Professors harassing students

[RoyalShock]

I am stumped by Royal's reply.



My post (above) was intended to be completely tongue-in-cheek; that is, it was intended as a joke. Now is Royal being serious in his reply (at the top) or is he one-upping me? I can't tell. This is what makes posting so annoying.

I guess I'm just not finding the humor in this topic.

[MoValley John]

I guess I'm just not finding the humor in this topic.

East Stroudsburg University was funny as hell! The rest of this thread: not so funny.

[Kung Wu]

I personally have seen harassment on one occasion. I was a student in a public speaking class when I was an undergraduate. The guy who sat next to me (in the front row) happened to be native American and was a great guy (and a good student). One day, I walked into class a bit early and this guy offered me a drink from a flask; I declined. As class went on, this guy got louder and louder and became increasingly more inappropriate as time went on.

Whoa, wait a minute. We don't have the student's side of this story. And in this case we don't even have the instructor's side of the story. How do we know the student didn't just have an ear infection and had medicine in the flask? Maybe the professor stopped class early due to a medical concern for the student. I mean, there's two sides to every story. Therefore no conflicts should be discussed on the Internet unless both sides are equally represented.

[shockerofandover0943]

As an educator who teaches History/Government, it is my goal to play "Devil's Advocate" in classroom discussions. I don't really want my students' to know what my beliefs are, because I don't just want them to just adopt my ideas as truth, or not listen because I'm not on their "side." Rather, I attempt to offer counter-arguments from both sides of the political spectrum during classroom discussions. If a student makes a statement in favor of liberalism, I want to offer a conservative counter point (and vice versa). It is something like, "OK, that's one sides belief. The other side would say this:........." Basically, my approach is not to tell students how to think, but challenge them to think. This helps them learn to listen and support their points of view in a critical thinking sort of way.