Teacher Learning

Found the following info on a teacher at a California college.

Kuro5hin says, “A speech class professor, Rosalyn Kahn, told students they could get extra credit for writing an anti-war letter to President Bush. To receive credit, the letter had to protest the war, and the letter had to be mailed to President Bush. (I would find this just as worthy of mention if she had required students to write a pro-war letter.) Then, according to a press release, “One week later, Kahn again required students to write letters with a specific political viewpoint, this time to California State Senator Jack Scott. Professor Kahn collected the letters from the class and personally delivered them to Scott.”

When the administration found out, they took care of the problem. This letter was from the president of the college to the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education.

I found this interesting for a number of reasons.

One is that I am a college teacher.

As a college teacher, I have given extra credit for writing letters. Those were to members of the armed forces during the Gulf War and to missionaries (when I taught at a Christian college). I did not ask to see the letters. I did ask for them to be turned in inside an envelope that was addressed and stamped. However, I was an ENGLISH teacher. The students were getting extra credit for doing a writing assignment. Writing assignments are normally the pervue of an English teacher.

I was a bit dismayed by the fact that this teacher picked which side the letters were to agree with. (Although I hope none of the students wrote the servicemen and women and told them they were baby killers!) But I have had assignments which weren’;t made with the best judgement. Unfortunately, teachers are human too and make mistakes.

I thought the administration did a good job of taking care of the problem. I was amazed. I have worked under an administration in which the whistleblower gets in trouble, not the person doing the wrong thing.

Teaching Gaffes

When you are a new teacher, no one tells you anything, because they expect you to know everything. Which would be fine if you did. But I don’t.

I was going to sleep tonight, cuddled up with my sick husband, when I realized that I hadn’t posted my grades.

I thought yesterday was the last time to post them, which would mean I was in big trouble. But it turned out it was today. However, when I went to post I realized two things. One is that someone dropped one of my students who shouldn’t have been dropped. Two of my students who should have been dropped weren’t. And I forgot to check on a test of another student. I can’t do that at midnight, so I have to go tomorrow and hope they’re there.

AAAGGHH. And the bloggers I’ve been reading think finals are hard.

Actually, if you could spell and write grammatically correct sentences, mine was rather easy.