So if you're a Tech, or maybe even a UGA grad, when you read this you're probably wondering why there were no profs like this when you were taking Calculus. You, know, the kind who go the extra mile to actually actually teach so you can actually learn. Even when it is inconvenient, when it requires extraordinary effort, when circumstances are far from ideal. For you and for the prof.
Maybe this is just difficult times causing some to flourish while others wilt. Maybe there is an inverse analogy with the pandemic. Viruses retreat to safe reservoirs, waiting to return when conditions are favorable and opportunity arises. Maybe the service academies are safe harbor for the good remaining in education, protected from the onslaught of pressures to become credential factories, a place where snowflakes are turned away at the door. Perhaps there is a seriousness not seen outside the services. These are not students to be placated with inflated, unmerited grades; these are officers-in-the-making whose post-commission knowledge and abilities will lead others into and through harm's way. In many cases those who stand at the head of class in an academy have or will serve alongside former students. This is not a place where professors can pass their failures along to become someone else's problem. This is life and death where professors are called upon to stand and deliver.
Thankfully there are those among us, largely unnoticed, who when confronted with tough challenges in difficult times are stirred to action rather than shaken into incapacity.
Maybe this is just difficult times causing some to flourish while others wilt. Maybe there is an inverse analogy with the pandemic. Viruses retreat to safe reservoirs, waiting to return when conditions are favorable and opportunity arises. Maybe the service academies are safe harbor for the good remaining in education, protected from the onslaught of pressures to become credential factories, a place where snowflakes are turned away at the door. Perhaps there is a seriousness not seen outside the services. These are not students to be placated with inflated, unmerited grades; these are officers-in-the-making whose post-commission knowledge and abilities will lead others into and through harm's way. In many cases those who stand at the head of class in an academy have or will serve alongside former students. This is not a place where professors can pass their failures along to become someone else's problem. This is life and death where professors are called upon to stand and deliver.
Thankfully there are those among us, largely unnoticed, who when confronted with tough challenges in difficult times are stirred to action rather than shaken into incapacity.
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