Okay, let's see how best to approach this sensitive topic.
There is this US university with a School of Public Health that houses the Department of Exercise Science (you've got to love that name ... ;-) offering a very popular course taught by an adjunct professor to an enthusiastic and appreciative audience of undergraduate students for 17 years. At the beginning of this semester, he finds that his contract has not been renewed.
Apparent reason? His course was deemed a little too, um..., detailed by some (two?) students last year. The course he has been teaching all these years is on human sexuality.
Read a dry recounting -- in the best traditions of academia! -- of this episode in this Inside Higher Ed news story.
..too detailed..?? for students.? It might be something to do with the person they are discussing this topic..and I am sure, not the subject. :-)
ReplyDelete-sekar
I did some sex-ed classes for girls aged 13 to 15. You'd be shocked by how little they knew about their own bodies (much less about sex!) Myths, guilt and fear seemed to crowd their mind.
ReplyDeleteEven more interesting, we often had to go to great lengths to talk to parents. Very few parents had a serious issue. (Lower middle class mostly) The unfortunate (or fortunate) outcome was about 5% of the girls (numbering to 80) managed to break their silence about abuse to their parents. I guess anywhere in the world, prudes try to rule the roost.
Sekar, I could have used 'sexually too explicit', but didn't.
ReplyDeleteNeha, the complaints came from a couple of students who knew very well about the course before they took it. After all, this guy has been teaching it for 17 years!