U Tennesee professor’s response to student who missed class for baby

Parent Cafe
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I sincerely hope I’m the kind of teacher who would make that sort of an accommodation for one of my students.

It’s a class in Family and Child studies; I would imagine the prof is very capable of holding a child while teaching. It’s apparently a lecture based class, and the prof certainly knows the material. Those of us who are parents of multiple kids are certainly capable of multitasking-- of helping one kid with homework while taking care of another. I know that I could explain a concept to a class while doing something else if the situation demanded it.

I’ve taught classes while undergoing radiation. While having a pregnancy scare in the midst of that radiation-- and at the same time being observed by my department chair. (I could have postponed, but figured that if the test came back positive, this was going to be my best day for a very long while. ). While my husband was in ICU. Holding a baby while teaching a class? Doesn’t begin to compare.

And on the subject of holding vs supervising-- the prof isn’t offering to babysit. The mom would be in the classroom. The prof offered to hold the baby if necessary so the student would have hands free to take notes.

Again, kudos to the prof. I hope that my students see me as being as compassionate as I see that prof.

22

bjkmom: This isn’t a kid. This is a 2 month old baby. I certainly can’t believe that anybody would be able to teach a full class, without any distractions, holding a two month old baby. One of my good friends just had a baby and being around them I know they get distracted easily being around their baby. It’s only natural to be distracted when you are around babies.

Again, this has nothing to do with compassion, this has to do with excusing a student and letting her bring her baby to class as needed. As I stated earlier, there are MANY options for childcare on the UT campus.

Would you make that accommodation if more than one of your students wanted to bring their kids/babies to class? Like I said, where is the line drawn?

23

It’s a class in Chikd and Family Studies. Perfectly appropriate to have a child in there now and then. We’re not talking advanced differential equations here…



I can’t believe this made the news. Or warrants a thread. People helping each other out. Isn’t that an every day event?

24

No, I don’t think it’s appropriate for a professor to teach a full class holding a student’s baby. I am not sure what the students are going to learn with that going on.

So what happens in her other classes with more “advanced” topics being taught? If this was a calculus class this would be a different story?

So now that professor has to help every other student? Like I said before and I will say it again, where is the line drawn? If that girl can be excused for not finding childcare, is another student excused for oversleeping, traffic, etc.? That is my point. When can of worms is opened everything gets out of hand. This is why there are rules. Most professors don’t offer exceptions and wouldn’t care if you can’t find childcare. That’s not being mean and not being compassionate, that’s being fair to everybody because then everybody is going to come up with an excuse why they didn’t show up for class.

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My guess is that you’re neither a parent nor a teacher… A two month baby is a piece of cake once you’ve raised a child or two. At that age, they’re EASY.

Seriously-- I was pregnant with my 3rd while my dad was dying-- she was born 2 weeks to the day after we buried him. After a while, it’s really no big deal to hold a 2 month child while doing other things.

As to accommodations-- teachers make them ALL THE TIME, we simply don’t let everyone know about them. While I’ve never made this particular accommodation in the Catholic high school in which I teach, I’ve made others. I had a kid this year who suffered from extreme anxiety and missed a LOT of classes. I needed grades for him, as did all his teachers. So, while he made up 5 tests after school, I gave him the last one as a take home. I suggested he take it open book so that he could learn the material he had missed. No big deal. He learned the material and I got the grade I needed.

Was if “fair”?? Technically probably not. But neither was the fact that he was dealing with something that his classmates don’t have to deal with. He passed the class, graduated, and will be attending college in the fall.

We make accommodations for kids whose parents are dying or sick. I had a kid one year who missed a lot of school to take care of his alcoholic dad. Of course I made accommodations for him! I’ve had kids with leukemia and lupus. I’ve had kids whose siblings appeared on the front page of the paper–and not for good things. Good teachers make accommodations all the time; the difference is that they’re not typically posted for the world to see.

If the young woman in the story could have made use of those other childcare options, I assume she would have. My guess-- though it’s just that-- is that her recently deceased mom was probably her backup and that she simply didn’t have the time to find a plan B.

As far as the teacher being able to teach: the material is the easiest part of good teaching. Once you know your stuff and know how to present it, you learn to roll with the punches and accept the teachable moments when they come along-- as I suspect happened in this particular course under these particular circumstances.

As to “the line.” It’s drawn when the teacher no longer feels an accommodation is warranted or workable. That apparently isn’t the case her.

And, again: I sincerely hope my students see me as the type of teacher who would make accommodations when they were needed.

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bjkmom: No, I am not a parent, but I have had a number of friends who have recently had kids and none of them (even those with more than one) have used the word “easy” when talking about taking care of a baby.

This isn’t high school, this is college. Sever anxiety, leukemia, and lupus are medical conditions. Having a child is not a medical condition. I am not even sure why you are comparing the two.

Isn’t that illegal for a high school student to miss a ton of school to take care of his alcoholic father? I am talking illegal- referencing truancy laws.

It is really awful that her Mother died, but that was last year before the baby was born.

Judging by the girl’s Twitter page and seeing that she has had time to make 60,000 tweets, it seems like her priorities are elsewhere.

27

Of course the subject matter being about children is appropriate. This is a class about children. This is a child. Shoot, she could have requested people to bring in their kids to help illustrate what she was saying. I’ll bet people watched her and listened closer than they would have otherwise.



Why don’t you understand that this is not something set in stone now? If people bring too many kids too often, she can tell them to stop. This is one day, one professor, one class. It’s not like making a national law. It’s a nothingburger and I don’t see why you’re so wrapped up about it. Life is short, these things are trivial.



But I have a feeling that nothing anyone says will make an impact on you, to make you reconsider. This is a thread to rant, not to discuss.

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Yeah, I have the feeling that nothing anyone has to say will convince you otherwise.

You posted on the parent forum of a college site-- so most people responding will have had a LOT of experience raising children. Our outlook is bound to be different than yours, or than your brand new parent friends. Many of us have raised multiple children, and learned how to multitask in a way that your new parent friends are still figuring out.

Also, as parents, we tend to see shades of grey that elude many students. It’s simply a matter of maturity-- when I was in college I, too, tended to see life as black and white.

So, while you are entitled to think that the prof was out of line, I take the side that she’s a wonderful example of what teaching ought to be.

29

Just any FYI: A child and family studies class could be about lot of things, including sexuality, family law, etc. Like I said before I am not sure what the students are going to gain by seeing their professor holding a baby.

Like I said before and I will say it again, once you excuse one student for their irresponsibility (not having childcare) then where is the line drawn? If somebody woke up late are they excused? And the list goes on and on.

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bjkmom: If you want to talk about maturity, talk about the girl. If she was mature and has her priorities in order she wouldn’t have a Twitter account with 60,000 posts.

I was just wondering where the line is drawn? If another students wakes up late are they excused? Like I said before the list goes and on.

Well you haven’t convinced me because you compared having an illness to having a child and talking about illegal things like a high school kid staying home to take care of his alcoholic father.

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I’m a parent who worked for years in daycares and preschools. Taking care of one 2 month old who doesn’t have an illness or some other specific condition is super easy for me. Especially if I had a wrap or carrier (that baby is most likely going to sleep the entire class). A very active toddler or preschooler may be a different story.

I think it’s a nice thing and the student recognized it as such. As @bjkmom mentioned, good teachers do make accommodations for students. I know I had professors in college who did. I don’t recall needing any for myself but I know others occasionally had them (i.e. A roommate woke up the day of finals with diarrhea and the two professors I talked to on her behalf sure didn’t force her to come in that day and take finals, a student who couldn’t afford the textbooks got extensions on most English essays, etc)

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@bjkmom , nice posts.





For @utex2011, when I was much younger, it was easier to see the world in black and white, with rules to be followed regardless of the circumstance.





As the years went by, I realized life is very messy and it doesn’t always fit in neat categories. Sometimes kindness and compassion should trump rules.





Maybe instead of assuming that breaking this rule would result in chaos, you could see this prof’s actions as compassionate. If more people were like this prof, the world might actually be a gentler place.





And maybe you could give the mom the benefit of the doubt. I personally believe that she is capable of dealing with the situation in a reasonable way if the baby became a true distraction by crying inconsolably, for example.





Realistically, classes will never be full of babies.





If someone has a childcare crisis, isn’t it better to deal with it positively? Think of the tragic alternatives: a young woman fails a class, has to pay a lot of money to retake or decides to drop out if it’s too much, losing the chance to give herself and her child a better life. Or the young woman leaves the baby at home alone? People don’t do that today very often but they used to, with horrible things happening as a result.





As a mom of four who had my first two kids abroad without the help and support of family, I will always be grateful to the people who helped me in unexpected situations. I like to think their example made me a more compassionate person. And I think the prof set a beautiful example of helping others, for the mom and all students in the class.

33

I think this is wonderful. How compassionate of this professor. So long as this women’s baby is not disturbing the class, the women ends up knowing the material by the end of the class, I think it is great. My brother used to teach graduate classes at night. He would always bring pizza, sandwiches or some other take out to class for his students. When I asked him why, he told me all his students work full time during the day and many do not have the time or money to buy something for dinner. “you can’t learn to the best of your ability if you are hungry” he said. So while the professor “broke a rule” trying to accommodate this women and you consider it unfair to the rest of the class, how do you know the professor hasn’t somehow accommodated other student in other ways. Life isn’t about making sure everything is always equal and everyone gets what is their due.

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MACmiracle: Maybe you will answer this question for me because it hasn’t been answered. Where is the line drawn?

Should compassion be shown if my alarm didn’t go off, if there was traffic on the freeway, if I forgot to save a document, etc. etc.

There are rules for a reason and rules should be followed.

There is obviously nothing wrong with being compassionate, but where does the compassion end? Another student will come up with an excuse that they didn’t attend class and another student, etc. Then that’s when the chaos starts.

I wouldn’t call this a “crisis”. My guess is she is getting free tuition, but that’s besides the point.

So again, when does the help end?

I’m confused- how are the other student being helped?

35

Actually a professor’s job is exactly that. To be as equally fair as possible to every student. Otherwise it’s not fair to the other students who take care of their responsibilities outside of class.

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So why even have rules at all? Should a professor be kind and compassionate because a student overslept? Missed class because of traffic on the freeway? etc. etc.

This girl is going to be in for a rude awakening once she gets into the “real” world.

37

The “real world” is even messier, and it sure isn’t fair. It works far better when we have compassion for others and help each other make it through. There will always be those who try to take advantage, but people catch on pretty quickly. Life is not built upon a set of rules held up as strict laws to be followed.

38

Actually it works better when people follow rules and take responsibility for their actions. The girl was too busy posting on Twitter instead of finding childcare and was irresponsible because she didn’t have anybody to watch her baby. That has nothing to do with compassion. It’s the same thing with somebody without a child who got drunk the night before and didn’t wake up for class and missing a quiz. Should the professor have compassion and excuse that student? I would think no.

This has nothing to do with taking advantage of anybody.

Actually a college classroom is exactly that. You get a syllabus and you have all the rules, deadlines, etc. set out. Actually the rules are strict and if you don’t follow them there are consequences. If you don’t follow the rules and don’t study, do the work correctly, you fail.

39

Here utex2011, this will really make your day:

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2017/05/10/australian-senator-becomes-first-politician-breastfeed-parliament-floor/315533001/

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I read about that and there were mostly negative comments about that, but I digress.