I see this very differently than the professor who wrote this. She wants to pay her back about how she acted with a disabled student, but I’ve been in the student’s position more times than I would have liked to. Here’s what most likely happened.
The student takes this letter to the professor and asks to meet with her privately. She does it privately because other students have made a big deal about her accommodations before and it’s embarrassing.
The professor seems friendly, so she disclosed exactly what she needs. Then the professor sits the letter aside and questions her about how often this actually happens, and tells her how big a problem it would be if it happened in this course. This is a threat. The professor is now making her uncomfortable asking for help when she needs it. In my experience, when you have a professor act like this, they’ll often shoot you down when you do ask for help later. The student has probably experienced just this.
After the professor blows off her needs, the student sits in the back of the class and never speaks to the professor again. She obviously no longer trusts the professor anymore. She never used her accommodation that semester. That could be because she never had a panic attack, but more likely, she had several and felt threatened that she’d be kept from graduating if she showed any weakness and asked for help. She may have done well in the course, but it was likely at a huge cost to her health in some way.
Because this student felt so alienated, the professor thinks they did a good job. I’ve lived through this dozens of times. The professor failed this student. She had to work much harder than other students without disabilities to go the same distance. It’s not fucking fair.
It sickens me to see a professor acting like this and thinking they’re the hero of all disabled students. I really wish I could say it’s unique, but it’s fucking not. Not even close.
Yeah the tone of this is very much she seems to think most people don’t need as many accomedation as they are given, even though I generally hear a lot more of people getting nowhere near enough help.
Honestly it also kind of stands out she is a psychology professor I bet that’s part of why she is so entitled and egocentric. Despite having no context for the student’s problems she feels qualified to give unsolicited medical advice, which I am willing to bet was probably like, breathing exercises and shit that you could get out of a random woman’s health magazine, and then she goes home feeling like she saved someone with her shitty generic tips and refusal to help.
Also the second student it seems like she and some other teacher randomly decided a student was a mental health risk, with no evidence of any diagnosis or anything even, and people put them on watch over this despite from what I can tell the student NEVER ACTUALLY DOING ANYTHING?
And then she pats herself on the back for butting into someone’s buisness on an unproven hunch which never actually was shown to be nessassary like????
Like she apparently has decided that she knows what is better for random strangers then they or their own doctors do and is enforcing it and acting like it makes her a hero somehow but, what it really makes her is that obnoxious sitcom psychologist that shows up in one episode giving unsolicited life advice while psychoanalysing their behavior that at the end ofbthe episode gets told to never come back and everyone hates them
To quote the opening of the article:
“The student, let’s call her “Lee,” arrived at my office at the appointed time, took the chair I indicated, pulled a form from her backpack, and shot me a look. Not confrontational, but not exactly friendly, either — a demeanor underscored by the old black motorcycle jacket and punk haircut she sported. She was in a large lecture course I was teaching, and had asked to see me in this first week of term. As soon as I glimpsed the form, I knew she was here to tell me which accommodations the accessibility office had deemed her eligible to receive.”
The author is telling us right from the start that they make judgements based on appearance and prejudice about disabled people. Nothing they say after that matters.
If you start out with those attitudes you CANNOT make unbiased decisions.
The author admits to being an ableist bigot without knowing they did it because in their world “looking punk” is so bad that it’s acceptable to be rude to people who do. The author can’t understand why a person who has been referred to them for accomodations might not be a model of conformity in presentation or attitude.
Like, Dude, this kid has been through hell because the system has failed them because they are not “normal” and you want them to act like a model employee at a job interview?
You failed your number one job requirement – doing your best to help THE STUDENT (not your own idea of what a student should be).
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Urocyon's Jaunts 2.0 