Share this
Twitter
Myspace
Digg
Del.icio.us
Reddit
Slashdot
Furl
Yahoo
Technorati
Newsvine
Facebook
Export PDF
Print
E-mail
TagsBY BOB HOLT
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
An instructor at The County College of Morris has been criticized by the school's administration after she e-mailed a stuttering student and requested that he save his questions for after class.
Philip Garber of Mansfield is 16, and has been home schooled. He is now taking two college courses at the County College of Morris, and is interested in photojournalism. Garber enjoys participating in classroom discussions, but has a stutter that causes him to speak slowly.
After the first few classes, his adjunct history professor, Elizabeth Snyder, told Garber in an e-mail that his questions were infringing on other students’ time.
NJ.com reported that the e-mail said Garber was asked to save his questions for after class, and write the answers he knew on paper. "This way, you can express your ideas and knowledge completely and I will have a better understanding of what you know," the e-mail read." "I hope these suggestions help to make your experience in my class enjoyable and productive."
Garber told CBS News his first reaction was shock. He said, "I have never experienced this level of discrimination." School administrators said Snyder acted inappropriately, but did not comment on any disciplinary action.
Snyder has taught history at Morris for ten years, and was largely thought of in a positive manner. According to the New York Times, two students in Snyder’s class, who spoke anonymously to avoid ay issues with Snyder, said Philip took up more time than the other students, but not flagrantly, and that Philip offered solid insights. The students said they did notice during one day Philip raised his hand for most of the class without getting called.
Garber reported his problem to a college dean, and he transferred to another teacher’s class, where he is participating fully again.
The National Institutes of Health reported that about 5 percent of people stutter at some point of their lives, and around one percent stutter as adults. A spokesman for the National Stuttering Association, said Philip’s experience is unusual because most stutterers avoid speaking up in class. “Teachers ignore stutterers, or coax them to speak out,” he said. “The fact that he wants to participate is a healthy sign.”
The fact that Snyder declined to be interviewed has NO bearing AT ALL on the press's responsibility to make the relevant qualifications. Her refusal may have been motivated by the legitimate concern that she would have been misrepresented. And it is not generally the case, or supposed to be the case, that silence is evidence of guilt. If it was, every arrestee who had ever "lawyered up" upon arrest would have been found guilty by that act alone. If that is how we are going to operate in this country, perhaps we should throw out the Fifth Amendment, and with it, the Bill of Rights, and stop pretending that we care about truth, fairness, or even elementary decency.
It is about time that we stopped, took a breath, and acknowledged the fact that we do NOT have the full story here. And we may not get it. I have, in two days, read hundreds of expressions of splenetic outrage against Snyder, but seen very little in the way of hard information. People have called for Snyder to be reprimanded, fired, sued, arrested (!), and for her children to be put under the supervision of DYFS (!) without demanding fuller disclosure of information that both the NYT and the Star Ledger have. If this is not a classic case of hysteria, I'm not sure what it is. Incidentally, even if Snyder is "guilty" of doing exactly what is alleged, or half-alleged, it is far from obvious that what she did was a great moral offense. Unlike many of the people in this debate, I have 17 years' teaching experience in higher education, 7.5 of them as an adjunct in NJ higher ed. I don't think I run my classes the way Snyder runs hers, but even if her methods are mistaken, they are not the obvious basis for a judgment of incompetence or invidious bias. Sorry. If you think otherwise, try coming up with an argument that gets past cliches and blowhard expressions of righteous indignation. And while you're at it, tell us how much teaching experience you have. Half the people in this debate couldn't control a classroom to save their lives, and haven't been in one in decades, but have somehow arrogated to themselves the right to posture as experts in the field.
If there is one person who deserves a reprimand, it is Richard Perez-Pena, the Times reporter whose fact-free but insinuation-laden story got the outrage off the ground in the first place. Close behind him are the people who have demanded draconian penalties of a woman whose story they have not heard, and have not wanted to hear. The damage is probably irreparable at this point, but there is time enough to stop before more is done.
If you read the 700+ responses to the original NYTimes story you will see a need for honesty on what really happened in this case (a one-sided story) and how it has blown out of proportion.
If you read the 700+ responses to the original NYTimes story you will see a need for honesty on what really happened in this case (a one-sided story) and how it has blown out of proportion.