You don't have to affiliate with any party at all.

Its one thing for a professor to express a specific view in a class, thats expected from most classes you take. When a professor takes it like this guy did and requires the student to undergo phsycological counseling or get his student visa revoke just because he has an alternate viewpoint, thats taking it way too far.

I hate activist teachers(conservative, liberal, whatever). That's why I liked my American and World Government teacher so much. He was a conservative Democrat, but he didn't let his own views enter into the class room unless he was pointing out obvious flaws that everyone saw, and in which case he'd make a joke and move on. It's also from him I heard my first French rap(he had a laptop with TONS of music on it). It was awesome.

Yeah. My AP government teacher in high school told us from day one that she was going to teach the class and that we wouldn't know her political views at all. That still held on the last day of class.

Same with my old civics teacher. He's DEVOID of personal influences in his class. He always plays the instigator. He promised me he'd tell me the last day of my senior year, as long as I promised not to tell any of his students. He's very concious of the fact that people would like to have a nuetral teacher. And I wish he were a news-caster or something. We need some strait foreward newscasters, you ask me.

JediKirby

No. Some teachers force one-sided curricula down their students' throats, and some don't. I've been fortunate enough not to have any professors who did so in my first two quarters here.

The worst at my school is that all the ****ing english teachers are sexist pigs who mark you based on your views and gender. I hate her so much, she's giving me a 76% in the class. A girl I know who's not very bright at all is getting 78%, and she skips like crazy, misses assignments, and I do way better on presentations/essays. Complete bull****, I hope this teacher dies alone.

English has been a specialty of mine in all grades where I DIDN'T get this teacher, and now it's my lowest mark, second only to my extremely challenging math course.

LOL @ Massassi's hardcore liberals defending the professor or discounting his actions. It's ridiculous you guys. Learn to grasp some objectivity.

Matthew, first off, it's not the 'oppressive' conservative government that decided to ban gay marriage. It was the majority of the voters that did. It's called a democracy. Second, the issue isn't about a liberal being intolerant towards a conervative. It's about a proffesor shoving his own political vies down the throats of his students, and then threatening them if they express a differing opinion.

I agree, English teachers seem to be terrible in that regard. You'll live.

<3

Anyway, political convictions aside, I would hope most people will see that this professor is in the wrong. Honestly, verbally attacking a student for expressing his opinion on a one-sided curriculum? Undermining the students education by lodging administrative complaints? Come on...

True that. Imagine if this was a conservative teacher telling an Arab to go to counseling because he didn't like the American government. He would get dragged into the street and shot, and Flexor among others, would be going nuts on the guy, instead of discounting his ridiculous actions.

WTF are you talking about? Let's replace "Liberal" with "White" and "Conservative" with "Black"





You see how stupid this seems?

[Edit: You are making them out to be political-viewicsts, when in reality they just have different views! They're not prejudiced at all! imagine that]

Mocking removed.

Your post is nonsensical and meaningless.

Wow, good point. I'm stunned by your debating prowess.
"LOL you're just defending him because he's liberal"
"No..."
"Crackhead!"

He just turned the conflict around Mikus. I don't really see what your point is.

How do you expect me to reply to your posts when they make absolutly no sense? I can't believe you actually think you made some kind of valid point with that ridiculous Black/White analogy. It's laughable. And so I have no choice but to respond with petty mocking, something you do an AWFUL lot in debates.

How about we not mock at all. Yeah that would be a good thing to do. If you have nothing constructive to say, don't post. Simple.

Yeah sorry about that. I took it out.

I'm generally liberal, though I believe in certain conservative things for the sake of not having the world collapse on itself.


This, however, is retarded. Disagreement is fine, maybe even the course is fine (obviously if it's directed towards people who have this mindset and wish to be further educated), "OMG LIEK YUO AER CRAZY GO SEE DOCTAR NOW" is ridiculous.

Of course I do. But we wouldn't have a very interesting thread, then, would we?

I've had an experience like this, at uni. The only subject I failed (I "near passed" it... pfft) was hijacked by a couple of jerks because the actual teacher was on leave. What was supposed to be a "history of deviance" (I was expecting witches, heretics, criminals, etc.) turned into looking at prisons and governments... of the current day. Yep, the history of the Howard Government, going all the way back to 1996.

Now, I'm pretty damned left, so this didn't piss me off per se, but it DID piss me off because that's not what the subject was supposed to be about!

My point in my post was that certain people seem not to be opposed to this sort of behaviour when they agree with it. Intolerance and pushing your opinions on others is bad no matter who does it. But this is a whole lot less pushy than banning gays from marrying or restructuring entire countries.



Worse than preventing people from SAYING things is preventing them from DOING things.



An oppressive majority is no better than an oppressive minority. Either way they're wrong. Majorities have no right to take away rights of minorities. And stop using the word "democracy" as though it justifies anything.



Which is terrible. I apologise for not making that clear in my first post. But I just think that some people seem to think it IS about a liberal being intolerant towards a conservative.

I'm not using the word democracy to justify anything. I'm just pointing out it wasn't the government that made that decision. Chill.

Mister_Sinister is correct. No one person or body woke up one morning and said "I think I'll ban gays marrying" in these states. These were all done by propositions and referendums. An example being California's Prop 22. These are things that the PEOPLE voted for, all the government did was just enact the people's will. We've been doing this for a while now (read 224 years give or take). Our system of government includes the ability to have laws overturned if they violate Constitution. To my knowledge, none of these laws have been challenged in courts. I would think that if a state had overturned a gay marriage ban, we would hear it.

Moral of the story: Your beef is with the people who voted for these measures and not the government.

Alright. What gives YOU the right to force others to obey your opinion but not the professor?

So it's not that he was WRONG but merely that more people didn't support it?

My high school government teacher was plain retarded. Seriously the whole class was equivalent to the first two weeks of my 5th grade experience. My high school world literature teacher on the other hand was a majorly cool guy. We'd discuss the historical significance of each piece. Then we'd discuss the politics of the times. Usually ended up with someone wondering what our society would be like if we followed the same path. Really cool guy Mr. Martinez.

Okay, I'm gonna play devil's advocate for a moment.

Matthew, that happens when we vote about anything. The opinion of the majority dictates how people's lives will be changed. That's part of living in a democratic country. However, that isn't, and shouldn't, be a part of going to college. Institutions of higher learning should be only that, not soapboxes for every crackpot professor with their own personal agenda.

And just to make my opinion known, I don't agree with the current gay marriage ban, nor do I think it should've even been voted on. I couldn't care less if two homosexuals get married, it's none of my business. And marriage definitely ain't the 'holy union' that it used to be. AND, the Supreme Court will eventually overturn the ban. That's why they're there.

Right. And obviously, if a decision must be made, the fairest way is the way that creates the most benefit for the greatest number of people. If we have to reform the tax code, for instance, we want it so it doesn't just favour the rich, but is fair to all.

But with the gay marriage ban, it has NO EFFECT on anyone that does not want it. So there is no detriment for ANYONE in having legal gay marriage. The decision to ban it was not made based on a careful weighing up of what ramifications it would have, it was made with prejudices and hate.

Now, obviously, I'm getting off the topic a bit, but I think the topics are linked. People are always trying to tell others what to do, and how to think, and I don't think it's good, whatever their political persuasion. And it annoys me when people will support it when they agree with that issue, but decry the entire other side for using such dastardly tactics when they disagree with it.

For example, Gandalf voted against gay marriage, for whatever reason I don't know, but it basically came down to him wanting to tell people how they should live their lives, and that they are wrong for doing things the way they do. And that's exactly what the professor did. So how can people agree with one but not the other?

I'm just gonna leave off that I agree with you about the whole gay marriage thing. I'm out.

Banning gay marriage is not about telling gays how to live their lives or to punish them for being gay. Marriage is between a man and a woman, and I don't see why that should change. Gays can get a civil union or whatever, but why should they be granted a religious type marriage? It just doesn't make sense.

It's unfortunate if you are in that situation. My last English class (advanced composition..highest English required for a college degree here) was awesome. Our professor made us write intelligently, but we did not have to agree with him..we just couldn't say "*object* is stupid." We had to be able to articulate how and why. That was an awesome class..

Update, as of today my Geometry and Discrete Math mark is now higher than my english mark. GD is the hardest course my school offers... HOW IS THIS EVEN POSSIBLE!?

I swear, the English department at my school is completely ****ed, and the Science department is out to get students this year as well... fortunately I've had pretty good luck with my science teachers so I've got the only one who ISN'T trying to make the students' lives hell.

I think that Connection Problem should be happy he's passing English at all

STFUBAR MIKOUS

There's a difference between tolerance and acceptance.

I think it's wrong for the professor to suggest the guy needs therapy and all...

I have to say that I respect the fact that the relative situation the student came from is much worse than it is here. From that perspective, I can see why he seeks to defend America. But the way his essay works is that he makes whole bunch of warrantless claims.

The student DOES seem naive. The assignment didn't require that he change his mind; it required that he understood the analysis given in the book. The essay, to me, proves that he doesn't come close to understanding the opposing argument and basically just asserts his emotional response to it. If the constitution is so great, surely you can find some warranted articles written by qualified analysists to cite, at the very least. The best he can come up with is the fallacy that "at least they have the freedom to disagree!" which doesn't address a lot of other issues in the constitution other than the first amendment. It also doesn't address that the founding fathers excluded many groups at the time they wrote it.

The professor isn't all that closed minded. I would definitely think that he was wrong if the essay had made some arguments. I think the professor is right in telling the student that he needs to learn to actually evaluate the reasoning behind his arguments, but I don't agree that the harshness of it was appropriate for the student-educator relationship.

Here's the essay: http://www.studentsforacademicfreedom.org/archive/December2004/Ahmad%27sessay121004.htm

I don't disagree. It's one thing to not do the assignment properly and have the professor give it a poor grade. THat would have been the proper course of action. Not forcing the kid to get therapy and then threaten to have his student visa revoked because the kid went to the press.

Yes it is. You're saying "You can't marry. Marry someone of the opposite sex instead if you want to get married."



Uhh, no, they can't. Not in at least 48 states, that is. I don't see all the people who voted against gay marriage trying their hardest to get them civil unions, do you? At any rate, what's the point? They're going to be referred to as marriages, anyway.



I'm not saying they should. You shouldn't be able to walk into a church and force the minister to marry you. That goes for anyone, obviously. But marriage is not a religious institution. It's an institution of the state.

Matt, in your second quotation I believe he was stating his opinion, not fact

Yes I was, thank you.

How strange. Your first reaction might be to say that for a Kuwaiti immigrant to cherish American values more than an American professor defies common sense, but that is not the case at all. As stupid as this professor is (and sadly, not as much of a rarity as he should be in this country), I have to tip my hat to him for proving himself wrong. An Arab kid can come here without knowing anyone or anything, having only dreamt of the privilege we enjoy, embrace and fight for a simple idea and become more American than a person whose family has lived here for generations.

/me whistles stars and stripes forever



That may be, sadly. But it is not an excuse by any stretch of the imagination. Yes, a good professor will challenge you to think critically and argue persuasively, but having students kow-tow to his or her personal opinions is no way to teach a class.

At least, not here.



Yes, one that is absolutely necessary. Do not be so open-minded that your brain falls out - there is a difference between respecting everyone's right to an opinion and respecting the opinion itself. I, to use a random example, have absolutely no time for the notion that blacks are sub-human degenerates, yet you'll never find me pushing to have free speech limited in such a way to keep people from saying it.



... That's the point. The professor did not allow that by monopolizing freedom of opinion in the class.



How fortunate that we have you to correct us with your shining example.