Educational Scenarios (controversial, racist, abortion, high school)

[tvdxer]

NOTE: These scenarios are made for the pleasure and laughter that they bring, and to get YOUR opinions of these realistic cases.

1. Gary, 31, is a well-loved and eccentric AP Physics and AP Chemistry teacher at a Midwestern public high school. However, his eccentricities have been going a bit far lately. He complemented a 17-year-old senior on her "magnificent body" in front of class, spent 15 minutes on a tirade about casual hook-ups in which he used the word "****" multiple times, and said "f!!k that s!!t!" after quoting a physicist who disagreed with him on the Quantum Field Theory. Administration has become aware of all these things, which he has said or done in the first two weeks of class. What should administration do?

2. Wu, 39, was recently hired to teach Chinese to students at a rather provincial small-town middle/high school. Wu migrated to the U.S. from Harbin, China and speaks fluent Russian but struggles with pronouncing English words properly. Recently parent-teacher conferences occurred and many complaints were given by parents that they could understand nothing he said. Quarter grades for students showed a failure rate of 41% in his classes, with only 8% getting an A. What should be done in this matter?

3. Anna, 29, a new high school social studies teacher whose credentials include an M.A. from Columbia and several published papers, has caused an uproar among parents in a conservative suburb of a major Southern city. She spent four weeks of her Social Issues class on "reproductive rights", which parents thought was a very biased treatment of the issue. Parents' complaints allege she forced a pro-life student into the hallway for using the phrases "sanctity of life" and "unborn babies" in his class presentation, scolded a girl for wearing a pro-life hoodie, and warned the women of the class that their right to an abortion was under attack and that it should be defended. She also did a controversial presentation on "s!ut shaming" and said that "just be being white, 75% of you and I are racists and colonizers". What should the administration do?

[Everdeen]

1. Fired.
2. Wu is probably applying the standards held by China to American students and, well, we cannot have that. Wu will be asked to lower his standards. As for his accent, I had a mathematics professor who was from China and at first, couldn't understand a word he said. After a while, though, I developed an ear for it as did my classmates. He was quite knowledgeable and I was richer for the exposure. I think the parents should be a little more patient with Wu and, perhaps, admin can suggest that he work on his accent. Most of his teaching should be done in Chinese anyway.
3. I think Anna should get one warning and then fired if she continues.

I find these "realistic cases" to be rather odd. In 15 years of teaching in a very large urban school district, I've never seen "realistic scenario" #1 happen. As for #2, unless teachers get pay raises, everyone better get on board with importing teachers from other countries. #3 I've seen, but not nearly as exaggerated as stated in your "realistic scenario". In fact, all three examples I find rather hyperbolic.