In elementary and middle school you usually don’t have too many obligations to juggle. Homework, chores, maybe a club or sports team.
By high school, you might have a part-time job added to the mix, plus SAT prep and figuring out where you want to be after graduation.
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But college and university are very different.
Whereas you may have gone to school with the same peer group for a decade, once you get to a post-secondary level, the student body is far less homogenous.
The range of ages, backgrounds, and life experiences can be overwhelming.
With that wider range of people comes a wider range of obligations to juggle with classes and schoolwork.
Often, that can include finding reliable and affordable childcare.
Often, the inability to find said childcare causes problems with the parents’ ability to learn.
Perhaps it’s simply that their grades suffer due to missed classes or lack of study time, but it can often also mean dropping out entirely.
The best teachers understand this struggle and will do their best to support struggling students.
But Nathan Alexander, a visiting Professor of Mathematics at Morehouse College in Atlanta, took that to a whole new level.
When student Wayne Hayer’s babysitter fell through, he had to bring his infant to class.
Kudos to him for deciding to take the harder option. Many might have skipped class, but Hayer knows the importance of going.
Thankfully, he has a supportive professor, who went above and beyond. Alexander’s act of kindness was shared on Twitter by Nick Vaughn.
Not only was he fine with having the baby present, but he also understood that it would be difficult to pay attention.
So for the whole class, Alexander wore the baby carrier strapped to his chest and the kid was totally chill about it.
Hayer felt comfortable bringing her because Alexander had made it clear to his students that he’s help them in any way he could.
Because the class is collaborative, the baby wasn’t very distracting.
“She was really well behaved,” Alexander told Yahoo lifestyle, “I think we all enjoyed having her energy.”
Other students quickly chimed in with their love of their professor.
The professor also took the chance to point out the issues underlying events like this.
“This brings attention to that fact that we need to sort of think about some of the systemic inequities for people that struggle with affording childcare,” He said, “Women deal with this all the time as mothers, and so do men as fathers.”
But until that’s sorted out, we can depend on the good hearts of professors like him to ensure no one misses out on their education.
