HOORAY; BAD TEACHER RESIGNS

Another teacher writes a heartfelt letter and resigns, which I generally find regrettable. The usual theme is a dedicated teacher after working hard to accomplish their teaching goals but feel frustrated by the system or by not receiving support from schoolboard, parents or the community. I ran across an article on a web Site concerning a Texas A & M professors resignation. This letter was different. It was no more than a diatribe against student behavior ending with the note he was failing the entire class. The Blog site was Freethoughtblogs.com. His letter was as follows: “Since teaching this course, I have caught and seen cheating, been told to ‘chill out,’ ‘get out of my space,’ ‘go back and teach,’ [been] called a ‘fucking moron’ to my face, [had] one student cheat by signing in for another, one student not showing up but claiming they did, listened to many hurtful and untrue rumors about myself and others, been caught between fights between students…. None of you, in my opinion, given the behavior in this class, deserve to pass, or graduate to become an Aggie, as you do not in any way embody the honor that the university holds graduates should have within their personal character. It is thus for these reasons why I am officially walking away from this course. I am frankly and completely disgusted. You all lack the honor and maturity to live up to the standards that Texas A&M holds, and the competence and/or desire to do the quality work necessary to pass the course just on a grade level…. I will no longer be teaching the course, and all are being awarded a failing grade.” The blog author, P Z. Myers, a biologist and associate professor at the University of Minnesota, is an astute individual, which is why I follow his blogs. He wrote a thoughtful response, which was beautiful but did not go far enough. That professor did not belong in a classroom. He has wasted their tuition and may even have destroyed their dreams; that is not what t a good teacher does. When a dedicated teacher resigns, I find it lamentable but when a bad teacher resigns, I applauded. I would add the additional point; the educational administrator at Texas A & M should have known what was happening in that classroom long before it got to the level it did. The resigning teacher listed himself as a professor, which means he should have had many years of experience. Regrettably, incompetent professors are getting to be the norm in our Universities across the nation. The reason is the industrialization of high education, which means hiring good researchers and not teachers. URL: firetreepub.blogspot.com Comments Invited and not moderated