As an educator, I feel the need to reassure you that most inappropriate comments in the classroom come from the students, and that the incident described below is atypical in a classroom environment.
However, despite that my experiences were of the norm, and consisted of students inappropriately complimenting me in odd and somewhat cryptic ways (I.E: “Ms. Kramer, you have a nice astronaut”), one college professor’s experience was the exact opposite.
Though it is hard to be certain of the name of the professor, school and student, there is a post on Reddit’s “Today I Fucked Up” page from a man named Jack Copeland, who is described on Wikipedia as a philosophy professor at the University of Canterbury.
This profile seems to match the description provided in the Reddit post:
“I’m a philosophy lecturer at my local university, and I have a fairly big first year class of a couple hundred students. I was handing out marked essays today, and often myself and one of the class tutors will hand them out to students individually. They’ll line up and down the isles of the lecture theatre, and one by one, take their papers.
“Often there’s a little bit of banter involved when you hand over the papers, usually to the effect of ‘well done’ or ‘Good day’ or other such meaningless comments. But sometimes you find yourself bored of the rhythm of it all and throw in an observation or two.
“A girl came up to me to collect her essay and she was wearing some quite impressive and noticeable knee-high yellow boots that were an incredible contrast to her bizarrely chosen red pants. It was something anyone would’ve noticed.
“So, the moment I handed her the paper, I smiled at her and went to say ‘Nice boots,’ with a bit of a wry smile.
“Instead, what came out was ‘Nice boobs.’”
“This was most embarrassing for both of us. She looked mortified and everyone around us was laughing.
“Fortunately, I explained to her the mix-up and she absolutely believed me, and was actually very nice about it.
“Just as she turned to walk away, I said ‘In all seriousness, though, you do have some very nice tits.’
“I’m on forced leave now.”
While it is evident that the inappropriate comment was a mistake, it is also evident that the college professor got carried away after seeing the student and the class took it lightly.
In taking it too far, and essentially taking on the role of class clown as a college professor, I do believe the professor got what he deserved (for the record: this is not to say I don’t find it funny, because I definitely do, but consequences must be paid for those sort of actions).
Do you agree?! Have you had something like this happen in your college classroom?! Feel free to share your thoughts and stories here at Campussports.net!
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