<p>As an experienced educator at a higher ed institution, Prof. Snyder should have known better than to word her email even “suggesting” to him that he shouldn’t speak during class…especially if it was directed to someone with a disability that already tends to discourage most from participating in class along with other non-disabled students. </p>
<p>If I was in his shoes at his age, I’d definitely interpret her behavior as attempts to suppress my ability to fully participate in her class even if I didn’t have his disability. Heck, I’d still feel the same way if it happened to me today as a thirty-something. </p>
<p>Also, the fact he’s 16 may have predisposed him to interpret suggestions as “orders” from the Prof…especially when he’s encountered many jerks in other areas of his life who gave him similar grief on account of his disability. Even her own words lead me to believe she was oblivious at best and more likely…there was a subtext of her wanting to just “shut him up” to avoid the inconvenience of having to accommodate his disability. </p>
<p>Either way…she’s not really helping her case considering how many viable alternatives have been employed every day by educators in similar/worse classroom situations than hers.</p>
<p>Just how do you accommodate this disability? She offered that he limit the time to one question per class. Should she have offered two? Three? Is there a magic number? She offered that he write down his questions? This is a perfectly acceptable accommodation for other disabilities. Not his? Other than giving him all the time he wants to talk during class, what other things should she do?</p>
<p>When the reporters interviewed other students in his class in a previous report, they all said while he was one of the more active participants…his participation wasn’t really out of line compared with other more active participants in the class. </p>
<p>Don’t know about you…but it makes me quite skeptical about all this talk about him “monopolizing” class time.</p>
<p>She "offered" ? Interesting way to look at it - although perhaps that is exactly what she did. Which actually makes it worse. Typically, students are not put in the position of negotiating their accommodations with their professors (the ones who also give them their grades). This is not the same as a contract where both sides have equal bargaining power (what does the student get in exchange -a good grade for shutting up? )</p>
<p>So everything has to be a Federal case?? All disability accommodations have to go through, what, the college President, the Governor? This is the type of minor incident that gets blown out of all proportion when it hits the media spin zone. It was better for everyone when it was just between the two parties.</p>
<p>The accomodations for a student with disabilities are determined by the office of disability services at the school, and the list of accomodations is distributed to the faculty. This isnt decided by the professor or the student.</p>
<p>One issue may be that it’s hard to tell where a disability ends and the inability to stop talking starts. Perhaps it’s a combination here. His stutter slows him down but maybe he is a rambler anyway. I can say that few things get on my nerves more at meetings and speaker engagements than people who use a question and answer session to make their own speeches. The same thing can easily happen in a classroom. </p>
<p>I am president of a local club and we have had to start requiring that our members write their questions down for our speakers because they cannot stop themselves from prefacing their questions with several minutes of their own opinions. They seem completely oblivious to how rude it is to monopolize the allotted time.</p>
<p>I will admit I read these articles very carefully. I have a student with some sort of speech disability, who, in no way connected to this, does try to monopolize discussions. He always wants to answer first, tends to keep his hand up while others are talking-which i consider borderline rude, though unintentionally so, and goes off topic a lot. He’s not a bad kid, but I have to work very carefully to give everyone a chance, and not lose the thread of the class discussion. I’d hate to think that by gesturing to him to wait while another student speaks, or to pass over him after he’s spoken several times and urge broader discussion, he could take it as discrimination. </p>
<p>I’ve never felt the need to ask him to write questions or limit comments (and I think I’m savvy enough not to do that) but I can see how a classroom situation might push someone to do that. And, as much as I have a really good relationship with my students, I also know they others would be too polite to speak against one of their classmembers if asked by reporters, and good for them! Anyway, my point is that, her correspondence notwithstanding, it’s possible the issue is not his speech disability, but classroom discussion parameters.</p>
<p>^ My thoughts exactly. I think for me, because I keep (perhaps erroneously) picturing the exact student you are describing above (having had them on occasion), it is what I’m picturing is going on here. </p>
<p>It is hard to separate out what is the disability and what is the rest of the student’s behavior.</p>
<p>I think with such a student, I would let them participate as much as the next most vocal person, but not more or much more than that. It accomodates their disability but doesn’t give them any more chance to ruin the class discussion than you’d let any other non-disabled student do. </p>
<p>I am used to having the access and disabilities center and student tell me what is needed for a student to receive necessary accommodations. It might mean a special place to sit, take tests for extra time in a quiet location, my notes available to be orally trasnscribed. That kind of thing. </p>
<p>But even then it is not all legislated, and never could be. You could not possibly provide good enough accommodation without getting down to the implementation details that take into account all of the unique features of the classroom, assignments, and so forth. This is where focusing on the spirit, and not the letter, is a benefit not a curse to the student. You absolutely have to discuss between student and teacher with flexibility in mind. Suppose the letter of the law said something like “must sit at front of room” and then it turns out because of construction outside the room, it’s particularly noisy there so teacher and student figure out a more creative solution. Or the person has a dog along which means it works best for them to sit not in the first row but some other row. Or the student can take extra time for exams, but we have quizzes every day and they decide its way too much hassle to do them outside of class so they take them in the class and have some extra time afterwards to finish. Normal, everyday stuff that only happens by talking about it between student and professor, and you assume that there is some kind of professional standard most people go by here. It doesn’t need micro-managing by a third party who is not privvy to the unique details of every classroom.</p>
<p>I can’t remember, was there no learning disability center on campus? Why didn’t he go voice his complaint to them to fix it, instead of going to a newspaper?</p>
<p>Did he identify himself as a person with a disability who requires accommodations before taking a college class? If he didn’t, that’s unfortunate. He might not have known where to go to find advice, help, or accommodations. He is 16 and this is first college experience. Unless someone suggested that he might want to discuss his stuttering with a disability expert, how would he know that something like this exists? I don’t recall, is he home schooled?</p>
<p>I just re-read it. He did go to a Charter school, he does state that many don’t recognize its a disability and he’s had a lot of training to cope with it. So he is aware of that aspect but not necessarily about accommodations at college. Though I’d be surprised that a precocious NYC 16 year old with a disability, who has been in a Charter school, and has well connected/educated parents and a coach for his disability…somehow no one in this equation would know about an extremely common and normal part of education? </p>
<p>Still he went to the Dean- not clear why the Dean or the professor for that matter, didn’t think to take up the matter with the disabilities office on campus! I just looked that up-- they even have a special program for students with disabilities at this college.</p>
<p>It’s an excellent CC; I’ve known several young folks who went there because of the support for LD issues, even though they don’t live in Morris County.</p>
<p>But that point is good–if he’s not registered with the Disabilities Services, then the instructor has no legitimate information about his disability: information that is self-communicated only bears no weight–for recognition, it has to come through the DS office. Whether or not his family understood that does not change that fact, and I agree that working through them would be more helpful, instead of going to the Dean and the newspapers which is an unnecessary and unfairly combative way to handle this–that’s what DS offices are for, and that’s where the instructors get the information they need to work with the student productively.</p>
<p>One might also ask why the instructor did not contact the DS office for advice on how to deal with such a student when there were no accommodations in place?</p>
<p>Why couldn’t the instructor simply say “Good/interesting point. Let’s hear from some other students to get their perspectives/points in this discussion.”??</p>
<p>The statement above was one stock comment I’ve adopted from dozens of great teachers/Profs I’ve had throughout my education when I subbed teaching those CC history class sessions with 50-75 students each. With the exception of the most irascible disruptive student, the above works very well. The overactive participant gets his earned plaudit and enough space is created to encourage participation by other students in the class. </p>
<p>And judging by his youtube videos…he doesn’t strike me as the irascible disruptive type. I’ve observed plenty of such students…including friends and yours truly at earlier points in our lives.</p>
<p>My son told me that there is a young man in his class in HS who stutters. What the teacher does is let the student start their question while listening closely then interjects something like, “So Tom, you are wondering why X occurred right, I gotcha ?” and then answers the student while moving the discussion along. </p>
<p>Now some may find this politically incorrect but say the student was a poor English speaker and the same technique was used, I don’t think people would complain the same way of unfairness.</p>
<p>Since none of us are have been in the class and do not know the dynamics of how this one student affects it, we can really can only speculate what the teacher should or shouldn’t do.</p>
<p>Exactly, Lakemom. And folks, an instructor *can’t *just go to DS and ask for how to deal with a student–the connection has to come from the student-- that fact has been emphasized to me many times over-- we don’t, and can’t, diagnose–the student needs to make contact with DS, show documentation, get accomodations, and communicate these to the instructor. That’s the order it works in–the instructor can not and should not make any assumptions–all definitions and accomodations come through the DS office, through the student.</p>
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