Lost another student (I think).

I think I lost another student from my section.

The other day (the evening before section), he had emailed another TA whose section meets at the same time as mine to see if he could switch into hers.

(He never notified me; she replied and CCed me on the reply... I think he didn't want to tell me in person that he was dissatisfied with the way I was running section.)

Anyhow, me and the other TA caught him after class to find out what was up, and basically it turns out that he felt he wasn't a good fit for the section. I spend a lot of time breaking things down to the basic issues and focusing on critical thinking skills for people who are entering the field for the first time, and I'm getting a lot of positive feedback on this approach from other people in the section, but from his recent paper he just seems at a more advanced level than other students... He wants to talk about the text more in class, but I was holding off on that since a lot of people still had questions about how we construct historical chronologies, how do we adjudicate between different arguments "if we all have our biases", etc.

(If he was in my other section, he'd probably be fine, it's just that this other section needs more work with the fundamentals.)

So, he sought to switch sections.

Again, I feel like somehow this is a reflection on me.

Though, I can see that the other students have improved their critical thinking skills a *ton* since being in my section and are already asking more sophisticated questions, and can also probably be ambassadors for basic knowledge about the field once they leave, so I don't feel too bad. I can't win them all (or be all things to all people, if they're all in the same section).