Outrage Culture - College edition

[Bu🤠ns]

http://www.vox.com/2015/6/3/8706323/college-professor-afraid

I thought this was a pretty interesting article as the author talks about how good education used to be about challenging students' beliefs and making them think. Now, along the similar lines outrage culture takes, teachers are frightened from challenging students for fear they'll lose their jobs over what ultimately amounts to hurt feelings. This, in turn, causes educators to censor what otherwise would be really good discussions and plain old learning.

Thoughts?

[Dubya]

It wasnt that way when I was going to school. Yeesh. Now Im kind of glad I didnt finish. Id hate to try to teach in an atmosphere like that.

I wish the copy and paste on this phone wasnt so wonky. That article brought up a lot of things I find silly about identity politics. Ah well.

[Roly Poly Oly-Garch]

I like that the author capitalized Grievous Harm. I haven't finished reading, but I'm pretty sure the rest is going to depress me.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I don't know what it's like from a professor's perspective, but I do know that most of my fellow students are fucktards and that I hate being a TA with a burning passion.

[Dubya]

The classes I had where the profs had TAs were all freshman and sophomore level. Mostly freshman. Big, auditorium classes used explicitly to separate the fucktards from the serious students.

I always felt bad for them.

The TAs, I mean, not the fucktards. What was it Eddings called it, the academic version of slavery? Something like that.

[Roly Poly Oly-Garch]

Not as depressing as I anticipated. "Nothing to do now but sit on our hands...and wait for the inevitable conservative backlash," was pretty on the nose.

[Prelate Diogenes Shandor]

Feelings have no place in the pursuit of knowledge (except in psychology where they may sometimes be appropriate as the subject of detached observation)

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

The classes I had where the profs had TAs were all freshman and sophomore level. Mostly freshman. Big, auditorium classes used explicitly to separate the fucktards from the serious students.

I always felt bad for them.

The TAs, I mean, not the fucktards. What was it Eddings called it, the academic version of slavery? Something like that.

Yes, it basically is. And in some cases the professor can basically hold your GPA hostage in order to make you continue to TA term after term.

It can also be a really good career move... it goes on your resume or grad school application.

Science classes are the fucking best, because you either study your ass off and do shit right or you don't. There is no discussion. There is no appeal to emotion. What are you going to say, "electron behavior hurts my feelings"? No.

I TA in a psychology class and I would say that half the students are actually studenting. Like, actually trying, doing things like attending class, taking notes, reading the textbook, and doing homework assignments. The other half seem to be victims of No Child Left Behind, and seem to think that they will pass the class just because. And the saddest thing is, a lot of them WILL, and they will go on to graduate, and to complain that they can't get a job at the wage they DESERVE, and that they don't get the raises they DESERVE, and that it was bullshit that they got fired and it was only because the boss had a personal problem with them, and that college was bullshit anyway because they didn't really learn anything and you can't even get a good job with a college degree anymore.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Feelings have no place in the pursuit of knowledge (except in psychology where they may sometimes be appropriate as the subject of detached observation)

That's not exactly true, if it's true at all; there is plenty of room for feelings in academia. The very best academics and researchers are passionate about their work, and many of them come to it from a personal experience that motivates them, like the MS researcher whose college best friend had MS, or the AIDS vaccine developer whose adopted daughter was born with HIV. What there isn't room for is self-indulgent bullshit.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Not as depressing as I anticipated. "Nothing to do now but sit on our hands...and wait for the inevitable conservative backlash," was pretty on the nose.

I don't even know if it will be a conservative backlash, as he seems to be mistaking special snowflake syndrome for a phenomenon exclusive to liberal brats. Professors who teach at expensive private colleges have been complaining about it for a lot longer.

[Ben Shapiro]

Needs more triggers IMO.

[Cainad (dec.)]

Science classes are the fucking best, because you either study your ass off and do shit right or you don't. There is no discussion. There is no appeal to emotion. What are you going to say, "electron behavior hurts my feelings"? No.

You underestimate my whiny entitled tumblr millenial powers.

[Prelate Diogenes Shandor]

Needs more triggers IMO.

LOL. Agreed.

[Cain]

Not as depressing as I anticipated. "Nothing to do now but sit on our hands...and wait for the inevitable conservative backlash," was pretty on the nose.

I don't even know if it will be a conservative backlash, as he seems to be mistaking special snowflake syndrome for a phenomenon exclusive to liberal brats. Professors who teach at expensive private colleges have been complaining about it for a lot longer.

I think that's definitely a big part of it, and the move towards steadily more privatised education has led to the impression that schools are service providers not educators, and that the student as customer is always right.

However, I remember reading this guy's blog post from when he first put it up, and those by Freddie de Boer as well.  And I think their criticisms are a bit more subtle than that.  From what I can see, based on their writing, there are seperate problems which come together in particular in schools.  There is the liberal-rhetorical problem: most public liberals have incredibly weak rhetoric and verbal skills, and tend to rely on shutting down debate via the "I Win" button of accusations of sexism, homophobia, racism, "problematic", prejudicial etc.  And then there is the neoliberalisation of schools problem.  The two meet at a point because it's incredibly attractive for students to use discourse that originated in the academy, validates their complaints and allows little in way of dissent precisely because they are spoilt brats.  But they're spoilt brats operating within this particular discourse, at this particular time, because said discourse is very popular outside of the staid and traditional social conservative or libertarian conservative circles, and because they've learnt it works.

[Dubya]

I remember one of my favorite literature profs bitching when the powers that be made him remove The Sun Also Rises from the syllabus and substitute The Awakening.

His remark: "To those of you looking to teach, pay attention and ask ypurself - can I put up with this?"
My question: "How do you put up with it?"
His answer: "I remind myself that I retire in five more years."