Philip said that one day, he kept his hand raised for most of a class, but she did not call on him.Whoa! A student who keeps his hand up for the entire class when he isn't getting called on.
In a statement she composed before the interview, [Elizabeth] Snyder wrote, “I did not call on Philip in this class nor did I call on anyone else, simply because I had a detailed presentation planned for the class and I wanted to be finished in the prescribed time.Philip, you should know, is a 10th grader and he is taking a history course in a college. I don't think the teacher should have stopped the lecture. What I'd do in this situation — and I've taught for 26 years — is glance at the student and say like "I need you to hold your question." Because that raised hand is distracting for everyone.
“He misinterpreted this and assumed it had something to do with his stuttering; I interpreted his hand up for 75 minutes as someone unfamiliar with a college lecture format and frankly a little rude,” she said. “In hindsight, I should have stopped my lecture and called on Philip because he had become so fixated on making a statement that it didn’t seem to matter to him that he was interrupting my presentation.”
The student — even if he worries that he's being treated unfairly — has an obligation to learn classroom etiquette. And how was he able to inspire the NYT to write about him, making him the face of stutterers' rights? Does he know someone at the NYT or was it because he's made himself a presence on YouTube, and the Times is keen on stories with a new media angle?
Now, the NYT did try to get a comment from the teacher before it ran the initial article, but how can a teacher discuss an individual student with the press? She was put in an impossible situation.
Ms. Snyder has taught history for 37 years, first in middle school and for the last decade at the county college, and students give her generally positive marks. In May, the college’s Educational Opportunity Fund named her educator of the year, for her work with financially and academically challenged students.Oh, but stutterers' rights... it's a cool new issue that we can all talk about now. Who cares if a fusty old school teacher is sacrificed?
“I’ve been an advocate for kids my entire life,” she said. “But people’s rush to judgment on this, it feels like it’s pretty much destroyed my life.”
Posts
68 comments:
I simply can't imagine an NYT reader rushing to judgement.
Hopefully the latest round of newsroom cuts at the NYT will include the source of this story. No mention as to whether or not the teacher in question belonged to a union.
There is more to this story than what we have been told. Sounds like a "useful idiot" being pimped for a cause.
Phillip the Stutterer needs to take a chill pill.
Is there money in stutterers' rights?
Will Michael Palin's "A Fish Called Wanda" turn be considered a minstrel show in ten years?
In any event, 10th graders have no rights. Dweeb.
Not to rush to judgment or anything, but Phillip Garber Jr. looks pretty douchey in that picture.
Mel Tillis can sing at their rally.
Stutterer's rights? Are we serious?! Look when I was practicing for the Bar Exam, the MBE bar book had one invaluable piece of advice, when the bar exam answer states "X is a privilege, not a right" that answer (on the bar exam) is always wrong. The MBE book said to never pick that answer.
There is something so wrong with that. Everyone else has so many rights that ordinary, responsible people have the "right" to just lie down and think of England. Ugh...
I stuttered. A lot. Still do on rare and unpredictable occasions. It certainly impaired the school experience but most teachers handled it very well, even though it made their classroom teaching a little more difficult. Teaching is hard. Unfair attacks are easy.
And kid, you need to work on the narcissism. It might even help the stuttering.
"fusty": great word BTW
Oh god, his picture is hideous.
It would be perfectly reasonable to tell any 10th grader in a college classroom, tongue unheard, to keep his mouth shut.
Probably he saw some shit on the Discovery Channel and thought he'd make a big splash and upend the intellectual edifice. And girls would look at him.
Well, we (teachers) are the new "evil". I enjoy telling people when they ask what I do for a living (such an American trait!) that I'm a "bad guy". I am a school teacher. Very confused and concerned looks askance at that one...
Instapundit posted about something similar last night.
LYNCH MOBS: When digital shaming goes too far. “As of this writing, Jezebel has yet to amend its post to say that Liss fingered the wrong Andrew Meyer. But even if Liss had had the right guy, would that have warranted the kind of mob justice people on the internet are obviously champing at the bit to mete out? Other than fulfilling a desire for revenge, what purpose does siccing bloggers and Twitter users on low-level meanies serve? . . . I believe a guy who calls his bartender fat is not a guy I’d like to hang out with, but I’m not sure that guy should have to explain a mean thing he said once in every job interview he has for the rest of his life. At a certain point the bully becomes the bullied.”
Even when the subject is worthy of scorn, perceptually, that kind of piling on can have the reverse effect. Honestly, I thought Althouse's new media Westboro protest coverage("Why did Althouse put up 5 posts on the Westboro Baptist Church protests here in Madison?") came close to that.
EDH said...
That you highlighted the Westboros protesting outside an event that was a happy one for those inside made them appear like a benign oddity, less offensive, and more entitled to express their opinion.
To the point, at times, when they appeared to be the ones being bullied.
10/8/11 10:36 PM
Phillip the Stutterer is not going to get any dates...and it has nothing to do with his stuttering.
Judging from most what I've seen of the 'Occupy' protesters, stutterers are the 99%.
That's our mendacious media for you. And probably a teenager or his parents wanting some sympathy attention directed their way.
I got the impression from the NYT article and TV interviews that the teacher made a habit of not calling on him. Seems that was wrong, not that the media cares.
My suggestion to the teacher would be to tell the class ahead of time she is not taking questions during the lecture. My suggestion to the kid is to stop using your stuttering as a crutch before it becomes a habit.
This is one place where online teaching excels. No student interruptions during class.
it's a cool new issue that we can all talk about now.
Now that we've all seen The King's Speech, yes, it's a cool new issue. I think your reasoning about why the teacher shouldn't have interrupted her lecture for him is right. But I can't figure out why she never acknowledged him at all. That seems odd.
...not that odd behavior merits the kind of treatment she has received.
Why are there more than 700 comments on the accusatory article but none on the linked article of the teacher explaining herself?
Who cares if a fusty old school teacher is sacrificed?
Who cares about anyone who is sacrified in the name of rights? Men in the feminist rights? Whites in the racial rights? The more intelligent in the mainstreaming rights?
My mother used to tell me two wrongs don't make a right, but she, and all the other liberals, are quite happy to go that route.
I'm curious why Prof. Althouse thinks asking the student to hold his question would have changed the outcome. Why wouldn't the student still have perceived that he was being treated unfairly? And why wouldn't Pravda East still have taken him at his word?
This is a byproduct of The King's Speech..an empowering of stutterers, which is good. The kid appears to have overreacted. However I would never base a strong opinion, either way, on a NYT story.
Kid needs treated like John Wayne did that kid in the Cowboys.
Ha!
Instead, sounds like he's been coddled and babied.
The kid has his hand up the entire lecture and the teacher couldn't be bothered to say "I'm not answering questions, today" to the kid? That was too much courtesy to expect because, after all, kids should understand that in some classes questions won't be allowed - without the teacher saying that?
All right then. Let the lynch mob justice begin on the kid.
Althouse's "I need you to hold that question" seems the obvious and economical solution to the problem. 75 minutes?! It seems to me a teacher competent at controlling her classroom would have directed that at a persistent arm-up after 10 minutes, at the outside.
The professor should have looked at him and said what!
and when he started asking his question she could have pulled a Billy Madison....t-t-t-t-t-today junior!
I don't think I ever saw someone hold their hand up for more than 5 minutes in a college class. They would either accept that professor wasn't going to acknowledge or the professor would do the "hold the question" thing. Makes me curious why neither happened in this case. A quiet battle of personalities, perhaps.
Althouse's solution to the raised hand is just common sense and I'm surprised the teacher didn't use that technique.
I've made many public presentations and have held classes in investmenting theory, financial planning techniques etc,in my career and the first thing I say before starting is something like...."I know that many of you will have questions. Some of those questions may be answered during this presentation. If not, we will have ample time at the end to go over any items or questions you may have. Please hold your questions until the end." I would often suggest that they take notes or use the highlighter pens provided to mark areas of the hand outs that they have been given.
That was the only way to get through a presentation without getting sidetracked in the middle and taking forever to get back to the topic points.
As to the stuttering kid. Geeze. It seems that everyone wants to be a special snowflake, a discriminated against class. I'm sick of all of them.
Sound like he could also combine his obvious Asperger's and stuttering and be a special special class and start his own chanting drum circle....if he could pronounce it.
Fake but accurate is the by-word for agenda journalism of all stripes, which (naturally) is always well intended by the journalist.
From the article it seems the teacher had already sent an email to the stutterer to pose his questions either before or until the end of class.
What is wrong with that?
The teacher is giving the lesson.
But the student thinks his input is important so he barges in as if no boundaries apply in his life.
When he was kept in his place and had no power over the teacher, well he can get her fired via a hit piece.
Power is the desire that cannot be denied.
When civil society no longer demands that its members deny their immediate wants for any and every form of sex, then all other boundaries must fall too.
When civil society no longer demands that its members deny their immediate wants for any and every form of sex, then all other boundaries must fall too.
And the New York Times will be there to help you all the way.
Because "progress" is the a-priori outcome of the progressive movement.
Whether society is better off from the movement is malleable and immaterial.
Give him 2 years and that kid will be an Occupier. Presumably, the rules were laid out at the beginning, but he was special.
Hell, I stammered and, to a lesser extent, still do. You just have to learn to spit it out.
Also what ric and DBQ said about the Professor's response. Very civilized.
Who can hold their hand in the air for 75 minutes?
some stutters are more equal
I wonder if the photographer for the original story directed the young man to pose like that.
If that picture is supposed to make him look sympathetic, I'd count that as strong evidence of NYT readers being a quite differentiated niche market.
When I have a student who keeps their hand raised I say, "I need you to hold your question, please." I find the "please" helps me come across as someone familiar with basic norms of polite discourse, rather than an over-officious jerk who is scolding a student for not knowing those norms him or herself.
Why, oh why, ye earthly ministers, why have ye not followed more closely this heaven-sent messenger that is among us?
But seriously, Ms Althouse, why, oh why, do you pay any attention to the Jupiter? You have just provided another reason to ignore that font of power-worshipping lewinsky culturecrap.
A hand up doesn't stutter!
Seems like a smart kid. Or one who pushed his way into a college course ... so that high school teachers were able to "bounce UP" the problem.
The teacher could have said: "NO QUESTIONS." If you have any questions on today's presentation, come to me after the lecture. (And, state your office hours. And, rules.)
Too bad the teacher was TOO FOCUSED on "sitting on top of the garbage pail" ... and "doing her lecture."
"Sitting on top of the garbage pail," was a sentence in the BLACKBOARD JUNGLE. Back in 1951.
In discussing BAD teachers, the Blackboard Jungle told of how one teacher just "did his material." While the classroom, itself, erupted. And, was chaotic.
Seems like this "teacher" has a "built in excuse." While the STUDENT's story got displayed in the New York Times!
Student has way more abilities at telling the story ... than this teacher owns.
By the way, WHAT WAS THE KID'S QUESTION?
By the way, WHAT WAS THE KID'S QUESTION?
That doesn't matter. Hold your questions until the end of the class lecture.
The teacher needs to get control of the classroom or nothing will ever get done and the time of all students will be squandered by the narcissism and just bad manners of others, like this idiot kid.
Dr. Orosco. Pasadena City College.
American history to 1865.
Brilliant teacher.
He began his lecture by introducing himself to his new class. He told us his rules. And, the way he grades. He said everybody could get at least a "B" ... Because he knew students were all different. Some were better at taking tests. Some were better at classroom participation. And, some were better at writing essays. All were required. And, if you produced ALL the work, you'd get at least a "B". No need to fear either the exams. Or the essays.
Then, he went into detail that not all his lectures are the same. In the heavy duty lectures ... Where he had the overhead lit up. You'd see his outline. And, if all you did was copy it down ... you had your study tool.
He'd also use films that were done at Princeton. Which were outstanding.
I remember saying to him, when the course was over; that if anyone just paid attention to his METHOD, they'd be able to teach.
Everything he was going to cover was inside the manila folder he brought into the room. And, laid on the lectern.
You know, some people can really teach! They are gifted. Others are not.
Probably, if I had to guess? This particular teacher was BRAND NEW ... and way over any ability to do much but use the lecture format to intimidate the class.
It seems like a raised hand ... (if it were me) ... I'd have asked "do you need the pass to go to the bathroom?)
Do you still need a pass to exit a classroom, "early," if nature calls?
The kid's question was why did early Chinese explorers make it to North Africa but not North America.
Missing from this article but in an earlier one was that this kid is a home schooled only child. One suspects he has no regard for other than what he wants and he wants it right now.
And, yes, I know homeschooling can be worthy.
The New York Times article is well researched.
This kid had already received an e-mail from this teacher, telling him his speech difficulties were disruptive. And, he was not to "take up the class time" by talking.
I SMELL THE LAWSUIT RIGHT THERE!
Since the teacher was having problems, it's obvious the teacher also had no one in her department that could come to her aid.
NOW she is saying "this lecture was special." And, had no time set aside in it for questions.
BUT SHE DIDN'T STIPULATE THIS CONDITION WHEN THE CLASS BEGAN!
You might not be curious to know "what the question" was ...
But if the professor's career just went down the toilet ...
AS THE EXAMPLE OF SOMETHING YOU SHOULD NEVER TRY TO DO ... while employed ...
You'd have to wonder WHY such a mishap occurred. (Which passed through the editor's hands, at the New York Times.)
Student got better support than the teacher.
Oh. And, the class continues.
Next question?
Probably, if I had to guess? This particular teacher was BRAND NEW ... and way over any ability to do much but use the lecture format to intimidate the class.
"Ms. Snyder has taught history for 37 years, first in middle school and for the last decade at the county college, and students give her generally positive marks. In May, the college’s Educational Opportunity Fund named her educator of the year, for her work with financially and academically challenged students."
if you hold your hand up for 75 minutes you got bigger problems than stuttering
Chinese come to North Africa, without discovering America?
That was the question?
Perhaps, it's not a question to ask in a history class ... Because of it's remoteness in time?
Better to ask this question in a genetics class.
Where the "Old Silk Road" was well traveled since the time of Babylon.
Babylon is thousand years prior to Egypt's beginning.
Again, one of the best professors I had at Pasadena City College, in a required history course (to 1865) ... began with the history of the American Indians, who were here way before Jamestown. (If I remember, correctly, there were half a million indians living across this vast land.)
The professor's point was the QUANTITY of tribes. Nothing to do with land bridges that "could have" brought others to America ... when there was a land passage over the Behring strait.
You know, by the time this kid's hand went up for 75 minutes, he was loaded for bear.
The teacher isn't going to win.
" it feels like it’s pretty much destroyed my life.”
Please, it's been 3 days and no one will remember your name next week.
World to End: Women, Minorities, and Stutterers Hit Hardest.
" I think your reasoning about why the teacher shouldn't have interrupted her lecture for him is right. But I can't figure out why she never acknowledged him at all. That seems odd."
Here's a guess. Excessive hand raising is rude and one way to deal with rudeness is to ignore it, with the assumption that it will help to deny the person the satisfaction of acknowledgment. You think: my disapproval will be positive reinforcement for this attention-craver.
"The kid has his hand up the entire lecture and the teacher couldn't be bothered to say "I'm not answering questions, today" to the kid? That was too much courtesy to expect because, after all, kids should understand that in some classes questions won't be allowed - without the teacher saying that?"
What is the whole context here? Has he been an excessive hand-raiser on other days? Has he shown a lack of appreciation for how much of a presence he should be in the group?
Have you ever seen the movie "Election"? It does a good job of conveying the way a hand-raiser can exasperate a teacher. But this teacher didn't show exasperation. She ignored him.
But you want to think of this as crushing the youngster's spirit.
I think a 10th grader allowed to attend college should be quite circumspect.
"Who can hold their hand in the air for 75 minutes?"
It's like a "Survivor" challenge.
Don't forget there's the thing of using the other arm as a prop.
The media does this kind of thing to doctors all the time. They love stories about the person who goes that extra mile to find a doctor to cure them of their incurable cancer when all the other doctors they tried told them they had exhausted every posssible treatment. The other doctors can never tell their side because they can't breach patient-doctor confidentiality. The thing is, they never, ever give you the follow up. Did the patient survive, and how long?
Sorry. As an old "hand raiser" myself ... I know I'd have to lower my arm just to regain circulation in my hand.
That kid is supposed to be in 10th grade? And, he's in college, now.
Oh, think of it this way. You woke up. You get your New York Times delivered to your doorstep. You make a pot of coffee. (Or a pot of tea.)
And,you sit down to read the paper.
Then, what do your eyes see?
Go ahead, and make fun of this kid. But I know of no other one who got such an episode into the New York Times. And, past the editor!
But the story grabs ya! (Which s what stories are supposed to do.)
Professors may think they are "all alone out there like astronauts." But this isn't true. There's a support network.
That this professor "overlooked."
Not that other on this Morris campus ... aren't privy to the "exchange of emails." And, the teacher's MISTAKEN attitude that she can email a student and tell him not to ask questions in class ...
TODAY, I am sure she has discovered the "unique" support network all colleges offer ... If you bang the college on the head with a 2 x 4. OR a rolled up newspaper.
Nope. This isn't the first bright stutterer to go to college.
And, while certain situations sound unique, they are not.
Here's my belated suggestion. This kid is given a laptop. So, instead of "asking" distruptive questions ... that the rest of the class can't handle ... HE CAN ASK his questions by tapping them into the keyboard ... and OUT into the same system the teacher knows how to use. Because she can send emails!
Right off the bat ... but hidden from view. This kid encountered this teacher's inability to accept a stuttering handicap.
Today. She's learned more.
Will she teach, again?
You know, those jobs are hard to come by. And, they can be very competitive!
Dr. Orosco, as I remember this fantastic professor said, he welcomes all comments ... BUT YOU BETTER BE ABLE TO BACK UP WHAT YOU SAY WHEN YOU GIVE AN OPINION.
I treasure those memories when I was in his classroom.
He wouldn't have been thrown for a loss by this kid!
The students at Morris might not have noticed, but this kid has a brain! The handicap is minor.
Considering Snyder's claim that she carries 37 years of experience ... It would be better to see this, really, as BAGGAGE!
She got awarded as "teacher of the year" ... for handling financially disadvantaged students. And, those with learning disabilities.
She was, however, UNPREPARED to deal with a genius level kid!
Shows ya, that you can win awards of not having much skill.
But she couldn't handle a genius child!
She wasn't even turned on by this kid's brains!
That's just an amazing commentary about Morris's junior college.
Oh, yeah. SHE SUPPLIED THE EMAIL!
Long before she had contact with a good lawyer ... who might have set her straight ...
She thought she'd barge her way through the course. And, get "great evaluations."
Sure thang.
But for a real course in American history. As taught by Dr. Orosco, at Pasadena City College ...
I marveled at the way he taught!
Afterward. A semester later. I passed his open office door. And, went in to tell him that I thought he was about the best professor I ever had! And, it was his METHOD ... that would give anyone a leg up ... who had to teach a class.
He laughed. He said he got his teaching credential when he was 23. And, he was so terrified. That he stood in the back of the room. FORBIDDING students to turn around. (Just so he wouldn't have to face them.)
So, sure. You begin on legs that don't quite hold you up.
And, after 37 years ... Snyder doesn't see what she did TO motivate the brainiest kid she ever came across?
Let her go cry into her cups.
The professor told the student not to ask or answer questions in class ever. That's the issue.
Classmates at his old school (before he started homeschooling) and his new college history class (he switched) say his speech is slower than average but he makes insightful comments that contribute to the class.
say his speech is slower than average but he makes insightful comments that contribute to the class.
And so? Add those insightful comments at the end of the class lecture.
Each teacher (and student) has a different style. Some don't mind being interrupted during the lecture and conduct a more free form classroom style. Others want to go through the material to follow a planned and coherent lesson plan.
I fall into that second category both as a presenter and as a student. I want to hear or present the material from beginning to end and THEN explore other thoughts and avenues where the material may lead you.
To constantly be interrupted and have to field questions that may or MAY NOT have any relevance to the topic, just creates delays, confusion and often just wastes the time of other people.
This kid wants to ask questions and more likely show off his enormous peen brain at the expense of the teacher and other students.
I've been in classrooms where I just want to scream....SHUT UP.. SHUT UP... SHUT UP!!! quit interrupting. It has nothing to do with his speaking abilities....just his trying to monopolize the class time and distract the course.
The first law in victimology is that the perception of the victim is more important than the objective circumstances. See "The Human Stain" by Phillip Roth for a literary treatment.
@ Ann
"I think a 10th grader allowed to attend college should be quite circumspect."
Exactly. This kid has probably been coddled and treated like a little prince his whole life, led to believe he can do anything and should expect the world from everyone around him at his whim because the universe revolves around his perfection. I'm a fan of home schooling, but it sounds as if his home schooling kept him from receiving any normal social skills. What a twerp.
I wouldn't be surprised if his parents (or overbearing mother in particular) encouraged and maintained his stuttering "disability" as a meal ticket for bullying his own way into school promotions and life benefits. Imply the threat of lawsuits against anyone who hesitates to cater to the kid's self-centeredness at the expense of other students and future coworkers and colleagues.
"Stuttering discrimination" will now be folded into the same current feminized hysteria over "bullying" in schools, and become part of the package of sensitivity training everyone is forced to sit through in institutional and corporate environments whenever the latest "victim" is looked at cross-eyed by anyone.
As I said, Dr. Orosco always welcomed class particaption. He'd even throw out "hot topics" ... just to get kids up out of their seats ... in anticipation of being heard.
And,Dr. Orosco probably had the MOST LEARNING going on while he was there to teach! That's what minds are for!
Later on, when some of these students get to go into the working world, what they'll learn is how they can be a in a group. And, then PARTICIPATION is what enables the group to solve "muscular" problems. One brain isn't enough! (Even our greatest physicists bounced ideas off of each other!)
A long time ago I worked for the chairman of OB/GYN at a medical college. (Yeah. He taught medical students.)
When he got back to the office he'd laugh at their attempts to "get the professor!")
So, if you're at the top of your game ... and you teach in a school for brilliant students ... You realize that "trying to catch the professor," is an enjoyable game.
For a 10th grader ... this kid grasped the problem. (It has nothing to do with his mom!)
He was in a classroom that was being run by an IDIOT! 37 years of experience.
Now? Flushed down the toilet.
Some 10th graders are smarter than others. And, they don't stand for BULLSHIT!
One student brought down a house made of cards.
He's not going to have to withdraw from the school.
And, he made sure his story got heard!
I'm very impressed.
For 75 minutes he made no noise. All he did was raise his hand.
THEN? Then he proved his point!
If you want to hear noisy classrooms, attend a class in an Israeli university.
The students contempt would be palpable.
By the way, I don't speak Spanish.
But I knew Dr. Orosco also taught Spanish at Pasadena City College. He taught Castilian pronunciation. And, he'd fail a Mexican kid that tried to pass off "street Spanish" in his classrooms.
More than 20 years ago. And, I can still remember the stuff I learned about American history.
Do I have one regret? YUP. Sold back the textbook to the bookstore. (I should'a kept it.)
A good teacher even provides excellent textbook choices.
All the others are a waste of time.
Finally, it seems you righties are on the side of the teacher. This has to be a first.
Vicki
A first, vicki?
REALLY?
The site is run by a college professor.
"The kid has his hand up the entire lecture and the teacher couldn't be bothered to say "I'm not answering questions, today" to the kid? "
For 75 minutes. Perhaps the thinking is that someone in college should be treated as an adult and a adult could figure out in a couple of minutes that the teacher wasnt taking questions.
"Finally, it seems you righties are on the side of the teacher. This has to be a first."
I love that kind of thinking. You finally come down on the correct side of a issue, but its everyone else that changed.
Cause Lord knows, no one EVER comes down on Althouse's side. Or ever supports authority in a classroom. A first. Funny stuff.
Hello,
I think there are people who would give their right arm to be in a lead story in the New York Times.
Here? The kid's about 14!
While the teacher claims to have 37 years of experience. And, a teaching award.
Guess who won?
Geniuses, by definition, are outliers.
Now, if you go back to Richard Feynman (who was a student in a public school in Rockaway, New York) ... he had his best memories from a science teacher he had when he was a sophomore. Who turned him onto physics.
This idea of "adults always shut up" ... I don't think so.
I think you can stop the progress of BULLSHIT ... if you learn to talk back early in life!
If I had to bet on anything? This kid goes through college FAST!
Now, what happens at graduation if he's EARNED being valedictorian?
The high school didn't have to face this situation, because he got to go to college "early."
How many clues did "teacher snyder" need?
She blew it, though.
When did the 14 year old, Philip Garber, Jr., know that his story was circulating at the New York Times?
He's posing for one of the NY Times photographers, on campus. Did the paper have to go to the school to "ask for permission?"
Or is it standard for a photographer to show up ... snapping pictures of young students?
IF the NY Times had to go to the school to get permission to photograph the boy ... Did they drop hints about the developing story?
Like every 14 year old in America gets "the paper of record" to come by and write up a story about a kid ... who is accepted in at 14. And, nobody's going around looking for signatures.
Don't lawyers ask questions like this?
Aren't you trained to ask questions like this?
I'm talking "bare bones" here ...
Not too complicated?
Didn't Garber's parents have to sign consent forms?
How come the teacher (the award winning snyder). With 37 years of experience under her belt, no less. Not see any danger signs in the email she sent. (Prior to the 75 minute hand-raising adventure.)
And, after the class was over ... this "teacher" snyder ... didn't think the shit could hit the fan?
For a 14 year old, the boy shows strategy genius. He got the INEPT teacher to expose her cards.
And, then? I'd bet he put his hand down after class. And, walked out the door.
The teacher got one thing right. Her career went down the toilet.
Well, she likes "quiet."
So she can emote all she likes in front of the mirror.
Students deserve way better! (While most won't talk back.) And, this kid didn't, either!
But along the way ...
On this adventure ...
The kid KNEW ahead of time.
Teacher sprung her own trap!
And, yes. The New York Times gave her the "chance" to give "her side."
Popular inside an ivory tower. Where you're never held accountable, anyway. (Hey. Maybe, she can get a teaching job at Stout?) Before they get to see their budget cuts.
Not all kids are verbal.
And, stuttering doesn't start right away, either.
I don't remember where I read it. But I read that when patients seek help (as adults), for stuttering; the therapist looks to define that point in time when the stuttering actually started.
Here? If I had to guess?
Philip is a very brainy kid. His mind works extremely fast!
You couldn't have made this a front page New York Times story, if this kid didn't own the strategy.
In other words? Yes. He stutters.
He gets into this class. And, the teacher is "annoyed" at his stuttering. And, she looks to shut up a 14 year old!
She forgot to take his measure.
He's not in this class because he's stupid. But to the contrary. The kid is very very bright.
She insults him.
Ms. Snyder goes out of her way to show a 14 year old "who is boss."
Philip had no guarantee anyone would listen to his complaints. (At best? A lawyer would look at the teacher's email and "smell a lawsuit.")
So far that's not quite the avenue Philip perused.
And, when the photographer showed up o campus. To take Philip's picture. Philip knew enough to wear his adult hat!
He's probably the youngest student at Morris.
And, he sticks out.
And, he's 14.
Is he allowed to date, yet?
Yup. Some people who stutter just get angry! Good for Philip. Because he's chosen a more successful road.
I wonder if Ms. Snyder has thought up ways she could have dealt with this whole thing, better.
Including NOT writing emails to students advising them to shut up in class!
That she's sad? It's not gonna make her a better teacher!
Post a Comment