Teaching the daughter of a lecturer, while being simultaneously enrolled in his course

Question

I'm a student in a bachelor program at a local university, while I'm also a teacher (professional school) of apprenticeship students within the same sphere of study.

A few days ago I received the participants list of a class which I going to teach next semester. I went briefly through the names and one quite unique name caught my interest. After a quick search on the web, I'm sure that one of the participants is the daughter of a lecturer who gives courses in which I'm enrolled at the university. He was grading my work and he will probably be grading my work in the future for one more course.

I had a few intense discussions with this lecturer about some topics of my studies. He also felt a bit insulted once because I missed some of his lectures, but we always stayed professional. I also feel that he graded my work and exams like the ones of any other student.

It's too late to find a replacement for me and this class? I'm wondering what should I do with this situation -- should I notify the school where I'm teaching about this?

Answer 1

I’ve had to teach colleagues children, nephews, and even the son & daughter of the Dean.

Be professional. Treat and grade them the same as any other student. They also think “oh sh*t s/he knows my Dad / Mum so I had better be careful”... :). Don’t call them out in class, but don’t avoid them either. If you do random questions and it’s their turn, then fine.

Don’t worry, they don’t go back to your Dean talking about your teaching performance. They just want to benefit from your wisdom / experience / knowledge same as the other students...

Answer 2

Yes, you should notify the school. However, part of being a professional is just being professional. You don't indicate any issues that seem to imply anyone behaving badly, so I think you should go ahead. But not notifying the school (and probably the lecturer as well, if the daughter is a minor) would be a mistake. If something bad happens in the future, you don't want that incident to be the first indication that there might have been a conflict of interest from the start.

I would answer quite differently if you thought there was a likelihood of conflict with the lecturer.

Answer 3

Personally, I think this is slightly more serious situation than just teaching colleagues children as the lecturer in your university will be grading your work. That means there is direct power and benefit structure existing. The angle I would be worried is that someone else will claim you are grading the daughter more positively to gain better grades from dad. I don't think that's too high of a risk, but still worth to note.

I agree that you can notify the school. In addition, if your course has assignments you are grading, I suggest that you ask colleague who has relevant enough knowledge about the topic to take a look at the student's work and give approximate grade for it (obviously without knowing what you gave). If you have TAs, one of them can do it. In case somebody brings up claims that you are unfarily grading, you have now something to show for your defence. Other possibility is to take blind grading as a policy on your courses, so that you never know who you are grading. But it might be harder to prove that you really did not know who you are grading.

In my opinion, one should disqualify themselves from grading preferably bit too easily than take changes. On the courses I have grading responsibilities, we generally try to assign the grading in such way that if you know a person (outside the role of them being your student), you won't grade their work. If everybody knows the person taking the class, then we try to have two opinions on the work. It does get difficult if you are only person working on the course without TAs.