Professors harassing students

[SpanglerFan316]

Royal, you seem interested in my politics for some reason. I will say that my politics are complicated. For example, former business professor Dwight Murphey (http://dwightmurphey-collectedwritings.info/) told me I was an "eighteenth century liberal" and you can make of this whatever you wish.

[MoValley John]

I don't think I express my political views in a sports forum like this. Politics has nothing to do with college sports, in my opinion. Is it so important to people here that their views be adopted on this board that they would be willing to splinter support for Shocker athletics over political issues? My opinion is the ShockerNet is a place where people of all political persuasions should be able to come together and root for the Shocks while leaving politics at home. Am I wrong?

It works several ways. Politics are very important and mature people should understand and be able to discuss politics. At the same time, for some, discussing politics is a sport and to them, is as much a game as baseball or volleyball.

Then again, if you don't believe that you can segregate this forum and the opinions of those people posting on the politics forum, it may be a board you shy away from.

Myself, I have no problem calling someone a dumb, uneducated ***** on this forum, then congratulating them for being a genius on another. I have close, personal friend that are both extreme conservatives and far left liberals. It makes for lively discussion and good times.

[Kung Wu]

You might be surprised at the large number of conservative faculty at WSU.

WSU isn't the university in question.

That said, at WSU, I personally had the pleasantry of dealing with two activist leftist instructors. Coincidentally they were both English teachers. In both cases the instructors specifically asked for papers concerning political topics. These activist leftists absolutely do exist, even at WSU.

[SpanglerFan316]

I think this thread is proof that we need the basketball season to begin now.

I will admit to being a bit bored; otherwise I would not be in this forum. Once Cleanthony drops 50 points on Western Kentucky in front of the entire nation, this part of SN should dry up and blow away until next June. :applause:

[SpanglerFan316]

Libertarians and an article from 1988? That's my point, you are having to dig deep to find this stuff.

Nope; my friend "google" did all the work and it only took a moment.

[CBB_Fan]

My experience at WSU was that most professors in the STEM departments either kept politics out of the classroom or were conservative. On the liberal arts side I found a lot more professors that talked about politics in the classroom, and a majority were liberal (especially the younger ones). Either way, I feel that regardless of department a professor's political leaning and their teaching should not mix. When the class is relevant to politics (ethics, philosophy, history) the discussion should be neutral, informative, and encourage viewpoints from every side. Harassment for a viewpoint is wrong, regardless of what the viewpoint is (as long as the student is not personally disrupting the class).

[SpanglerFan316]

CBB_Fan: What is harassment? Have you seen the movie "The Paper Chase"? Was Professor Charles W. Kingsfield Jr. harassing James Hart? (From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Paper_Chase_%28film%29 comes the comment "Houseman noted that Kingsfield's behavior is actually a toned-down version of Warren's famous classroom rudeness, as enshrined in classroom lore, and recounted several examples of the professor's putdowns.")

[shock]

There were a lot of wars from 1914 to 1945. The class sounds interesting. The fact that the student (shock) doesn't realize that this was a period when the world was being changed in many ways and that many wars were occurring suggests to me that the student may not be paying attention. For King Wu to ask "Which war" suggests that King Wu is not knowledgeable about this time in history.

Look at http://www.war-memorial.net/wars_all.asp for example.

In comparison, 1945-2013 is fairly static. The Civil War in China (1945-1949) was one change but it pales in comparison with the creation of new countries (e.g. Jordan, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia), the change in attitude by people (e.g. in France, Germany, England, Ireland, India, Australia) toward government and toward military leaders, the appeal of "socialism" (whose definition is unknown to me; everyone seems to have his or her own definition), etc.

I hope this is sarcasm.

[shock]

CBB_Fan: What is harassment? Have you seen the movie "The Paper Chase"? Was Professor Charles W. Kingsfield Jr. harassing James Hart? (From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Paper_Chase_(film) comes the comment "Houseman noted that Kingsfield's behavior is actually a toned-down version of Warren's famous classroom rudeness, as enshrined in classroom lore, and recounted several examples of the professor's putdowns.")

Dr. X started the first half of the semester challenging his students to think outside the conventional political thought, however in the past few weeks he has gone from challenging to targeting. I’m an outspoken student that stands up for my beliefs, and have been commended for it by every other professor I have had at ESU whether or not they agree. Dr. Y specifically calls on me in class to share my opinion because he knows it differs from his own views and he wants his students to have a voice.
Dr. X baits about four of us because we don’t take his word as golden truth. For instance, his favorite topic to start with is socialism. He made the claim that we were all socialist whether or not we liked it because we were products of public school, and we have student loans. We just needed to accept the fact that we were all socialist.
I raised my hand and asked if he liked making money (both my parents are teachers. My mom has been a counselor for 5 years, after having taught K-4 for 23 years, and my dad taught 4^th/5^th grade for ~25 years, so I knew what Dr. X’s answer would be). He said he loved it, and didn’t make enough. I told him by his thinking he was a capitalist. He took exception and went on a rant for a few minutes about how he wasn’t a capitalist because he worked for a living and capitalists just sit around and trade stocks and are lazy, and tried to provoke me into an argument, but I had made my point so I just backed off and let him vent.
Thursday, it wasn’t 15 minutes before he veered off lecture and started making fun of conservative thought (tea party crazies) and pushing towards his socialist point that he made in the previous class. After no response he went on with the lecture (which was over fascism). Somehow he went off lecture again on gun control and was getting pretty animated and talking about people owning automatic weapons.
I pointed out that the weapons weren’t automatic. He started mimicking me saying “not automatic” and using his fingers as quotation marks, and went on to explain that you could cycle so many rounds through a semi automatic rifle that it might as well be an automatic and started talking about national tragedies like Newtown and Aurora.
One student said that you could kill someone with a box cutter, but Dr. X told him that that wasn’t feasible and that if guns were completely banned mass killing would be almost non-existent. I started to bring up cases where students went into schools and killed with bow and arrows, pencils, knives, ect.
Dr. X was becoming increasingly animated at this point and was getting close to out of control. He said that guns kill people, to which I responded with people kill people, and guns are just the tool. I told him I sleep with a gun on my bedside table and it hasn’t got up in the middle of the night and shot me yet. He said maybe not, but that “You will use it to kill yourself.” At that moment I was too shocked to go on, and even if I hadn’t been shocked, I would have dropped it. He had gone beyond the point of being reasonable and there was no point in pushing it any further.

You can tell me whether or not this is harassment.

[Kung Wu]

There were a lot of wars from 1914 to 1945. The class sounds interesting. The fact that the student (shock) doesn't realize that this was a period when the world was being changed in many ways and that many wars were occurring suggests to me that the student may not be paying attention. For King Wu to ask "Which war" suggests that King Wu is not knowledgeable about this time in history.

Look at http://www.war-memorial.net/wars_all.asp for example.

In comparison, 1945-2013 is fairly static. The Civil War in China (1945-1949) was one change but it pales in comparison with the creation of new countries (e.g. Jordan, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia), the change in attitude by people (e.g. in France, Germany, England, Ireland, India, Australia) toward government and toward military leaders, the appeal of "socialism" (whose definition is unknown to me; everyone seems to have his or her own definition), etc.

Wow, I missed this gem.

What this really means is your ability to follow the thread dialog is painfully lacking. The question "Which war?" was so obviously in regards to the professor's _war veteran_ status that your follow up replies, even with my hint, are just ... well ... embarassing. But I let it go thinking you'd eventually reread and dial in. Instead, I see this snarky response that's so out of context it just cracks me up.

[SpanglerFan316]

Which war?

OK, I see your point. I was focused on the first sentence ("It is age of total war 1914-45.") and you were responding to the third sentence ("War Veteran.") in the post by shock to which you replied. My apology to both of you for misunderstanding your posts.

[CBB_Fan]

CBB_Fan: What is harassment? Have you seen the movie "The Paper Chase"? Was Professor Charles W. Kingsfield Jr. harassing James Hart? (From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Paper_Chase_(film) comes the comment "Houseman noted that Kingsfield's behavior is actually a toned-down version of Warren's famous classroom rudeness, as enshrined in classroom lore, and recounted several examples of the professor's putdowns.")

I hadn't explicitly defined it, it was more of a "I know it when I see it" deal. A professor making their students reevaluate their beliefs can go either way, depending on the circumstances. Derision or mocking is probably harassment, but simple criticism probably isn't. It definitely is out of bounds to talk politics in a math course, but probably not in a history course. Everything boils down to "it depends."

[RoyalShock]

Royal, you seem interested in my politics for some reason. I will say that my politics are complicated. For example, former business professor Dwight Murphey (http://dwightmurphey-collectedwritings.info/) told me I was an "eighteenth century liberal" and you can make of this whatever you wish.

The "some reason" I "seem interested" is that you posted in a political forum taking a position that seemed at least slightly defensive on the side of shock's professor, and asked for specific instances of indoctrination. I replied that if you were of a liberal persuasion you probably would not pick up on the same reports I have over the years. That's the extent of my interest in your politics.

[RoyalShock]

Dr. X started the first half of the semester challenging his students to think outside the conventional political thought, however in the past few weeks he has gone from challenging to targeting. I’m an outspoken student that stands up for my beliefs, and have been commended for it by every other professor I have had at ESU whether or not they agree. Dr. Y specifically calls on me in class to share my opinion because he knows it differs from his own views and he wants his students to have a voice.
Dr. X baits about four of us because we don’t take his word as golden truth. For instance, his favorite topic to start with is socialism. He made the claim that we were all socialist whether or not we liked it because we were products of public school, and we have student loans. We just needed to accept the fact that we were all socialist.
I raised my hand and asked if he liked making money (both my parents are teachers. My mom has been a counselor for 5 years, after having taught K-4 for 23 years, and my dad taught 4^th/5^th grade for ~25 years, so I knew what Dr. X’s answer would be). He said he loved it, and didn’t make enough. I told him by his thinking he was a capitalist. He took exception and went on a rant for a few minutes about how he wasn’t a capitalist because he worked for a living and capitalists just sit around and trade stocks and are lazy, and tried to provoke me into an argument, but I had made my point so I just backed off and let him vent.
Thursday, it wasn’t 15 minutes before he veered off lecture and started making fun of conservative thought (tea party crazies) and pushing towards his socialist point that he made in the previous class. After no response he went on with the lecture (which was over fascism). Somehow he went off lecture again on gun control and was getting pretty animated and talking about people owning automatic weapons.
I pointed out that the weapons weren’t automatic. He started mimicking me saying “not automatic” and using his fingers as quotation marks, and went on to explain that you could cycle so many rounds through a semi automatic rifle that it might as well be an automatic and started talking about national tragedies like Newtown and Aurora.
One student said that you could kill someone with a box cutter, but Dr. X told him that that wasn’t feasible and that if guns were completely banned mass killing would be almost non-existent. I started to bring up cases where students went into schools and killed with bow and arrows, pencils, knives, ect.
Dr. X was becoming increasingly animated at this point and was getting close to out of control. He said that guns kill people, to which I responded with people kill people, and guns are just the tool. I told him I sleep with a gun on my bedside table and it hasn’t got up in the middle of the night and shot me yet. He said maybe not, but that “You will use it to kill yourself.” At that moment I was too shocked to go on, and even if I hadn’t been shocked, I would have dropped it. He had gone beyond the point of being reasonable and there was no point in pushing it any further.

You can tell me whether or not this is harassment.

At the very minimum, he's creating a hostile learning environment. He sounds awfully ignorant to me and it's disappointing that such a person has achieved tenure and what is considered a teacher's college. All he's teaching is that if you don't share the view of the person in authority, you should keep your mouth shut.

[Kung Wu]

I pointed out that the weapons weren’t automatic. He started mimicking me saying “not automatic” and using his fingers as quotation marks, and went on to explain that you could cycle so many rounds through a semi automatic rifle that it might as well be an automatic and started talking about national tragedies like Newtown and Aurora.
One student said that you could kill someone with a box cutter, but Dr. X told him that that wasn’t feasible and that if guns were completely banned mass killing would be almost non-existent. I started to bring up cases where students went into schools and killed with bow and arrows, pencils, knives, ect.
Dr. X was becoming increasingly animated at this point and was getting close to out of control. He said that guns kill people, to which I responded with people kill people, and guns are just the tool. I told him I sleep with a gun on my bedside table and it hasn’t got up in the middle of the night and shot me yet. He said maybe not, but that “You will use it to kill yourself.” At that moment I was too shocked to go on, and even if I hadn’t been shocked, I would have dropped it. He had gone beyond the point of being reasonable and there was no point in pushing it any further.

The largest mass killing in the US (I believe) was done with a bomb. Only one of two exploded or it would have been far worse. If he had attempted the same feat using guns the carnage would have been far less. He did have a rifle but unfortunately was "smart" enough to use bombs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bath_School_disaster