That Friday, in their Intro to Ed class, Professor Martins began the lecture with some remarks about the students’ reports on their classroom observations.
“The reports you’ve done so far for your elementary and middle-school class observations are fairly good; but in most cases they lack the full details that you need to support your conclusions. You need to show your thought processes that led you from your observations to your conclusions. Don’t assume that your reader can make the connections that you think are obvious. This is important in the future when you need to write a proposal. Connect all the dots, okay?
“Now there were a number of real problems with your high-school observation reports. Obviously you saw that at our two high schools where you’re observing, that they’re running the Naked in School Program. Show of hands, class, how many of you had the Program running in your high school?”
About half of the students in the class raised their hands.
“Again, how many of you were selected and actually participated in the Program?”
Only eight of the forty-two students in the class raised their hands.
“Okay, then. The problems with your high-school observation reports, for the four students who have observed in the high schools so far, is that you’ve ignored the additional objectives that the Program imposes on the lesson plan for those classes. This shows that you don’t fully understand two things. First, how the Program’s objectives need to be integrated into the teaching of the lesson, and second, the effect of being in the Program on the participating students.
“Our faculty has been considering this situation and since the Program will be running in all high schools in the country by next fall, it’s essential that you students—you presumably intend to become teachers—that you fully understand those two instructional principles that the Program curriculum imposes. So the School of Ed expects that you students will obtain the required experience in dealing with the Program and the best way is through a first-hand exposure to it, and I mean that literally. Beginning at next class meeting on Monday, and for the remainder of the semester, these classes, lectures, and presentations, will be conducted with you students being naked, and your high-school observations shall be conducted naked as well.”
There were loud gasps in the room and shouts of “NO!”
“Also, like in the high schools, we’re developing a way for each of you to spend a week in your college classes naked as well, but this is much more logistically challenging to do...”
He was cut off by a number of shouts of objection and a loud clamoring by people trying to ask questions.
“I’m not answering any questions here. This will turn the class into a shouting match. If you have questions, please email them to me...”
Cynthia stood up. “Sir, this is not a question, it’s a statement.”
“Please sit down...”
“I will not sit. You will listen, sir,” she declared as she strode to the front. Suddenly Cynthia radiated an aura of command and authority. “And I mean to speak and will be heard. My comments are for both the class and for you too, sir, and you will not interfere, is that completely clear? You may try to fail me for this, but I will expect you to listen, and listen well.”
Roger had risen too and joined his sister. “Listen to us both, in fact,” he added.
Cynthia continued in a louder voice, “Roger and I had been chosen last year to participate in high school for that Program abomination and we refused; first, we are morally opposed to the idea of nudity in public. Second, its effects on the kids who participate have been demonstrably bad in enough cases so as to call its so-called benefits into question. Third, its effects on student learning are as yet undefined but appear to be uniformly negative.
“Now, as far as requiring nudity from us in this class, Roger and I categorically refuse. How many of you students will willingly strip for the prof here? None? Just what I thought. So, Professor Martins, no way am I a lawyer, but I know my rights. First, as an adult, I cannot be deprived of my right for privacy in my person for any reason. My body is private and will remain clothed. Second, if you intend to enforce this stupid new policy by using threats of adverse grades or even failing in the course, I believe that’s called coercion, and I think that using coercion to compel a person to provide sexual favors, and maybe even to force a person to remove his or her clothes, is a criminal sexual offense. At least I recall something like that way back when I took a civics class.”
“But this is a class requirement...” Martins tried to interject.
Roger broke in, “Whatever rules the university comes up with, it has to follow civil law. You can’t make your own laws or violate the ones that exist.”
Cynthia took up the argument. “Here’s what I think. Professor, if you don’t change your request that we do that nudity nonsense, next time I’ll bring a police officer to class. Then when you order a student to strip, the student will say...” she pointed to the class... “class, what will you say?”
“NO!” came the roar.
“Then if you make any statement of coercion or otherwise try to force the issue, I will ask the officer to arrest you on sexual assault charges,” Cynthia continued. “And possibly your chairman or dean or whomever told you that you had to use coercive threats.”
She turned to the class again. “Guys, Roger and I kind of led a resistance in our high school against the Program and basically got it stopped. Our school couldn’t fail anyone or punish anyone because everyone stood firm and they would have had to punish everyone—the entire school. Are we all together in our refusal here?”
“YES!” they shouted.
Professor Martins had no idea what to do to regain control of his class. Nothing like this had ever happened before; he came to class, where he was indisputably in charge; he spoke, students listened respectfully. He ordered that things be done, things were done. Nothing in his academic career had prepared him for the way that these two students had seized control of his classroom, just like that! By nature, he was a mild, non-confrontational person, and his mind was whirling! How could he reassert control?
“Wait!” he cried. “Please, wait; listen to me. At the curriculum meeting where this was discussed none of us had any idea that there would be such dismay over incorporating the Program objectives into this class. The faculty felt that most of you had experienced the Program, you had become familiar with public nudity, and now you would learn about its operation from the teacher’s point of view.”
Cynthia interrupted again. “None of you has ever taught in high schools, I bet. Right?”
“No, but...”
“Having just been through high school, and then after my high school observations, and talking to some others who’ve observed at those schools for this class, and talking to the teachers who had to run the Program in their classrooms, there’s a damned huge gap between the way those classes should perform and the way those classes actually perform. Unless you have tried to work with materials like the Program curriculum and its lesson plans, as I understand them, and try to apply them to the real classroom world with kids whose upbringing and personal senses totally oppose everything that the Program stands for, you’d see how this would pose an almost impossible situation for the teacher.”
“Let me break in here,” Roger said. “Cindy and I saw that over and over. Whenever we asked to have the educational objective explained, that is, the objective of something that the Program required a teacher to do, the answer was always that it was in the required Program curriculum, that they had to follow that curriculum, and some teachers even implied to us that there was no valid objective that they could see.”
Cynthia resumed. “I know we hijacked your class. We come from a Marine background, you know; our dad is a career Marine, and your announcement just took us by surprise—a surprise attack, if you will. So we responded with a counter-attack, a full beach invasion, to continue that metaphor, which is how the Marines respond when attacked. We mean no disrespect, actually, but we intend that this nudity nonsense will not continue. In fact, my brother and I and a group of other students—including those from another college—are beginning to do a survey, a project to try to see what we can learn about the true academic effects of the Program on high-school education. A few of the people in this class are working with us and we were kind of planning to include some of the results in our weekly reports for this class.”
Now this was an idea that Prof Martins could wrap his mind around. He thought he knew about classroom management; now he wasn’t so sure about that. But he certainly knew how to do studies. And a couple of sophomore students were proposing—hmmm, they were sophomores, weren’t they? This was a sophomore-level class—they were proposing to undertake a study of such tremendous scope and, indeed, importance, independently? With what resources? How could they collect data? Sophomores, working alone, came up with this while his doctoral candidates were doing research studies on trivial things like the best novels to use to teach 19th century English lit? He had to know more about this!
Martins stuttered, “Um, well, okay, now I think I see... Ah, yes, well, that makes sense now, Miss...?”
“Denison, Cynthia Denison, sir.”
“Ah, thank you. Yes, Miss Denison, your observation report; now it makes much more sense. You really need to learn to connect those dots, you know. Yes, I see your point now and this is an interesting insight; the children’s learning experience, we know, is greatly affected by the learning environment and environmental distractions play a significant role in impeding learning. What your report also mentioned is that loss of focus on educational objectives—wait, that was in another student’s report, wasn’t it? Well, that is also a significant impediment. I must learn more about this study you intend to work on. You say students from other colleges too? My goodness.”
“Um, sir?” Roger said. “Just one.”
“Well, be that as it may. A student-initiated study of such scope? Ah! Oh, class, about my initial, um, well, er, the naked part. I see that I will need to discuss this in much more detail with the department curriculum committee; there seem to be facts of which we were unaware. The class shall continue as it’s been without change. Now I need to learn more about this study that Mr and Miss Denison mentioned. So if you aren’t involved in their project, you may be dismissed, and any of you who are involved may stay if you want. Thank you.”
There was a smattering of applause and many of the kids who were leaving shook hands with the twins or slapped their backs as they left.
“I hope that you would share with me what your study objectives are, your data sources, and how you intend to process the data sets you assemble,” Martins said to the small group that remained. “I take it that this is the group that’s involved?”
“Yes, sir,” Cynthia responded. “There’s also a group from Georgia Polytech. Some are doing data collection and some web-based technical support.”
“Ah, I see... You sure you’re sophomores? You’re incredibly self-assured, young lady.”
“Actually, Roger and I are freshmen. This is our first term.”
“Really? Impressive. I’m burning with curiosity about this project of yours. My research interests lie in development of effective educational objectives and producing curricula to achieve those objectives. In reviewing the Program objectives and then its curriculum, I can discern no connection between the two, but there appears to be no way to study this as a model because of federal refusal to provide any data for such a study. Yet you are embarking on this project, so you obviously have found a way to collect data.”
“Well, a possible way; we hope this works...” Cynthia went on to describe the website that Roger had found and how they had intended, using its forum, to ask for information to be solicited from teachers.
“This is quite unique, I must say,” Martins commented. “A student-initiated study just for the purpose of gaining knowledge. How truly refreshing! My colleagues will be very impressed. Tell me, would you permit me to advise you on some of the elements of your data-gathering? That appears to be the weakest part of your project plan; the way you intend to solicit data from students on the forum to get data from their teachers. It could lead to, well, um, fudging the numbers, shall we say? You would not have what we call a ‘clean data set.’”
“Yeah, we actually wrestled with how to deal with that problem,” Rhonda offered. “So we decided to say up-front that making up the numbers would damage the study more than if it were never done.”
“Good point, and very accurate,” Martins agreed. “Perhaps I may help in that matter. If you agree, I believe that I can enlist a number of faculty at education schools around the country; I know many excellent people from a number of schools who all have a good relationship with many of their former students, some of whom now teach in high schools. Now I can’t promise much here, because I know that the federal government has gagged teachers under the threat of prosecution, but from what you say, this website is protected from government interference somehow.
“I propose that I request of my remote colleagues that they ask their teacher contacts to use that website forum to anonymously post their data. Further, I can work with you to show you the kinds of information you’d need to get to evaluate the differences between pre-Program and post-Program grades and evaluate it in a statistically valid manner. I think that if their anonymity can be guaranteed, you’d get clean data without having to go through student intermediaries. Does this sound satisfactory to you?”
Exclamations of agreement and expressions of thanks from members of the group rang out.
“Thank you very much, sir,” Roger said for the group. “How do you want to arrange this cooperation?”
“Well, why don’t we call it a class project? You’ll recall that the syllabus mentions a final paper that summarizes the objectives you studied as they are developed in the classes you observed. I think that if you slightly reorient your approach in your study as you described it earlier, it would fit my course quite well. And we can use my office hours to meet to plan and evaluate the study’s progress. But we’re leaving out your colleagues from Polytech.”
“We can keep them filled in and they’re doing the more descriptive part of this, anyway, sir,” Cynthia remarked. “But the piece you’re helping with was the most troublesome and we really appreciate it.”
“Yes, well, I was startled at how swiftly you just took over my class—your metaphor was very astute, young lady; it did feel like an invasion. Two people only, but still... Tell me, is that what Marines teach their children?”
Cynthia laughed. “Well, sir, I have no way of comparing how I was raised with how other kids are raised, really, but I guess my brother and I kind of model our behavior on our dad. He’s a no-nonsense guy, direct and forceful, and it gives him this natural air of authority that people automatically obey.”
“Well, I certainly felt that from you, I must say. How you just took over. Do you give lessons in doing that, by any chance?” He laughed. “I suppose I should be annoyed, or even angry. But actually you taught me a real lesson, Miss Denison. Two of them. Don’t ever take your students for granted, which I’m afraid I’ve been prone to do, and that a teacher should always keep an open mind and consider the student’s point of view. If you’d like to come to my office at 3:30 for my class office hours time, we can plan the data-gathering; will that work?”
They agreed to meet then, those students who were available at that time. Then they left the classroom. As they passed out of earshot of the room, Roger spoke.
“Wow, Cindy! That was fuckin’ awesome the way you used your command voice to take control of the class there. You were really channeling Dad, right?”
“Hee, hee,” she giggled, “Uh, uh. Not Dad. Mom. A Marine mom’s command mode. An NCO’s command promises only severe pain. A Marine mom’s command promises instant death!”
The group broke up laughing and went their various ways.
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