postal scrotum: Sperwer on the "stand-up" student

Sperwer writes in regarding my student and her unusual request:

You're making a mountain out of a molehill.

There is only one justifiable reason to deny her request: that it will be disruptive to the class, which doesn't seem to be the case.

Her reasons are irrelevant, except as an occasion for the talking-to you've already given her and, as a good samaritan, may want to repeat, adding perhaps the observation made by one of the other commenters about the need get used to conforming in the workplace. The latter, however, is hardly something that a school needs to be worrying about in Korea, where the student-initiated conformity is already intense and where no matter how square a peg she will get her edges ground off in the workplace when the time comes.

So repeat the sermon, grant her request and leave it alone.

_