, I probably still have a number of at most 4... maybe still 3, but I don't remember for sure. I really want to find programs for those school plays again, but I don't know if I still have them.
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Cēterum cēnseō factiōnem Rēpūblicānam dēlendam esse īgnī ferrōque.
“All for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind.” -Adam Smith
Re: Miscellany
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may be able to answer: Does the Kevin Bacon number count (1) plays, and (2) crew credits? This is important. 
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