The rule is, if you don't mention it, maybe it'll go away. Poor PZ (via the link to The Poor Man):
After 34 years of college teaching, I thought I had heard just about every imaginable student complaint. Last week, however, a freshman in my 300-seat US History Since 1865 course came in to discuss her exam with one of the graders and proceeded to work herself into a semi-hissy over the fact that we had spent four class periods(one of them consisting of a visit from Taylor Branch) discussing the civil rights movement.
“I don’t know where he’s getting all of this,” she complained,”we never discussed any of this in high school.” One might have let the matter rest here as simply an example of a high school history teacher’s sins of omission being visited on the hapless old history prof. had the student not informed the TA in an indignant postcript, ” I’m not a Democrat! I don’t think I should have to listen to this stuff!”
Retorts PZ, "I have never had a student this stupid." Yeah, well, just give it about three years.
2 comments:
I'm not surprised, but am dismayed. This is what happens when children are not taught to read, explore ideas, think and argue their positions, even with their (gasp) parents. We are breeding the ultimate verions of the Elois. I won't be around to watch the fallout, so it doesn't affect me very much, but as I was letting my G1 son drive me to his girlfriends, we were discussing global warming, or the lack thereof (depending on your source). He said he was glad that he wouldn't be around to see the outcome. I advised that some scientists were postulating that devastation would be within 50 years. My son is 17. I wonder whether the so called student that PZ referenced has ever thought about issues such as this, or whether Papa has bought her success? I won't be around (I had him at 40), but I'm worried that my son is in the minority. (He hates me this week, which is normal for a 17 year old, but very wearing on a close to 60. This too shall pass)
Wait until the history class gets to Watergate....
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