Remember when you were kids...

[stevie_d_64]

Nitro, is your objection based upon the timing??? Would you believe it was too soon to present a situation like this to student???

I'm projecting a bit, admittedly. The VT Tragedy made me very angry. I feel that walking around, shouting "BANG" at your students is a poor way to make a good point. Timing didn't have as much to do with it. I personally feel that just opening it up to discussion would have been a more "intellectually honest" method. I do not condone "gotcha" tactics to make points via emotion. I also acknowledge that any feeling I might have about HOW he made his point really don't matter. It's not how I would have done it, but he's not me. He's a professional educator who knows a lot more about educating students than me, so it should be his call.

Good point...

I think Venus brought up something that I might have a bit of a professional dissagreement with them about...

Whether it is an area of expertise, whether it being a professional accreditation or hobby...

A discussion, relative to the way it was originally presented, as to generate a "shock" value to the begining of a discussion, I think IS acceptable...

The results to me seem positive, I believe the administrators are just plain jealous that they didn't have a real chance to step in a difuse the situation with one of their own methods or experts in a big assembly or something similar...

As crase as I sound...For years I have always been skeptical of the immediate calling in of "additional" grief counselors when something tragic happens at schools these days...

I had a friend of mine when I was in Intermediate school (years ago) hang himself...Did any of us get this immediate grief counseling??? Nope...Did we need it??? Maybe, but we pretty much were sad anyway, and thought to ourselves maybe its good to be able to talk to just each other about it and move on...I still remember his name to this day...Jimmy Pease...

I think I, and a whole other mess of kids from our group, still turned out ok in the years that followed...

[gigag04]

I voted Yes - discussion was appropriate, and no he should've been fired.

In a college classroom you want to cultivate thinking, esp critical thinking about a problem.

The topic of the class is irrelevant to this discusion taking place in this class setting. Many times my profs would veer us way off of the posted title of the of the class (intro to mgmt for example), but we would all come away thinking at a different angle, or learning something else in a new way.

This is what you get at a good college, an education that is deeper than what your 120 credit hours and your bachelor's of science in engineering say you learned. You come away with critical thinking skills.

To fire this prof is absurd. I wish he would've had tenure.

-nick

[John]

I clicked the wrong response, so the results are in error by one. Clicked no, but meant yes.

[stevie_d_64]

Sorry, my last post was in error...

It wasn't "Venus"...

It was "Tote"...And I agreed with them that you don't necessarily have to be an expert to open discussion about an issue...The important part is to get the discussion going, and let the experts come in and drive the good points into the debate...

I have heard of training seminars and other classes where everyone would be in the room, and someone would come in blasting away (simulated of course), or some other extremely terrifying rampage, to get everyones attention...I'm sure most have heard of these types of seminars where they start off with things like this...

The only problem with that now, is I had better be expecting something funny going on in any future situation like this...If I can carry to the class and the facility, I will... Talk about pressure to not screw up!

[KBCraig]

The fired Prof has posted a series on YouTube with his response to the firing.

He should have been fired for being a boring drone. Thirty seconds was all I could take.

[stevie_d_64]

The fired Prof has posted a series on YouTube with his response to the firing.

He should have been fired for being a boring drone. Thirty seconds was all I could take.

Beuller??? Beuller??? Beuller???