Teacher!!

It was a required course for all Education Graduate students, and the only choice you had was when you were taking it. It was Developmental Psychology, and I was not eager,  but of the academic subjects required in my Art Education program, this was the one I was looking forward to.

The funny thing was that in the years yet to come at the time, I would end up teaching all of the courses at the graduate level that I didn’t want to take, and tried to do a much better job than had been done for me.

The course was taught by a young PhD who had recently completed her degree and had just obtained this part time teaching position. It was probably her first class. She had come from New York as I remember, and I kind of liked her. She was interesting and of course I enjoyed the subject.

There were about 20 or so students in the class from all different education programs, but clearly, all of us were classroom teachers. This program existed, as it was offered part-time, for working teachers at Towson University in Baltimore.

Somewhere during the mid-point in the term the teacher told the class that she was unhappy that several of the students had reported her to the Dean for not doing her job. I was shocked as I enjoyed the class and could not imagine what was wrong.

Being young and naive at that time I didn’t see it coming.

She had not listed the dates for a mid-term and a final, as well, she had not given out the term paper assignments the disturbed students were waiting for. I cringed! I was so happy not to have to do a term paper I was floating on a cloud. But the disturbed ones needed structure to exist!

I could have guessed who had done it, but they managed to let us know who they were as they were proud that they had forced the teacher to comply with the rules! They didn’t need to learn Developmental Psychology; they were the embodiment of some form of psychosis that we all now understood!

We had our tests and our paper, albeit a bit nicer done as I remember than a formal process envisioned by our tattle-tales (whistle blowers they surely thought).

I learned about Developmental Psychology and never did see the teacher again but she tried to do a good job and almost succeeded.

If memory serves me I did write the Dean (in the teacher evaluation form) to say what a good teacher she had been and how unfairly a few had high jacked the direction of the class.