How should a teaching-assistant deal with an angry student? This happened two semesters ago, when I was teaching-assistant to a class of bachelor students. The lecturer had such marking weights, 30% for teaching assistant class including all the homework and his quizzes and 70% to the midterm and final exams.

At that semester, one of the students did not even attend one of my TA classes, did not solve any homework and also did not take any quizzes. I also gave some extra time to the students to give me their homework if they have missed some of them, but he did not give me any in that period of time.

He passed midterm and final exam with a passing mark and normally, I did not give him any mark for his TA part. His final mark was about 65%. I did not even know this guy personally.

After he was announced of his final mark, he called me by my mobile phone and started shouting and swearing to me over the line. I tried to calm him down and explain his wrong attitude towards the TA class but he did not pay attention. He continuously shouted and told me I will do this and I will do that to you! He never tried to make it clear why he was not working on homework or not attend the class. He expected that because he was good at final exam, I have to neglect his weak work in TA class.

I told him that if I give you extra mark for the homework you did not solve and the exams you did not sit, this will be unfair to other students who came to the class and worked on the course. I did not continue that conversation and turned my phone off. I really wanted to help him, but I found no way indeed.

After that, I did not even report him the the university police or the professor for his behaviour.

Was my attitude toward this lazy and angry student correct? How should teaching-assistants deal with such students who behave crazy? How should a TA calm his angry student down and talk to him logically and what should he do when they behave really bad to them?
As a teaching assistant, you should not be abused.  If a student becomes angry and abusive, you need to disengage and pass the problem upwards.  While TAs participate in the grading of a course, the responsibility and authority for dealing with any significant grading dispute with a student lies with the professor, not with any TA.  It's OK for TAs to deal with minor problems presented calmly (e.g., "You added up the scores and got the wrong total"), but major disputes and angry students are not things a TA can or should attempt to handle.

If you are confronted with an angry student, do not respond to the content of the dispute.  If you do so, you may say something that can cause a major problem for yourself or the professor later.  Instead, just keep repeating something along the lines of,


  "Please calm down. This is something that you need to talk to the professor about."


If the student persists to the point where you feel threatened, then you have both the right and the obligation to get campus authorities involved.  A person who is extensively verbally abusive may become physically violent as well, and you need to protect yourself.

Once you have disengaged from the student, contact the professor immediately and explain the situation.  At that point, it is the professor's responsibility to deal with the student, though they may need more information and input from you in deciding how to proceed.