The Fact Situation

I haven't blogged in a while. I've been really busy and have not had any blog-worthy thoughts to blog about, so I decided to use this post to kind of show y'all what I've been busy with.

As regular readers know, I was enrolled in 2 MBA classes (twice the normal load) from early March to late April. Well, one of them ended last Tuesday, when we took our final and turned in our final paper. The other had its last class meeting last Thursday when we turned in our final (it was take-home), but the paper for that class is not due until early May, and it's a toughie. We have to come up with an employment law situation (basically a story), write it up, then find 3 recent actual law cases from California or the Supreme Court, and use those cases to analyze our story.

The story was pretty easy to come up with. I heard a story on This American Life (the best radio show out there, in my opinion), and tweaked it a little.

Finding cases that were relevant and recent and from California has not been so easy.

Here's my fact situation, as it stands now (I'm sure I will change things before I turn it in):

Paul E. Ticks was a middle school math teacher on a probational contract because he was not yet tenured. Contracts were renewed annually unless notified by a March 15 deadline.

Paul was known in the community for his outspokenness on political issues, his criticisms of local politicians and the school board. In January of the school year, he got into a heated exchange with a student, who was the son of a local politician, criticizing the student’s mother for a stance she took that differed from his. In the heat of the moment, Paul used some expletives, and the incident was reported to the principal and a number of parents whose children were in the class.

Paul was given a verbal and written reprimand, stating that use of such language was inappropriate, and his discussion of political issues in class violated the district’s policy of not allowing political activity in classrooms (the policy was put in place to prevent teachers from using their position of influence to push issues that the students’ parents might be voting on). He was told that a repeat of his actions would lead to a non-renewal of his contract.

A few days before the end of school year, Paul complained to a co-worker about an action taken by the mayor. He referred to the mayor as a “goddamn idiot who never should have been elected.” This statement was made in his classroom, a few minutes before his first class was about to start. A few students who were in class early, heard the statement and it got reported to the principal. In early summer, Paul got notice that his services would not be needed for the next school year.

Paul sued the school district for wrongful termination, claiming that his 1st Amendment rights were violated, he was offered no hearing to explain his side of the story, and the district violated its own policy by not giving him notice of non-renewal by the March 15 deadline.

Questions and Answers

Students asked me the following questions on a handout I gave them on the first day of class. I didn't have time to answer them all in class, so here they are...

Do we have class tutors?
We can probably arrange for a tutor to work with students from our class, but we won't have tutors in the class

Do you have an adjunct studies class?
Not for my classes this quarter

How late can we be?
I don't care too much if you're a little late, as long as you come in quietly. Students who are late a lot usually end up not doing well in the class, so keep that in mind

Can we eat in class?
No

What area of math do you like the most?
I really like the visual aspects of math. I liked Geometry in school, and still do, but I like how graphs can illustrate the same things an equation can do, and I really like that

Do you enjoy teaching math?
Of course. If I didn't, I wouldn't be doing it

Is this going to be a fairly easy class so long as I do the work?
I think 'easy' is relative. I wouldn't say any class is easy because every class requires work to be done, and it's the responsibility of the student to reach the point where they feel comfortable with the material

Do you think you're a difficult teacher?
Some students would say that and some would probably say the opposite. Because I don't curve, I often get irate emails from students at the end of the quarter, complaining about their grade, so in that sense, I guess I'm difficult. I also do give students opportunities to improve their grades, so I think I'm a fair teacher

Why do you teach math?
I was going to be an engineer, then work as an actuary, then work with a consulting firm. In the end, I started teaching as part of my grad program, and really liked it, so it turned from something to get me through grad school to a career

Do you believe your way of teaching is fun and helpful?
This is a hard question. I have fun when I teach, and I'd like to think that I'm helping students, I don't know how much fun students have though so you tell me

Besides math is there anything else you would like to teach?
I would love to teach about West African culture. So many people in the US know so little about sub-Saharan Africa, and I think it would be cool to enlighten folk

What is your educational background?
I went to elementary school at Staff School in Zaria, Nigeria
I went to 3 middle schools: Demonstration School in Zaria, Huntley Middle School in DeKalb, Illinois, and Dumbarton Middle in Towson, Maryland.
I went to Towson High School in Towson
Bachelor's from Michigan State University
Master's from Michigan State University
Started a Ph.D. at UC Berkeley
Currently working on an MBA at San Jose State University

What do you want to do with your MBA?
That's the big question these days. I'm hoping to finish it up by December, and I don't have a good answer. I've thought about teaching business classes, becoming more of an administrator at a school or college, or open a Bed and Breakfast (my secret dream for the past 10 years)

What is your nationality?
My 'nationality' is American. My ethnic background is 1/2 Ghanaian, and a mixture of English, Dutch, Irish, and other things my dad would know more about

What do you do for fun?
I haven't had much time for fun as of late. I play soccer, go the gym (which is not always fun), watch TV shows on hulu, play with my cat, and spend time with my wife

What kind of music do you listen to?
I've been listening a lot to pandora over the past few months, and it just feeds music to you, so I don't know if there is a kind of music I like. I've recently become a fan of Blossom Dearie and Rachel Yamagata, but there is nothing like some classic Motown on a Sunday afternoon

How long have you grown your hair?
The last time I cut it was August 2003. I started 'dreading' it in January 2004

Will you ever cut your hair?
I'm sure I will at some point, but I don't know when that point will be

What is your favorite football team?
To be honest, I'm not a fan of the NFL. I LOVE college football, but the only NFL game I ever watch is the Super Bowl. My favorite team is the Michigan State Spartans!

Rambling at 16:12 on a Monday afternoon

I don't really know what to blog about, but it's been a while since I said my thoughts to blogville, so I'll ramble.

What have I been up to? Hmmm....last week was Spring Break, so I tried to stay away from everything De Anza. That, of course, doesn't mean I didn't do any work. I did most of the planning for my algebra class last week (insane to plan 9 weeks of a quarter in a matter of 4-5 days. Insane). Teaching 3 classes this quarter is going to feel like a relief, after teaching 4 last quarter. Thing is, I'm teaching Finite for the first time, and there are parts of the course I'm a little nervous about. I became less nervous after talking briefly to Prof. Webb, my awesome Decision Analysis professor at SJSU. I'm hoping to pull in a bunch of the stuff I've learned in that class into the Finite class.

I spent part of the week putting together my final project for the Decision Analysis class and reading a lot about employment law.

If you care, my project is coming up with a way to predict student success in the classes I'm teaching. It doesn't work well, but I'll probably be tweaking it for the next couple of years. I wanted to get that done with so I can start working on the final paper for my law class. We have to come up with an employment law situation, and use three law cases to analyze and decide the best course of action. Sounds easy, right? No. Coming up with a situation will not be hard (I already have one), but finding three cases that are similar enough to use in the analysis is going to be a pain. Also the paper has a 6-page max (double spaced). I know a lot of people don't like writing long paper, but squeezing analysis of a case, using three other cases as back-up is going to be tough to do in 6 pages.

"What did you do for fun, Jefferson?" you might be asking (if you got this far, without being lulled into a doze). The true answer is, not much. I watched some basketball (3 of my 4 final 4 teams made it, which is not bad), watched Gone Baby Gone, which was a very good movie. If it ended after 50 minutes, it would have been spectacular. While the second hour wraps things up nicer, I would have liked it to end at 50 minutes. Watching it, I realize that I missed the East Coast. The East Coast has an attitude that just does not exist out here. Maybe Lauren will get a job in the BosWash corridor, and we'll move there at some point.

We also went to Chinatown, which is always fun. If you haven't gone to Lucky Creation Vegetarian Restaurant, it's a must-eat in Chinatown.

That's my life right now. I'm waiting for yoga to start in an hour, then going home to watch Memphis beat up on Kansas. Yes, that is my prediction: Memphis will win the men's championship.

Stanford will win the women's, not because I'm married to a Stanfordite, but because the star
player of Tennessee is nursing an injured shoulder, so she will be limited.

What a blog, aye? Talkin' about law, a mini movie review, and women's basketball analysis.