<p>"BOSTON, Massachusetts (AP) – An adjunct professor was fired after leading a classroom discussion about the Virginia Tech shootings in which he pointed a marker at some students and said “pow.”</p>
<p>The five-minute demonstration at Emmanuel College on Wednesday, two days after a student killed 32 people on the Virginia Tech campus, included a discussion of gun control, whether to respond to violence with violence, and the public’s “celebration of victimhood,” said the professor, Nicholas Winset.</p>
<p>During the demonstration, Winset pretended to shoot some students. Then one student pretended to shoot Winset to illustrate his point that the gunman might have been stopped had another student or faculty member been armed…</p>
<p>So what if it was an accounting class? It’s not unusual for classes to have brief discussions on issues only tangentially related ot the class. That’s not usually reason for firing someone.</p>
<p>I don’t think that his walking from student to student pretending to shoot them went over well with Emmanuel College two days after the VT shootings. I don’t think his saying that it was stupid to grieve for the VT students went over well. Who knows?</p>
<p>You can find his four part video manifesto on You Tube. He probably should have just stuck to the standard moment of silence.</p>
<p>He was let go without due process at the college. </p>
<p>I also think such actions to get rid of a professor who discusses points of view that some do not agree with has a lot of ramifications. Any kid in the class could complain if the points of view made them uncomfortable and should the school just get rid of the teacher based on what a few felt, if the majority of the class was fine with it? And what rules did he break? There was no peer review, department head review, or any type of due process. They just took the complaints of two students and that was enough to say, “You’re fired!” If for some reason, he broke some sort of professional conduct (which I am not so certain he did), do they just go straight to firing? There would seem like there was some level of “discipline” not as extreme. Frankly, based on his account, I saw nothing wrong with him bringing up a point of view that others could opt to challenge if they wished. Isn’t that what the college classroom is about?? The faculty was charged with engaging students on the issue of what happened at VT. Does that mean ONLY engage in discussing one aspect of it? He chose to share his point of view and I assume he welcomed others to choose theirs.</p>
<p>Hey, without having any opinion on what this fellow did, remember that he was an adjunct. That means he just taught a course. No employment contract, no employment relationship. He was hired JUST to teach that one course. So the school can really do whatever they want.</p>
<p>VeryHappy, I realize he did not have tenure and that he was an adjunct. I have been an adjunct faculty member at five colleges. I always thought I had a contract for the job. While it is not the same as full time faculty, the person is still an employee with some rights, I would think. I’m sure his lawyer will look into it though, LOL.</p>
<p>"The college said Monday that the firing was not about academic freedom, but rather his “insensitivity toward the students who were murdered at Virginia Tech” and “his use of obscene and discriminatory language.” Winset was “disparaging the victims as rich white kids combined with an obscene epithet. He did not do this as part of an open debate with his students,” the statement said. "</p>
<p>I wonder what he said.</p>
<p>Without going into the ethical and legal issues of his firing, I have to say that IMO it looks like what he did was in poor taste. At the very least it trivialized a tragedy that was fresh. Wouldn’t it have sufficed to have a moment of silence or prayer or something like that?</p>
<p>Our hs did a similar “awareness” exercise about drunk driving deaths. Every 10 minutes a new dead victim was announced over the loudspeaker (a student) and he or she had to play dead for the rest of the day- not speak to anyone or make eye contact, wear a sign saying I’m dead, during assembly had to go lay down/sit in the middle of the gym. The whole thing became a sort of joke. BAD taste.</p>
<p>I have “insufficient data to compute” so don’t know enough to conclude.</p>
<p>I can add this to the discussion, however. Professionally trained teachers (I’m one) can use all kinds of role-play and dramatizations to wake up a class, demonstrate a point, make a ‘teachable moment’ happen. </p>
<p>Since nobody could have possibly mistaken a magic marker for a real gun, he was in the realm of dramatic role-play and not scaring people (with a black gun made out of soap, for example) to elicit some response.</p>
<p>He could have been illustrating any one of many points, including how easy it is to walk around the polish people off like sitting ducks, while using a harmless magic marker.</p>
<p>It’s not a discussion, but could have occurred in the middle of a discussion.</p>
<p>The big “no-no” is deceiving kids into thinking something real is happening. For example, we were forbidden to simulate experiments. If you want to teach a lesson on racial tolerance, for example, you MAY discuss and describe a prior
study when kids were told the “blue eyes sit to the front, brown eyes to the back” and all the sociodrama began within the classroom.</p>
<p>BUt you may NOT redo that experiment upon the children any more.</p>
<p>So those are some professional boundaries about using dramatic role-playing within the class, normally a very productive way to make a lesson memorable.</p>
<p>Again, I have no conclusions, just adding a point.</p>
<p>If this is true (I’m going off an assumption that it is, which obviously it might not be true), then once again I’m surprised at the complete lack of social awareness over what’s appropriate to say to who and at what time. I mean freedom of speech and all that, but for goodness sake. Do people who by all measures have reached adulthood more or less successfully in society really have no idea that there are boundaries? It’s amazing. This professor is certainly not the only one but sometimes I just don’t understand what people are thinking. Clearly, they aren’t. </p>
<p>Rich white kids. My sister’s best friend died in one of those classrooms. She had, as a high schooler, organized trips to help the poor in Appalachia. She was intensely concerned with social justice and devoted her life to helping others. Needless to say, many of the victims weren’t white. Nor were most them, really, rich. So this professor is not only insensitive, he’s completely ignorant. Look, what he said doesn’t affect me that much, don’t get me wrong - I know what’s true. Would I fire him? I don’t have all the information. Would I seriously consider this as a display of insensitivity, inappropriateness, and ignorance? Yes. Would that probably make me inclined to review my choice of faculty as an institution that probably doesn’t have in it’s goals teaching insensitivity, inappropriateness, and ignorance? Yes. Many people in my generation, I fear, are getting the sense you can simply say and do what you please as long as you couch it in the terms in of rejecting the “PC movement”. Most of what is labeled “PC” has for centuries simply been considered good manners and appropriate behavior in society. Therefore, most of what is defended as “PC rejection” is not accepted by society and will not result in good things (exhibit A: Don Imus). I believe this institution would do the young people present there a great disservice if they allowed them to think that it is okay to do and say such things and there won’t be consequences as long as you’re an “intellectual” or whatever these people think they are that makes them above appropriate behavior. I would not really want to study under such a person had I been present there, if he in fact did as reported. And they would be selling me a service, most of those kids probably aren’t attending for free. So yeah, I guess it does make sense.</p>