Reading the comments that follow any of the articles about Ms. Snyder and Mr. Garber (the student) is an exercise in raising my blood pressure. Some scream that Mr. Garber needs to shut up and realize other students have rights, that he shouldn’t be concerned about writing his questions down (the suggestion made by Ms. Snyder), that he should understand his limitations, etc. etc. etc. On the other side are the folks screaming for Ms. Snyder to be fired for insensitivity and disregard for Mr. Garber’s rights.

And they are both disgustingly wrong. Blood-boilingly wrong.

Both of the people in this situation have rights. Mr. Garber’s classmates need to learn to appreciate his participation and learn patience with his disability, to be encouraging and supportive. From the articles I have, I am assuming in this that Mr. Garber is not the type of student who uses “questions and discussion” as an excuse to wander off-task or derail a lecture. He simply takes longer to express himself verbally. That should be respected.

In order to do that, you have to know how to accommodate a student who may have a severe communication disability, such as a stutter or a processing issue. Most professors have no training in disability accommodation. If a professor wants training, they must actively seek it, which I fully recommend they do. But as an adjunct, Ms. Snyder likely had little access to such training. People outside the disability community have no sense of it, or familiarity with the resources and issues connected with it; understanding that you have to go knock on your disability coordinator’s door in order to get proper basic training in disability accommodation, an then go knock again each semester to discuss your students with specific disabilities, is just outside the realm of experience and reality to most people. Any screaming “she should have known!” are not most people- as clearly shown by the vociferous chorus of people calling for her termination.

Ms. Snyder is an adjunct. For many people that means “part-time.” We don’t know how many classes Ms. Snyder is teaching. Most adjuncts in this day and age actually teach full courseloads; sometimes more, if they teach at more than one institution. They usually are paid about half what a “full-time” professor makes. It used to be that they would come in, teach and leave; but as institutions depend more heavily on cheap adjunct labor, adjuncts are being asked to take on other duties of full-timers: advising, curriculum development, faculty meetings and governance, etc. The least colleges can do is offer appropriate training to these overworked and underpaid members of their faculty.

However, this would assume the administration is aware of the issues of disability rights and accommodation. Often, they are just as clueless, just as outside of the community as the majority of the world. They have to be clued in, and that can be a sticky row to hoe- a fine line between suggestion and criticism. Why must politics pervade everything? Ah, the joys of the social animal- we must be careful not to tread on toes as we assert ourselves, because if you call too many people out too harshly, far more people get up that defensive back and then fall into the two camps of this case: blaming the professor or blaming the student.

The facts appear to be that Ms. Snyder had a large class with other students to consider along with Mr. Garber, but had no training or plan for how to do that. I have some suggestions, but I recommend anyone and everyone with a student in your class who requires accommodation to march straight over to the disability resource person and have a sit-down with your student to find out what is needful and appropriate.

My first suggestion is to put support material and discussion online. Most colleges have online resources these days, and having modules to follow your lecture material is a great idea for our increasingly computer-savvy and web-familiar student body. Students who are not familiar with forums, discussion/message boards, blogs, etc. probably need to add that to their education, anyway. Using online discussion supplements your classroom and allows for more thought-out responses to questions, while allowing you to add in questions and remarks that may have been eliminated from class due to time constraints.

Second, there are many things we are teaching in our classrooms besides the subject of our courses. Patience and compassion are among them. Speak to your accommodation-requiring student about how to address the rest of the class and encourage classmates to be supportive and patient. Be sure other students who may be unfamiliar with disabilities, or frustrated with disabled students and what they see as “advantages” instead of accommodations, get the support and education they need to handle the situation and cope. People will be encountering people with disabilities all their lives. Here is a chance to help them learn to interact appropriately!

Third, if accommodation is viewed as disruptive or time-consuming, make sure your other students are supported with extra office hour availability, online access, and given equal access to class time. You may find that putting the whole lecture online, and saving classtime for discussion, may be the way to go with a certain group of students; another group may prefer the online discussion, and live lecture. Being flexible about material delivery is increasingly important, as the goals of education shift to being more concerned about student success and actual learning, rather than simple presentation. If you are not afraid to deflect and re-direct a student without a disability, you should not have to fear to do so with someone with a disability- “let’s give someone else a chance, too!” and call on students specifically. Make it clear from the syllabus that you want to hear from every voice, every day.

No, it isn’t easy. Yes, there are fine lines to walk here. Villifying student or teacher in this situation is utterly inappropriate. Yes, the professor is in the role of power and therefore bears more responsibility for appropriate action. Yes, we professors, even as adjuncts, must currently be proactive in making sure we are prepared and trained. This situation should be a wake-up call for college administrations everywhere, to be sure all staff are equipped to accommodate. It should not be a call to fire Ms. Snyder or put down Mr. Garber in any way.

Dear Profart:
Why was my grade on last week’s quiz so low?

Thanks, Student

Dear Student:
Your grade was low because you answered the questions with incorrect information. Please see the feedback section when you turn in a quiz for pointers to the correct answers, as well as the correct answers listed (still available via the online gradebook, for your convenience).

Sincerely,
ProfArt.

If you professor tells you that you must have the textbook by the start of class, don’t email the professor complaining you don’t have a textbook. Go to the library or order it from Amazon.

If the professor has written in the syllabus that work is due on Monday, do not email them asking if it is OK to turn stuff in on Tuesday. If you have a problem with Mondays, try scheduling your time to turn it in on Sunday. Or Saturday. Or whatever earlier day is good for you.

If your professor states in the syllabus that the exam is only available between this date and that date, don’t email the professor saying you are going on vacation that week and can you take it the next week?

Seriously. It is in the syllabus. If you are taking the class, you agree to follow what the syllabus says, just as the professor does. Unless you have a serious emergency, there’s your answer.

1. I make them post at least twice.
2. I require one of the posts to be up by mid-week.

In other words, I force discussion. However, this also means they get more learning out of it, because they have to process enough to respond to classmates and what they have to say. Some even make a good conversation out of it.

You get to watch people learn.

To be honest, there is rarely anything new being said on those boards. I am teaching basic-intro classes, over and over and over. The discussion questions are the same ones I asked last semester’s students to ponder. And the students before that. And the students before that.

Because you know what? These are all new students. They have never thought about art this was before. They have never considered the idea of a portrait creating presence before. They have never thought about architecture as controlling your experience of space before. For each group of students, this is all new. And even as they come up with many of the same answers to those same questions, for them it is new answers and new thinking.

Is it any less wonderful to watch your last child walk and talk than to watch your first? For me, not a chance. It remains a miracle of wonder.

Perhaps that is why I love teaching those base-intro courses: I still love getting students interested and excited. Or at least giving them something new to think about, if they so choose.

In my syllabus, it clearly states that if you plagiarize your paper, I reserve the right to flunk your derriere. If you are stupid enough to pull your paper from a cheat site, it is likely that I will catch you, since I can use Google perfectly well, thank you very much.

If you are stupid enough to then post your paper to another cheat site with your name still on it, you can bet your bippies I am sending it to the dean of instruction to have it in your record.

And that excuse that you “sent the wrong file”?

Horse hockeys.

Passing you would do you no favors.

Sincerely and ever your servant,
Professor Art.

I need to find a good answer for this question. Something akin to the Buddha’s answer of “that is not an edifying question.”

The whole attitude is wrong. Students are searching for formulas to fill in instead of working to learn and express their understanding of material. I can almost guarantee you, if you are filling in a form instead of being concerned about content, you are doing, at best, C-level work. It is adequate. Nothing more.

Higher Education teeters at the very edge of mediocrity at regular intervals in the growth and life of academia. The more we try to standardize– curriculum, teaching, testing, students– the closer we stand to the brink. If you train children to standardize, it becomes increasingly difficult for them to be creative and thoughtful. They simply do not have the skills to analyze and synthesize. They are so concerned about the box, they forget the contents have any meaning at all.

Standardized students need more crutches to get through the work, and get irked when they are expected to create those crutches for themselves. Want a “study guide”? That’s what you take notes for. What does an ‘A’ look like? Well, commonly, it has two lines inclined to an angle,and a horizontal connecting them about 1/3 the height of the lines.

Sometimes I blog. But sometimes I put this on, and remind myself of my own philosophy of teaching:

And then I feel better.

Most of the important lessons I learned about teaching were from my professors:

If you want real students, give them real challenges. Students rise to challenge. I had a professor who tested on anything and everything covered- if it was in your book, if it was even briefly mentioned in class (whether it was in the books or articles or not), it might appear in that exam. As students, we often bemoaned the hours in the library digging up items that weren’t in our books, but we learned how to do it. How do you start with a photo, and end up with full identification of an object? How do you track things and information down? (And this was before Google!)

If you want students to meet a challenge, make sure give them the tools to do it. That same teacher had a little corner in the library where she had a box. If you paid attention to the syllabus and went to that box, you found photos of every single thing she mentioned in class or was in any book or article you read for her. Every. Single. Thing. So at least you had a place to start to track it down.

Be holistic. When you are teaching students to think, analyze, and communicate, don’t over-emphasize any one of those elements at the expense of another. Don’t ignore one just because a student excels at another. Work to have your students present with a whole package- that’s education. You have to think to analyze. You have to analyze to understand. You have to be able to communicate those thoughts to be taken seriously in the world. All three are skills that can be taught.

Be present. There is nothing more frustrating to a student than actually having a question, and not being able to find the professor. In this day and age, there is no excuse for it. Email is open 24 hours a day.

Share. Why is research considered so important to Universities and to academia? It gives you something new to share with your students, new perspectives for you and for them to explore. Any student can read a book. They’re college students, after all. They are paying your salary to get you in front of them, to have you share your perspective and knowledge and understanding, and train them to do the same.

Even as a hired gun, these ideas are important to teaching, and getting real education to the students in front of you. Teach them to give and meet challenges, look at the world as a whole, be truly present and truly experience the world, and share that experience with others.

We only have one lifetime, and it seems it is never as long as we think it should be. Unless we become educated and alive, we risk missing that lifetime. And what would it really mean, if we don’t bother to pass it on?

Blogs form a sort of community. Who reads blogs, but other people interested in the topic of the blog? With teaching blogs, you run the risk of colleagues and students reading your blog- the one where you point out the problems you see in academic life and try to discuss the pressing issues of students, faculty, administration, and teaching. If they figure out it is you, and become offended, your livelihood is permanently on the line. It is dangerous to speak freely. Anonymity is paramount. Privacy is not just for students, but also for your own safety and security.

I have run into my share of the kinds of students Ms. Munro was berating in her blog, and yes, I think the situation is getting worse. Do I complain on my blog? Darn tootin’. Is that the end of it? Hell no. I look over the comments- rare as they are, since I don’t really advertise this blog is out here. I re-read what I have written. I think about improving student engagement, how to deal with the issues I write about. I use my college’s resources to try to improve my teaching and get feedback and ideas, to meet the changing needs and challenges of students as they shift and change.

What is the point of having this blog, anyway? Hopefully, it gets everyone thinking about the issues of teaching. It provides some guidance for being a student to students who come here. And it lets professors know they aren’t alone. That those students they are dealing with? They really exist, it isn’t just in your head, we’re all in this together dealing with these problems. And it is OK to tell a student no, you can’t turn that work in late. No, “I needed cigarettes” is not a valid excuse to be late for class. Yes, you can do better than this, re-write it. And plagiarism is not acceptable, you just failed this class- just as it says in the syllabus.

But I am glad this blog does not seem to be connected to my name. Not only do I want to remain anonymous, but that anonymity is important to protect my students- even when I usually don’t write about them until long after they are gone. Or I would, except I have to go feed the llamas.

What is that life like?

I don’t get to chose my own schedule. I either accept the classes offered or I turn them down. At the same time, I am limited to how many classes I am permitted to accept. This only serves to limit my income.

I teach more classes per semester than the full-time professor/instructor in my department. Only I don’t get benefits, and make about 2/3 what they are making, and that only because I have a higher degree than they do.

I have no way to appeal for a raise in pay. Fortunately, I am working for a college that worked very hard to not cut pay to adjuncts. Not every adjunct in the system as been as fortunate. I have worked for twelve years, and only had my pay cut once.

If the college decides it doesn’t have enough money, it simply does not offer me any classes. There will be no warning of this, nor any recourse. They can decide to offer my classes to another person at their whim, and I have no warning or recourse.

In a Right-to-work state, you can be fired for no reason at all. No reason is needed. It makes it incredibly difficult to prove cases of discrimination, because they do not need to state any reason for firing you.

Collective bargaining is an important tool for workers to get fair treatment and recompense for their labor and efforts. It allows economies to be stable because everyone knows what is expected and how much preparation is needed if something goes awry. It gives workers channels for appeal against unfair policies, practices, and situations.

A school is only as good as the teacher in front of you. Taking away pay and benefits is not a good way to keep excellent teachers in the classroom. And is your nation’s future something you want going to the lowest bidder?