A Policy for Dating Students at the University Level: Don’t

A few days ago an article titled “Foolish and Dangerous Attraction or Harassment” [1] started making the rounds around the mailing lists. The Inside Higher Ed piece talks about a faculty member at Hofstra University who gave one of his students a letter at the end of the semester after the course had finished where he “confessed” his attraction to her. The letter said:

“At the risk of embarrassing myself, I confess a foolish and dangerous attraction to you. I could call it a schoolboy crush, but I’m not a schoolboy. It’s more a midlife crisis, I suspect, which may have little to do with you. Regardless, I’ve felt this way for well over a year, but have tried to conceal it to protect both you and myself, but also everyone around us. Such feelings from a teacher toward a student — while inevitable given that we’re only human — are usually toxic to all involved when expressed openly. For that reason, I ask that you keep this to yourself.”

Now, because the student in question was no longer in the professor’s class, there was nothing that the university could do. Although Hofstra University, like most institutions, has a policy against faculty dating *their* students, it doesn’t have a policy against dating students who are not enrolled in a faculty member’s class. The faculty in question exploited this loophole by “confessing” to the student after the class ended.

The student took this as harassment and complained to the school, but the school did nothing.

Now, there are several things I could discuss here. Following the trends from the mailing lists, I could write about whether a one-off letter could be deemed as harassment or as a simple advance (it would depend on the context) or any other questions about the minutiae of the case. I’ll leave that for others. Instead, I want to talk about the ethics of the case.

Facebook Taking Over Schools? Probably Not.

Image via NYT

Whether it’s theory or practice, individualized education is possible the best way we have for teaching. We know that the larger the group, the less time the instructor will have to work with the students on a 1:1 basis. We also know that students don’t develop at the same rate. We know that some students learn faster than others. We also know that using technology as a tool for supporting education often helps students with their academic careers [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]. This would mean that – theoretically – an environment in which teachers could maximize 1:1 time with students and could use technology as a learning aid would lead to the best possible outcome in education. This is the theoretical foundation for the Summit Learning “platform.”

And its application of the platform shows how a good theoretical idea can quickly go downhill and likely end up with worse outcomes.

TCCD Connections Week Presentations

Find below the presentations offered at Connections Week 2017, as well as links to any relevant documents.

Gamifying the Classroom with Online Platforms

Using Tabletop Games in the Classroom

Fitz It Rules

Wikipedia Game Rules

Kahoot Instruction Guide

Socrative Instruction Guide

Quizlet Instruction Guide

My son’s interpretation of a Wordsworth poem fragment: Spots of Time

I walk my kid to school every morning, and every morning we “philosophize” about stuff. It’s really just me asking questions about what he thinks about things (why is a leaf pile more fun than a dirt pile? for example) and sometimes me talking about how the world and nature works and him listening (the effects of the space vacuum on the resistance of things and gravity was the latest one), but “philosophizing” will do.

Yesterday as we walked to school I recited for him my favorite poem-within-a-poem, Wordsworth’s “Spots of Time”. The text of the poem is as follows:

There are in our existence spots of time,
That with distinct pre-eminence retain
A renovating virtue, whence–depressed
By false opinion and contentious thought,
Or aught of heavier or more deadly weight,
In trivial occupations, and the round
Of ordinary intercourse–our minds
Are nourished and invisibly repaired;
A virtue, by which pleasure is enhanced,
That penetrates, enables us to mount,
When high, more high, and lifts us up when fallen.

To me, the poem has always been about the power of memory and imagination, and how when one is depressed one can call upon their memories to feel uplifted. I asked my kid what he thought it was about. “Trampolines”, he said. Confused, I asked him to elaborate.

“Spots are round right?” he asked.

“Sure”, I replied.

“Well trampolines are round too”, he asserted.

“Ok and what else?” I asked.

“And in a trampoline when you jump you jump really really really high and when you fall down it it YOU JUMP ANYWAYS HURAGHRGUFRAGHUR” (that last bit was him laughing at the idea of falling on a trampoline).

So he explained the spot, he explained the “when high more high and lifts us up when fallen” parts, but then I asked him “what about the part of the poem that says that spots of time make you feel nourished and refreshed when you feel sad?” He simply replied “well trampolines are fun”.

The only problem with his interpretation is that the trampoline was invented some 80-ish years after the first publication of The Prelude (where one can find Spots of Time), but my kid is 7 he doesn’t know that. His interpretation was fun and inventive, and while it may not have the grandiose metaphysical implications of more accepted interpretations, I think it was brilliant and incredibly relevant to him.

And what does this has to do with education? Maybe it’s time for adults to let kids interpret poetry more often and not stifle them when they suggest something. Adults should encourage kids to think and push them with critical thinking prompts (why?), not just tell them, as I was often told during my early education, “your interpretation is wrong” or “I don’t think that’s it”. Foster and build up curiosity, don’t rip it out and tear it down.