Open Letter to an Instructor:

This is an open letter to a professor at my school. Only the teacher and I know for sure who that instructor may be.

I attended your class for only one day, but in that 50 minutes, I gained some knowledge about you as an instructor. I found you to be very knowledgeable about the subject you are teaching, and your delivery is great. The subject matter is of great interest to me, and I am determined that I could enjoy and get a great deal out of a semester in your classroom.

I, on the other hand, could add to your classroom as I am a student who participates, and I like and am interested in the subject matter that you are teaching.

Then, why would I drop your class after only one day? To understand this, I have to explain why I am attending college as an undergraduate at age 84. Truth be told, I lied by about 42 days and I am still a kid of 83. I don’t want this known, so please keep it to yourself, but for me, school is fun. In fact, it is a blast. Every 50-minute class or lecture that I attend in which I do not leave with a new or corrected piece of knowledge gained from an instructor or a fellow student is, to me, a wasted hour, and I do not have that many left to waste.

Fortunately, at this institution, this has not been a problem, except for one online course and it has soured me on those for my entertainment. Excuse me, that word should be “edification”. I differentiate between teacher, an endeavor I love and respect and educator, a teaching description which I try to find in the classroom I attend.

The designation of educator is one I truly believe that you will attain someday. But to do so, you will have to give up some of the sophomoric chicken-puckey you are using. I know that the classroom is your domain to use as you see fit under the institutional restrictions to which you are subjected, but it also is a temporary home to your students.

There is a very wise older professor at this university who has told me many times of the things that he did as a young professor that he no longer does because they were more work and aggravation for him and mostly added nothing to the education of his students.

Look, I do not care about my grades. I am going to get all A’s and B’s, and those grades are for bragging rights only and will not affect my future.

I commute 69 miles one-way to campus three days a week. Last semester, I missed four days, one a recurrence of problems from my recent stroke and three for weather. I have a team of five outstanding doctors keeping me alive, and there is no way that I would ever impose upon their busy life-preserving existences to secure a note for a teacher to excuse my absence. Also, if driving 140 miles round trip due to weather is life-threatening, then, even though she lets me believe that I am king of my domain, my wife won’t let me do it.

In your method of classroom control, last semester’s activity would cost me points off of my final grade. Deal breaker professor. When your classroom has grown up, I would like to take advantage of what you have to offer. I did feel that I owed you this explanation for leaving your class.

My very best wishes to the professor, and I will see you readers here next week.