I teach at a small private college now, but for years I taught at a larger state school in Virginia where a favored major was in early education and that turned out a lot of the state's teachers. (Typically those who wanted to teach older grades majored in a field and obtained teaching certification.) I and some co-horts taught a LOT of education majors since several required courses are in the psychology department. I don't think I'm alone when I say that a lot of education majors are academically weak. I am NOT saying all teachers are dumb! but when there were poor students there was a good chance they were education (or criminal justice) majors. What that tells me is not that teaching is for the dumb. I have a lot of respect and admiration for my daughter's teachers. Rather, the requirements and expectations and pay made a lot of good students turn away from the idea of teaching as a career...and this was BEFORE "No Child Left Behind". Now when I teach the freshman level psychology course, we always get on the subject of their standardized end-of-grade testing. You would expect that they would complain and they do, but they make very good points. To prepare them for work and college, they have to pass a test that focuses on memorization, what a great idea huh? The poor teacher has to motivate a lot of them by reminding them that if they don't learn X, they won't pass the test and move on...well, the tests are often several weeks before the end of the school year and what does the teacher have to hold over the kids' heads then? This incubates an attitude of "If it isn't on the test, there is no point in learning it". Freshman who remember that experience aren't jumping on the bandwagon to teach either.

Having identified a problem, I must admit that I have no solution. Maybe others do.

Well, I think that one can make too big a deal about gaining weight in college. A lot of people gain some weight because of maturation, not just body fat. However, I am personally annoyed at the idea that we are never supposed to talk about weight because of eating disorders. EDs are bad, but a lot more people suffer because of obesity.

Don't think 15 pounds is that big a deal? Go to a large supermarket. Immediately pick up three 5-lb bags of sugar or flour. Carry them around for at least an hour while you shop. Put them down. Don't you feel better now?

College students act a lot like adults if they are treated like adults, BTW.

Savant doesn't warrant this criticism. She was identifying possible biases of which the teacher might not have been aware, and calling on less attractive children is a good example of such a bias. There is plenty of research in social psychology showing that attractive children, as well as attractive adults, benefit from their looks in non-obvious ways. I don't know if they are called on more in class, but they are assumed to have various good qualities such that it seems likely they'd get more attention from the teacher. This potential bias, being less known, was well worth remarking on in the short space that Savant has for this item. I suppose she could have hijacked the entire Parade magazine to write a manifesto on bias in teaching, but since Parade might have resisted and she's not a social psychologist or a teacher, she might have decided to use her space wisely instead.

Our college, as well as many others, offers a human sexuality class (a colleague teaches it, not me, but details of the class are well known in the department) and it is not about putting condoms on bananas. Students learn about culture and sexuality around the world, about menstruation and pregnancy and abortion, about conditions that affect sexuality (i.e., handicaps), sexual disorders, sexual practices, homosexuality and bisexuality. There is a LOT of biology and it's not an easy class, although it is very popular. In fact, anyone who had taken the class would be quite familiar with the various XX and XY states described in the next Broadsheet article, along with the fact that they are forms of intersex conditions caused by such exciting and sexy disorders as androgen insensitivity, 5-alpha-reductase deficiency and congenital adrenal hyperplasia. Quite a long way from the banana on a condom.

However, I and all of my colleagues would agree that students should be coming in with a solid groundwork of knowledge about sexuality and that is not what's happening. Sadly, I am pretty certain that the ones who know the least are those who are not taking the class.

This sort of thing was never an issue at LLL meetings that I attended, I can't remember religion ever being an issue. I have however noticed that there is an increasing (or maybe its just the visibility increasing) of this sort of hybrid granola/fundamentalist Christian parent who homeschools, breastfeeds, cloth diapers, maybe does the back to earth thing (all well and good) but also is very anti-abortion, fundamentalist, lots of kids, etc. There's a website, BabyCenter.com, which has a slew of 'em that post constantly and heatedly to discussion boards and I'm talking the "Halloween is sinful" type. BabyCenter also has plenty of heathen moms that fire back, so many of the threads degenerate into virtual screaming contests. I honestly don't see how these women have time to use a computer but there they are. So anyway, I'm worried that LLL has been taken over by these types as they seem pretty militant. That would be a shame. It seemed unlikely, but I understand that the Air Force Academy has had a similar fate at the hands of fundamentalist Christian males.