Columnist not always at fault

“I don’t understand that columnist for the Star,” Lueger McNall said, sitting in a drunken stupor. “You know that fella on Fridays.”

Right, so what do you mean?

“I have him in a couple of classes and he seems like a smart kid and everything, but what’s he trying to do by criticizing faculty like that … raise the curve?”

He wasn’t trying to criticize all of the faculty, Lueger. Besides, you don’t really think one of your instructors would do something like that, do you?

“Sure they would! They’ve got egos like everybody else, don’t they?”

Well, yeah, but they’ll understand it was only his opinion. It won’t affect you; it shouldn’t even affect him.

“How do I know that? What if some mad professor decides that Kirk is a bloomin‘ smart ass, and to get back at ‘em he decides to raise the curve and make it a lot tougher on the whole class because he thinks we’re all like that goof.”

Well, that would be unfair for a teacher to do. It would taint his or her objectivity.

“Who’s sayin’ anything about objectivity? A lot of folks ain’t objective, ‘specially teachers. Why, I once had a kid in my second-grade class who swallowed the class goldfish, and do you know what the teacher did to him?”

Lueger, this isn’t second grade, it’s higher education. You can’t compare the two. The university is a place for free thinking. Students are expected to contribute their ideas toward the collective good.

“That’s fine. Just so Kirk’s collective doesn’t contribute to my grades,” McNall said.

If you think you’re getting cheated or slighted by a teacher, then maybe you should take his advice and tell somebody about it. You know, put some heat on the bad seeds.

“Why should I make waves in the sea? I’m sure not going to climb in the boat with that freakin’ goof. Thinks he can change the world or somethin‘.”

He’s not talking about changing the world. He’s talking about weeding out the bad teachers and wasteful administrators at NIU. I don’t think he was talking about every teacher or even most teachers, but there are a good many professors who are hurting NIU’s quality. There are plenty of good teachers at NIU. I’ve had some excellent instructors, but I’ve had a lot of bad teachers too. I think he’s just saying, “Hey, we got a good thing here, this higher education stuff. Let’s try not to it up.”

“Kirk is just a two-bit troublemaker trying to keep pace with his contemporaries. If he wanted to swallow the fish, he should has done it when no one was looking.”

Lueger, this has absolutely nothing to do with that kid in your second-grade class.

“Sure it does. The teacher got rid of all the class pets, because of the poor kid who swallowed the fish.”

Lueger, was this kid you by any chance?

“That don’t matter. Don’tcha get it? If Kirk swallowed the goldfish, NIU may be afraid that some other kid is going to down the newt, and someone else may fry up frog legs, and some other will chomp on the chameleon. Why, pretty soon all the animals would be gone.”

ight…