Posted on 04/21/2016 5:23:32 AM PDT by servo1969
A professor of the sciences at a western U.S. college wrote an op-ed in The Chronicle of Higher Education about struggling over whether or not to write a former student's requested letter of recommendation -- because the student is a gun enthusiast.
"Myrtle Lynn Payne" (the professor wrote under a pseudonym) described her former student in this way:
"Sarah" was a very nice young woman who turned up in one of my classes a year or so ago. Her academic abilities were not strong but she had great energy and was a class leader. Definitely a process, and not a content, type of gal. I did take special notice of her on the first day during a sharing activity we typically do at the beginning of my science lecture courses. Sarah shared that the most notable experience of her winter break was a visit to a gun range where she had fired an AK-47. I gave the usual "very good, moving on" response but was thinking, "Whoa, that’s disturbing."
Payne was further disturbed in another class when she overheard Sarah talking about getting her concealed-carry permit. That was the proverbial straw breaking the camel's back. And now that her former student is reaching out for help, the professor, who no doubt believes in diversity and tolerance of others, can't in good conscience fulfill the request.
Payne writes:
Last year at some point, Sarah said she was applying to a teacher-credential program and asked me for a recommendation. Initially I said yes because I usually do. I don’t know the exact date she asked, but I am thinking it must have been before the Umpqua Community College shooting last October because that’s when I really started thinking about students and guns.
So, Payne said yes but has so far been unable, or really, unwilling, to write the recommendation because she is very anti-gun, despite having grown up in a gun-owning household. She used the column as some sort of therapy to "lay all of this out here now because I don't know what to do."
"It’s so complicated," Payne continues. "On one side are all of my ideas about supporting students, honoring their individuality and their journeys, creating a safe space for them (and myself), not taking things out of context, not overinterpreting. On the other side are my memories of growing up in a situation where guns, people, and bullets had to be rigorously kept apart, lest they find each other in a tragic moment of instability."
But what about Sarah? Payne wonders if she's too emotionally unstable to be near guns and children. And she concludes this by knowing nothing about Sarah:
She seems to be a good kid, Sarah. And I don’t know what she really thinks of gun advocacy and political failures that have cost us all these lives and our sense of safety as educators. I don’t know what she does on the weekends. I also don’t know if she understands emotions, or what real rage feels like. It seems to me no person who has truly experienced the full impact of their own emotions would ever go near a gun...How can I say that I don’t want to support students who are gun enthusiasts, without getting put on some sort of list? … I mean, she’s applying to a teacher-credential program, for God’s sake. I wish the way forward was more black and white to me — that I knew what to do in this situation. But I don’t.
Sounds like "Myrtle Lynn Payne" is the emotionally unstable one. One day she might be glad someone like Sarah is there to protect her.
The Long March Through the Institutions — only “the right people” get recommendations and are allowed to work in the field.
She also says herself won’t own a gun because she’s “felt rage” and wouldn’t trust herself with a gun.
I believe this projection of fear of one’s own stability onto others is becoming more and more common in the gun grabber mentality.
Wrong teacher to ask for recommendation. Possibly wrong school to attend.
Hoplophobes are everywhere.
No idea which university liberal indoctrination center, nor professor.
It’s always about feelings with these twerps. And their “feelings” always seem to be more important than facts, laws and individual rights. Grow up, professor, put on your big girl pants and write the recommendation. Or don’t. But quit using your agonizing over this decision as a “convenient stick” to beat the pro 2nd amendment crowd.
/rant>
CC
Dude; YOU'RE disturbed!
If they gave recommendations based on academic performance, then conservatives would consistently be getting the best recommendations. And we can’t have that, now can we?
Read this article on a different web site that wouldn’t allow me to post here, glad someone found a work around. Professor doubts her own mental stability and believes all people are to unstable to have the dreaded and scary gun around.
Gun ownership has become a far more defining issue than ability or suitability.
The projection has always been there. It’s just coming out into the open more frequently now.
15 When our enemies heard that we were aware of their plot and that God had frustrated it, we all returned to the wall, each to our own work.
16 From that day on, half of my men did the work, while the other half were equipped with spears, shields, bows and armor. The officers posted themselves behind all the people of Judah 17 who were building the wall. Those who carried materials did their work with one hand and held a weapon in the other, 18 and each of the builders wore his sword at his side as he worked. But the man who sounded the trumpet stayed with me.
19 Then I said to the nobles, the officials and the rest of the people, “The work is extensive and spread out, and we are widely separated from each other along the wall. 20 Wherever you hear the sound of the trumpet, join us there. Our God will fight for us!”
21 So we continued the work with half the men holding spears, from the first light of dawn till the stars came out. 22 At that time I also said to the people, “Have every man and his helper stay inside Jerusalem at night, so they can serve us as guards by night and as workers by day.” 23 Neither I nor my brothers nor my men nor the guards with me took off our clothes; each had his weapon, even when he went for water.[c]
“hypocrite. “
"...My father, you see, suffered from terrible manic-depressive episodes and my mother eventually had heard enough about the risk of suicide that she instituted gun control in our household. My father died of natural causes when I was in college and I always kind of quiver in my heart when I think about what my mother did. I’m glad I didn’t lose him earlier to suicide. To have known him less time than I did, which by now is less than half of my lived life, would have been hard..."
There is a heredity component to manic-depression. It was pretty clear to me she is the one who has issues.
The article is shallow, and looks like it was written by a high school student. Check this out, to start the article: "...Since I started teaching six years ago, I’ve become more interested in gray areas. Maybe it’s because dealing with students seems to highlight all the complex ways in which a simple plan can break down. I sometimes have fantasies about what it’s like to be that teacher who’s seen it all — the dude who came to the final exam inebriated, the student who offered sex for a grade change. What would it be like to take all of that in stride?"
What a load of self-absorbed, juvenile horse crap. "What would it be like to take that in stride" indeed.
People who are against "free" college tuition aren't only concerned about the concept of the government even being involved at that level in any way distributing taxpayer money for this, they also understand many "institutions of higher education" just like this one are liberal indoctrination mills. They are (and would be on a much larger scale, if "free) continuations of the public school system.
remember this student well..if you’re ever in a public place and someone starts shooting, you may have to hide behind her, or someone like her.
After reading the responses to her propaganda piece, I think said “professor” got a rude awakening. As far as I read, ALL the comments told her that she was completely wrong not to write the letter of recommendation.
In other words, the so-called professor would deny her students their constitutional rights, both in terms of the first and second amendments.
I believe it is time to deny such people their “right” to be employed at a state-funded institution.
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