When Should a Teacher Confront a Troubled Student?

What do you do when a good and kind student—a teacher’s “favorite"—suddenly begins to show signs of disengagement and defiance? The drama teacher who writes at the Apple a Day Project finds herself in this situation. In a thoughful post, she’s ponders whether she should swoop in and try to figure out what’s going on in the student’s life, or whether she needs to stop projecting her own worries and interpretations onto him and just give him space. “Yup,” she sighs, “it’s always the favorites that really get you ...”