Make sure to ask your surgeon if they got there on a 504!

I went to my faculty orientation last night for the Linux class I am teaching. (Starting next week! *GASP*) It was helpful in that I got to meet alot of the resources available for the semester and I gained a better understanding of what the college expects and even a little bit about what I should expect from this semester. Unfortunately, most of it is too boring for even this blog. So, I will skip to the interesting parts of the meeting. (at least for me)

First off, to entertain myself, when instructors spoke I tried to imagine sitting listening to one of their lectures. Most of them sounded fine, there was just one lady who had a nasal voice and paused frequently while talking. I fear I would not survive in her class. There was another professor who taught English who I know I would not survive in her class either. She informed us that she does NOT allow laptops in her class. I cannot imagine how I could take an English class where I had to write out all of my notes. I have disastrous penmanship and I am left handed and drag my hand through everything I write. This results in most of my handwritten notes looking horrible when I am done. So, what was her reason for not allowing laptops in class??? ..."You can't listen and type." What?? How is that any different than writing with a pen on a piece of paper? Freaking Luddite!

Speaking of writing disabilities... that brings me to the next interesting part of the meeting. They talked alot about the American Disabilities Act (ADA). Apparently it has expanded MASSIVELY since I was in school. There are many provisions in the act now to allow students to take ALL test open book and with all their notes. Some provisions allow students to be given as much time as necessary to complete a test and some go as far as to require the instructor to read them the test. As you can imagine, this has created a massive amount of work and adjustments for faculty to take in all these accommodations. There were real issues with being fair to the rest of the students while still giving the accommodations required by law to the other student. Oh, did I mention that you are not allowed to explain to the other students why this student is getting all these aids and special attention. You are supposed to act like everything is normal.

The main issue was that this degrades the concept of higher education. It sort of came down to the issue of whether getting a college degree is an inalienable right handed down from god. I thought that one of the professors summed it up best, “What we can all take away from this is… If you are going in for surgery you want to make sure you ask your surgeon if they got there on a 504(ADA Learning Disability Accommodation)!”

The other issue that saddened me to see was a major change from when I was a student. This pervasive climate of fear that is in our culture now, really manifests itself on the academic level. My gut tells me that it stems from the pacifistic leanings of academia. Since they have never taught themselves how to protect themselves, they live in fear of the world around them. It is a lot like the fear of a handgun. If you have never been taught how to properly handle one, then it is probably very scary. But, once you know how to check if it is loaded or not, handle safely at all times and identify when the gun is not operating safely, it becomes much less frightening. It doesn’t mean you lose your healthy does of respect of the power in your hands. It just isn’t such a mystery anymore. Unfortunately, I think this is the way that the academic world is handling its discipline issues. You mix this in with a small town rural-ish community college and you get a good dose of paranoia. I cannot count the number of times last night we were told to call the emergency help line if anything gets out of control in our classroom. They said it so many times that even I was getting worried about all the horrible things that could happen in my Linux class. But, I just had to listen to their “examples” to feel much better. I don’t want to go into details in the blog, but, I promise you… they were nothing that couldn’t be handled by the instructor and resolved quickly.

Overall I found it to be a good evening and I am even sorta looking forward to starting my class. I also got all of my equipment working the way I wanted in my classroom last night which helps me feel better about the start of the semester. Well, back to work…. I am sooooo glad it is Friday. This first long week of the year has been challenging.