Football 1; Physics 0

NPR had This Story on a Georgia physics teacher who was fired for docking a football player's grade for putting his head on his desk and sleeping through a class. What the heck was this guy thinking - the kid was a football player - and in Georgia yet. The school board's position was evidently that school policy prohibited basing the grade on anything but academic performance, while the teacher tried to argue the bizarre notion that staying awake in class was part of the kid's academic performance. I mean like sheesh, it's not like the kid was some geek - he was a friggin football player.

Not that I'm completely unsympathetic to the teacher's position - I've been a teacher. I admit being a bit distressed when, after I asked my son about his mathematical methods teacher, he said that he wasn't really sure, since the only time they had met was when he turned in his take home final. I might even have wondered aloud why I was spending North of $30k/year to send him to that supposedly elite school.

In the end though, I had to admit that the Georgia teacher was way off base. Hey, I've been a football player too.

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