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Author Topic:   Teacher Fired for Disagreeing With Literal Interpretation of Bible
arachnophilia
Member (Idle past 1344 days)
Posts: 9069
From: god's waiting room
Joined: 05-21-2004


Message 12 of 78 (424145)
09-25-2007 9:28 PM
Reply to: Message 11 by anglagard
09-25-2007 6:41 PM


Re: Piss Poor Journalism
quote:
Our class didn’t ask for him to be fired. That wasn’t our goal. Someone complained about him, I dont know why, but the next day in class, while taking attendence, he called her out on it. In front of everyone. He had no right to do that. The issue was between the two of them. Then, as the rest of us were trying to defend her, and tell him what we thought of the situation, he was laughing at us, and at her for walking out. Then proceed to say something VERY wrong to another student. She also walked out. If the comment he made to her, was made to me, i too would walk out. He had absolutely no right to say that. Not to her, not to anyone. Then, as she walked out of class, he sat there and laughed at her too.
The bible has nothing to do with this. If the 1st person who had an issue with him b/c of what he said about the bible, then fine. Leave it at that. He has his opinions and thats fine, he can state them, but when we can’t state our own without him laughing at us for beliving in it, then he has gone too far. And it’s obvious that a couple people reading this have had Bitterman in the past, and know what I’m talking about. So its not just the few of us that were in his class this semester . hes done this before, we’re just the first ones with the balls to do something about it.
http://friendlyatheist.com/...24/fired-for-telling-the-truth
looks like we need more information.


This message is a reply to:
 Message 11 by anglagard, posted 09-25-2007 6:41 PM anglagard has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 13 by Omnivorous, posted 09-25-2007 9:52 PM arachnophilia has replied

  
arachnophilia
Member (Idle past 1344 days)
Posts: 9069
From: god's waiting room
Joined: 05-21-2004


Message 14 of 78 (424150)
09-25-2007 10:09 PM
Reply to: Message 13 by Omnivorous
09-25-2007 9:52 PM


Re: Piss Poor Journalism
If he was informed that a student complained about his treatment of Christianity, I see no reason why he should not discuss that in the classroom. As for laughing at them, I wonder: Guffaws? Chuckles? Smiles? Strange as it may seem, students cannot always be depended on to tell the unvarnished truth.
no, nor can part-time community college professors. i'm quite familiar with the belief-challenging charge -- some beliefs are so shaky, and some believers so sensitive that the socratic method seems like an avenue of attack.
and sometimes, it's just a misunderstanding. my father is a professor, and was recently working to help solve a dispute between a student and another professor, that had come before the chair of the department. the student was upset that a professor had "ridiculed" and yelled at them in front of the class (plural used for gender obfuscation). this is a professor that i've known my entire life, and i can't imagine him yelling even for a second. he's about the quietest, most soft-spoken person i've ever known. apparently, all he did was insist the class move on when the student failed to understand prerequisite material.
My wife is a professor--a popular one who receives overwhelmingly positive student reviews. She teaches literature and presents many theoretical perspectives: feminist, traditional close reading, deconstructionist, Marxist, you name it. She also welcomes student perspectives.
Occasionally, inevitably, someone will write in their course review that she "tried to force [x] theory on us" and "ridiculed my beliefs"--because she insisted they master the tenets of multiple perspectives and challenged them to account for their own. To demand that a student achieve proficiency of a literary reading of the Bible, for example, is not to demand that they relinguish their religion: but some will insist that it is just that.
well, that's the thing, and something i demonstrate here on a daily basis. fundamentalism does not stand up to a proficient reading of the bible. it's the same reason that the church was so upset when martin luther translated the bible into the vernacular -- now people will know what it says, and they won't believe what we tell them anymore.
I find it especially interesting to hear the student you quote say "what we wanted" (emphasis mine). If the administration discharged this instructor because a group of students brought complaints to which he was not allowed to respond, the administration has a great deal of explaining to do. If that is the case, I'd imagine any competent attorney could overturn his dismissal and win damages.
well, like i said, we need more information. i don't know if that was the case. it's also possible that they've been hearing complaints about the professor for a long time. and it depends highly on what, exactly, he said to the student in front of the class -- something the student's comment dances around. it might have been highly inappropriate. i'm sure there are certain things a professor could say to a student that would get him fired pretty quickly.
I agree that more information is necessary for a fully formed judgement. But if the administration had attended to the normal process of faculty peer review and administrative hearings before discharging the instructor, I don't think they'd be saying, "No comment, it's a personnel issue."
what would they say? i'm not sure they'd say anything else, actually.
Edited by arachnophilia, : No reason given.


This message is a reply to:
 Message 13 by Omnivorous, posted 09-25-2007 9:52 PM Omnivorous has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 15 by Omnivorous, posted 09-25-2007 10:19 PM arachnophilia has replied

  
arachnophilia
Member (Idle past 1344 days)
Posts: 9069
From: god's waiting room
Joined: 05-21-2004


Message 19 of 78 (424155)
09-25-2007 10:32 PM
Reply to: Message 15 by Omnivorous
09-25-2007 10:19 PM


Re: Piss Poor Journalism
Typically, an administration that has followed a well-defined policy which respects both student rights and an instructor's academic freedom will say so: "After careful review and following the procedures of hearings and appeals that we have in place to protect the interests of all blah blah blah."
I suspect (and this is just a hunch) that the "No comment" means what it usually means when academic bureaucrats clam up: 1) Oops, we didn't follow our own contractually mandated (or defined) procedures, and 2) Who knew this would atract national attention?
We'll see.
well, this is also only a community college. it's not as big an operation as a full university, and probably doesn't have the same sort of crack legal team. so i dunno.
i guess we'll see.


This message is a reply to:
 Message 15 by Omnivorous, posted 09-25-2007 10:19 PM Omnivorous has not replied

  
arachnophilia
Member (Idle past 1344 days)
Posts: 9069
From: god's waiting room
Joined: 05-21-2004


Message 22 of 78 (424159)
09-25-2007 10:51 PM


more info
quote:
But students in the class, which was transmitted to a classroom in Osceola over the state fiber-optic network, say Bitterman also told them to question their religious beliefs and at one point in the heated debate told one of the Osceola students, Kristen Fry, to "pop a Prozac."
Fry said she left class in tears.
quote:
Bitterman said the Prozac comment was a joke meant to disarm a student who "was screeching at me."
"Sometimes you say something outrageous just to see if you can provoke some discussion. ... I can be a little acerbic at times, I don't deny that," he said. "I certainly take students' viewpoints seriously in the sense that I encourage them to express it, and then I will challenge that viewpoint, regardless of what it is, to see how well they can back it up with reason and critical thought.
"Often, these students are essentially right out of high school and they take things so personally," Bitterman said. "They really can't distinguish between a critical assessment of their argument and an attack upon them personally."
Casey Overton, 19, who also was in the Osceola classroom, said Bitterman spoke "very crudely and made us feel like crap."
quote:
Bitterman said that when he was fired over the phone, he was told it was for teaching religion instead of history, and no mention was made of how he treated students.
quote:
She declined to comment on what procedures are in place for student complaints or for professors to explain themselves, but said that in this case, the employee is part-time.
Some part-time community college professors in other parts of the state said the Southwestern situation does not surprise them. One referred to their lives as "adjunct hell."
James Ralston, a math instructor at Hawkeye Community College in Waterloo, said he has been fired twice for political reasons or false accusations from students.
"All adjunct teachers are under the same pressure that they cannot teach, because if they offend, no matter how crazy the students are, they are going to be fired," he said. "It's a huge problem."
The Des Moines Register


  
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