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.
Absolutely. Gun grabbers know they would shoot someone if they had a gun, and they project their own sickness onto others.
So long as she keeps her mental illness (liberalism) out of the classroom, she deserves fair treatment.
This is the essence of it - they can’t control themselves (they quite often admit it!) and therefore project that same lack of self control onto us. So naturally if “we” can’t control ourselves “we” should be trusted with those icky guns.
Liberalism is a mental disorder.
Liberals are not happy people.
Liberals will never be happy people.
The “professor” has presumably reached the end of her rainbow. Has tenure. Summer’s off. Shows up to work 16 hours per week...maybe 20 hours at most. She’s hit the jackpot right? WRONG!
Liberals can not be happy. The are never without hardship, they will always find themselves in “a struggle” of their own creation.
Ask yourself, if writing this recommendation is such “a struggle” and she’s made it that, how irrelevant is the rest of her life and daily goings on?
VERY!
A quality correction, my FRiend! Thank you.
I am SO incensed everytime I hear the MSM prattle off these words!
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