03-24-2015, 07:12 AM
Found this article on the Chicago Tribune that a professor wrote. Amazing his thought process.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opini...story.html
Quote:My student wants to bring his handgun to my Tuesday night English 1101 class.
Not for show and tell, mind you. In fact, he has to keep it hidden in legal accordance with the concealed-carry permit issued to him by the state of Florida.
We haven’t talked about it yet. But I assumed it’s what he was angling for after I read the email he submitted with his homework assignment, which was to write an autobiographical composition about his writing history.
The bottom of his email bore his automatic signature just above the name of a student organization he belongs to: Students for Concealed/Carry at FSW (Florida Southwestern State College).
His essay wasn’t bad. He is an above-average writer for a college freshman, and his composition described mostly successful writing experiences in his young life, from middle school through high school. A peripheral theme in his composition was that he has always posed challenges for his high school teachers, including his English instructor who only put up with his loud and disruptive behavior, she said, because he was so good at writing.
I had to smile.
And I could certainly sympathize with his high school teacher who must have found him, as I did, to resemble a human thunderstorm: noisy, intelligent, funny, charismatic, and a whirlwind of motion.
I enjoy having him in class, although I must sometimes call his name and hold up my hand for quiet so I can issue an instruction or make a presentation. He nods vigorously and composes himself. Yet when I proceed to address the rest of the class, he is often helpless to resist a seeming peristaltic urge to turn his head and distractedly resume the flow of chatter.
So I stop talking.
And he is immediately apologetic as he gestures zipping up his lip. And we move on.
Ten years from now he may be an innovative software designer for a major corporation. Or maybe a top broker of Asian imports. For with time, he’ll achieve the maturity and self-control necessary for success.
But he does not have those attributes now — and he may not bring a gun to my class.
Today, 13 states, including Florida, have bills pending which would allow anyone with a concealed-carry permit to exercise that right on college campuses.
Perhaps if college students were adults in every sense of the word, capable of sound decision-making, and of consequential thought, the bills would make some kind of sense.
But many students are in college because they haven’t reached that plateau of responsibility. Consider the fraternity brothers at the University of Oklahoma who still are apologizing for their racist chant during a bus trip. Or at Penn State, where another fraternity posted photos on the Internet of nonconsenting young women nude or in sexual poses.
Just as college students cannot yet be the teachers, they cannot be a college’s security force. And I cannot trust them to carry weapons of individual or mass destruction, or have hair-trigger power to kill in my classroom or my school.
Florida’s legislature is overwhelmingly Republican, and overwhelmingly betrothed to the money and power of the National Rifle Association.
Nonetheless, if the legislature bows to the NRA and passes a concealed-carry bill, I will not let students enter my classroom armed. And if push comes to shove, judges have a history in this country of siding with teachers who act in defense of their pupils.
There are no laws I know of, for example, that prevent students from using profanity, attending class under the influence, or wearing baseball caps that may indicate street gang affiliation. Yet I’ve prohibited all three behaviors in every classroom I’ve ever taught, and will do the same with respect to guns.
I don’t believe I’ll have to kick anyone out. If the law passes, I will ask my students to leave their guns at home, and they will comply.
For teachers everywhere, the historic sacred precedent to ensure a non-hostile, non-life-threatening learning environment is our best and last resort.
David McGrath, emeritus English professor at the College of DuPage, lives and teaches in Florida. He is author of “The Territory.”
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opini...story.html
Quote:My student wants to bring his handgun to my Tuesday night English 1101 class.
Not for show and tell, mind you. In fact, he has to keep it hidden in legal accordance with the concealed-carry permit issued to him by the state of Florida.
We haven’t talked about it yet. But I assumed it’s what he was angling for after I read the email he submitted with his homework assignment, which was to write an autobiographical composition about his writing history.
The bottom of his email bore his automatic signature just above the name of a student organization he belongs to: Students for Concealed/Carry at FSW (Florida Southwestern State College).
His essay wasn’t bad. He is an above-average writer for a college freshman, and his composition described mostly successful writing experiences in his young life, from middle school through high school. A peripheral theme in his composition was that he has always posed challenges for his high school teachers, including his English instructor who only put up with his loud and disruptive behavior, she said, because he was so good at writing.
I had to smile.
And I could certainly sympathize with his high school teacher who must have found him, as I did, to resemble a human thunderstorm: noisy, intelligent, funny, charismatic, and a whirlwind of motion.
I enjoy having him in class, although I must sometimes call his name and hold up my hand for quiet so I can issue an instruction or make a presentation. He nods vigorously and composes himself. Yet when I proceed to address the rest of the class, he is often helpless to resist a seeming peristaltic urge to turn his head and distractedly resume the flow of chatter.
So I stop talking.
And he is immediately apologetic as he gestures zipping up his lip. And we move on.
Ten years from now he may be an innovative software designer for a major corporation. Or maybe a top broker of Asian imports. For with time, he’ll achieve the maturity and self-control necessary for success.
But he does not have those attributes now — and he may not bring a gun to my class.
Today, 13 states, including Florida, have bills pending which would allow anyone with a concealed-carry permit to exercise that right on college campuses.
Perhaps if college students were adults in every sense of the word, capable of sound decision-making, and of consequential thought, the bills would make some kind of sense.
But many students are in college because they haven’t reached that plateau of responsibility. Consider the fraternity brothers at the University of Oklahoma who still are apologizing for their racist chant during a bus trip. Or at Penn State, where another fraternity posted photos on the Internet of nonconsenting young women nude or in sexual poses.
Just as college students cannot yet be the teachers, they cannot be a college’s security force. And I cannot trust them to carry weapons of individual or mass destruction, or have hair-trigger power to kill in my classroom or my school.
Florida’s legislature is overwhelmingly Republican, and overwhelmingly betrothed to the money and power of the National Rifle Association.
Nonetheless, if the legislature bows to the NRA and passes a concealed-carry bill, I will not let students enter my classroom armed. And if push comes to shove, judges have a history in this country of siding with teachers who act in defense of their pupils.
There are no laws I know of, for example, that prevent students from using profanity, attending class under the influence, or wearing baseball caps that may indicate street gang affiliation. Yet I’ve prohibited all three behaviors in every classroom I’ve ever taught, and will do the same with respect to guns.
I don’t believe I’ll have to kick anyone out. If the law passes, I will ask my students to leave their guns at home, and they will comply.
For teachers everywhere, the historic sacred precedent to ensure a non-hostile, non-life-threatening learning environment is our best and last resort.
David McGrath, emeritus English professor at the College of DuPage, lives and teaches in Florida. He is author of “The Territory.”
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opini...story.html