"A person with a disability is:
...anyone perceived as having such a disability"

So, prof, you are butt-f*cked.

Re-read article.

Nope. She's still screwed. That was the most insensitive, ill-informed comment I've seen in a while. And not just for the student with the speech impairment: What kind of weirdo professor doesn't want to take questions from her students because her lecture is so important she can't go over the prescribed time?

The outrage may be overdone, but lady, you needed a good smack to get your priorities straight.

If this kid stutters as bad as I used to, I'm shocked that he even tries to ask questions in class.

/psycotherapy got me past my stuttering for the most part
//still stutters a little

Begoggle: I've been OFFENDED!
QUICKLY, to the MEDIA!!!!

Even if the stuttering kid was in the right, how about just shutting up and sucking it up.
We've all had teachers who were jerks.

tha-tha-tha-tha-sss-sss-sss-sss-e-e-e-e-e-easy fo-fo-fo-fo-for-yo-yo-yo-yo-you-ta-ta-ta-sa-sa-say

It is painfully embarassing to have that problem. It doesn't help when people try to finish your sentences for you when they have no clue what you are going to say.

Hope he gets some help. He'll have a hard time getting a job if he can't talk.

Gyrfalcon: Re-read article.

Nope. She's still screwed. That was the most insensitive, ill-informed comment I've seen in a while. And not just for the student with the speech impairment: What kind of weirdo professor doesn't want to take questions from her students because her lecture is so important she can't go over the prescribed time?

The outrage may be overdone, but lady, you needed a good smack to get your priorities straight.



If I'm in a class that I paid good money for I would prefer the teacher do most of the talking, not some know it all student

James Earl Jones was a stutterer. NOW listen to how he sounds. He should be an inspiration for people that stutter.

N-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-not av-av-av-av-av-av-av-av-available for c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-comment.

He thrusts his fists against the posts and still insists he sees the ghosts

I know someone who's going to learn the hard way that the real world is NOTHING like high school.

This ranks up there with kids who refuse to read their textbooks and then wonder why they keep failing exams.

NYT is now misbehaving ... TFA ...


Professor Defends Treatment of Stutterer

By RICHARD PÉREZ-PEÑA

Published: October 13, 2011

Calling herself "the victim of a character assassination," the college professor who asked a student with a severe stutter not to pose questions in class said that her actions were misinterpreted, and that she did not mean to silence him.

In an interview, the professor, Elizabeth Snyder, said Thursday that since the dispute was first reported this week in The New York Times, "I've gotten the most hateful, vile, vicious e-mails," making her fear for her safety.

The student, Philip Garber Jr., is a 10th grader taking courses at the County College of Morris, in Randolph, N.J., but talking for him is slow and difficult. He was enrolled in a history course taught by Ms. Snyder, an adjunct professor. After a few classes, she sent him an e-mail asking that he pose questions after class, "so we do not infringe on other students' time," and that he write answers to her questions rather than try to reply out loud.

She did so, she said, partly to put him at ease, and also because he would have taken up too much class time if she had let him. "He seemed to want to answer every question," she said, adding, "you'd have to take into consideration the amount of time he takes to get the answer out."

But she insisted that her ideas were only suggestions, and that "there was never any intent to stop him from speaking."

In fact, Ms. Snyder said, she told him that she would call on him once per class.

Philip said that one day, he kept his hand raised for most of a class, but she did not call on him.

In a statement she composed before the interview, Ms. Snyder wrote, "I did not call on Philip in this class nor did I call on anyone else, simply because I had a detailed presentation planned for the class and I wanted to be finished in the prescribed time.

"He misinterpreted this and assumed it had something to do with his stuttering; I interpreted his hand up for 75 minutes as someone unfamiliar with a college lecture format and frankly a little rude," she said. "In hindsight, I should have stopped my lecture and called on Philip because he had become so fixated on making a statement that it didn't seem to matter to him that he was interrupting my presentation."

Philip contends Ms. Snyder did, in fact, call on other students that day. She disputed his account, and his assertion that after that class, she told him, "Your speaking is disruptive."

Both say that they had agreed that he would send her an e-mail listing his concerns, but he never did, and that she tried to arrange meetings with him and a college dean, but Philip backed out of them. Ms. Snyder said she also consulted a speech therapist about the situation.

Ms. Snyder declined to comment for the initial article, which was published on the front page of The Times on Tuesday. Instead, she referred questions to the college, which she said the college had advised her to do.

The article elicited hundreds of comments from readers, some of them furious at Ms. Snyder, and others furious that the story was told without comments from her. It also prompted extensive coverage in other news media.

College administrators said Tuesday that she had acted improperly, and that what Philip had experienced was discrimination - a label Ms. Snyder disputes.

Philip said that he felt sympathy for Ms. Snyder for the negative attention she had received and that he had no interest in seeing her penalized. "Most people's mistakes do not become national news," he said.

Ms. Snyder has taught history for 37 years, first in middle school and for the last decade at the county college, and students give her generally positive marks. In May, the college's Educational Opportunity Fund named her educator of the year, for her work with financially and academically challenged students.

"I've been an advocate for kids my entire life," she said. "But people's rush to judgment on this, it feels like it's pretty much destroyed my life."


A version of this article appeared in print on October 14, 2011, on page A24 of the New York edition with the headline: After Public Outrage, Professor Says Handling of Stuttering Student Was Misinterpreted.

Related: Stutterer Speaks Up in Class; His Professor Says Keep Quiet (October 11, 2011)

Okay, how many of you farkers emailed her?

Stuttering Stanley! Stuttering Stanley! Stuttering Stanley!

Dr J Zoidberg: Gyrfalcon: Re-read article.

Nope. She's still screwed. That was the most insensitive, ill-informed comment I've seen in a while. And not just for the student with the speech impairment: What kind of weirdo professor doesn't want to take questions from her students because her lecture is so important she can't go over the prescribed time?

The outrage may be overdone, but lady, you needed a good smack to get your priorities straight.

[images.icanhascheezburger.com image 400x307]

If I'm in a class that I paid good money for I would prefer the teacher do most of the talking, not some know it all student

Maybe so, but I'm not talking about the class, I'm referring to her attitude in the article. She sounds so put-upon, like everyone should have realized her time was precious beyond belief and what was this little punk doing DARING to raise his hand and ask a question?!? And her remark how this has "destroyed her life." Get over yourself, princess. Even the kid doesn't think she did anything that bad, so she sounds like twice a douchebag.

If the kid had his hand raised for 75 minutes in class, the thing to do was not ignore him because her presentation was so goddamn important or that he was "a little rude", this experienced teacher should have just said, "I'm sorry, I'm not taking questions today," so he didn't have to look like a fool and she didn't look like the queen biatch of the universe. How hard is that?

I'm sorry, she was insensitive. The outrage is overdone, as I said, but she needed a wakeup call.

Tahllunari: Everyone hates that person in a classroom where the teacher is lecturing and the student tries to awkwardly tell the teacher facts and ask her random details about the subject that shouldn't be covered in the course.

Indeed. My Bio 101 course had a student who would interject the prof's lecture to make a random comment. Several times per class. Most of it was like this: "Watson and Crick first published the double helix in 1953..." "1953? My dad was born that year!"

A different student, in an introductory botany course, would add anecdotes and commentary to every lecture, all in relation to Psilocybe cyanescens. "Psilocybe cyanescens does this, just like that plant you're talking about." "Psilocybe cyanescens also helps with heart disease, just like that plant over there." "There's new evidence that Psilocybe cyanescens does..." Every. single. lecture.

And yes, he did insist on using the scientific name.