Erin O'Connor's blog, Critical Mass has regular updates on the case of Macomb Community College professor John Bonnell. Haven't heard of him, you say? That's because the case of his most recent suspension isn't gathering much press, despite the obscene nature of the charges.
It seems Dr. Bonnell likes salty, earthy language, which is not surprising in a man who's been teaching James Joyce for 30 years. In fact, Erin is quite sure that it's Dr. Bonnell's stellar teaching of James Joyce, and not the language, that's the reason behind the suspension. As Erin puts it, "Students do not have the right not to be offended, and a bad word or dirty anecdote does not harassment make," yet some students are complaining of being "verbally raped" and "degraded" in the classroom. Other students have come forth to defend Dr. Bonnell's language by saying that it was always germane to the topic of the class, and that he was an excellent professor. All of Erin's posts on the topic are fascinating (and lengthy), so go read 'em.
The whole mess reminds me of one of my most brilliant professors in college, who was also a certifiable lunatic. I won't name names here, but "Dr. J." taught the intro Calculus class for science and math majors, which often had 400 students enrolled at one time. At least, 400 were enrolled at the beginning of the semester, because the course was meant to weed out those who weren't built for a science degree, and boy, did Dr. J. ever weed.
He was nuts. He was a Vietnam vet, with a long grey ponytail and a disdainful yet schizophrenic expression, who owned only two shirts (a black turtleneck and a khaki shirt with epaulets) and one pair of jeans. He demanded absolute silence in the auditorium in which he taught - understandable, given the size of the class, but the man must have had sonar capabilities and nerves of steel, because he could hear one single solitary boy whispering to another in the back of the huge room, and he never hesitated to toss them out of class for it. His cursing was imaginative and perfectly timed, and he put down many a student who deserved it. There were 400 of us to one of him, and we were completely outnumbered.
He had a chair at the front of the auditorium and would often sit in it and pontificate on topics completely unrelated to calculus. No one dared interrupt him, or even move, because even when in a good mood, he'd single you out for embarrassment. One day he decided to quote lines of his favorite poetry and took turns pointing at various hapless students, stupid enough to be sitting near the front, and scream, "Who wrote that?!" No one ever knew - we were science majors, for God's sake - and that would lead him off into a rant about our general uselessness as human beings and the declining state of the educational system. His comments on the American military machine were brutal; his conspiracy theories, exquisite.
But MAN, could that guy teach calculus. Once we were all in a state of utter silence and complete rigidity, literally perched on the edge of our seats and ready to flee in case he was packing heat that day, he would step to the overhead projector and work his magic, and the formulas would flow directly from his pen into our left brains. All of his military experience came in handy here, because so much of learning calculus is understanding how the formulas describe real-world calculations of force, trajectories, rates of change, and the like. All of our examples revolved around cannons, tanks, and shotgun shells.
As far as I know, his job was never in danger. Perhaps science majors are weirder than other students, or made of sterner stuff (or just more likely to bear the crosses they're given). Perhaps his wildly positive evaluations, out of the 150 or so who made it to the end of the class, made up for it. Most likely, the college knew they'd never find anyone else good enough - and crazy enough - to walk into the lion's den of 400 young adults to teach "The Big Math" every year.
Posted by kswygert at July 2, 2003 03:31 PM