Are we going to admit Universities are producing thin-skinned people?

[Guest]

7 hours ago, eyeball said:

To me this thread seems like another case where universities are cast as bastions of leftist insanity characterized by pampered students that everyone is constantly being forced to cater to. And along comes a teacher who describes a situation that sort of explains why things are seemingly out of control. Like I said who's fault is that?

I recall my last days of school in downtown Toronto in the early 70's...over 50 students per class...spitballs and paper airplanes all day long and shell-shocked teachers hiding behind their desks.

I quit and went logging and fishing. The chain of command in these working environments helped me I think. 

I think Universities cast themselves as that.  That's not to say every University, Professor, Student, etc, but as in all other aspects of life, the sane and the ordinary rarely make the news.

I hear you about your schooldays.  Except in England, and with Nuns as well.  I quit and joined the army.  Chain of command helped me too.

Edited December 6, 2016 by bcsapper

[Boges]

Not a University, but DAMN!!!!!!

http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/christie-blatchford-b-c-teacher-fired-for-having-the-wrong-opinion

Quote

 

A teacher at a posh private school in British Columbia was fired last month after making an innocuous comment about abortion to his Grade 12 law class.

Though there is no way of knowing, since discipline matters are shrouded in secrecy, it may be the first time a Canadian teacher has been fired not amid allegations of impropriety, but for having the wrong opinion.

Certainly, Lori Foote, a spokesperson for the 60,000-member-strong Ontario Secondary School Teachers Federation, said Wednesday that no one at the association is “aware of anyone being fired” in Ontario in comparable circumstances.

The 44-year-old teacher, who has asked that he not be identified to protect what’s left of his career, was teaching “the criminal law unit, a lesson on vice, ethics, morality and the law” to his small class in the Vancouver-area school in late November.

“I was working my way through examples of how some people’s sense of personal ethics was more liberal than the letter of the law,” he said in an email.

In other words, he said, in a pluralistic democracy, there’s often “a difference between people’s private morality and the law.

“I find abortion to be wrong,” he said, as another illustration of this gap, “but the law is often different from our personal opinions.”

That was it, the teacher said. “It was just a quick exemplar, nothing more. And we moved on.”

A little later, the class had a five-minute break, and when it resumed, several students didn’t return, among them a popular young woman who had gone to an administrator to complain that what the teacher said had “triggered” her such that she felt “unsafe” and that, in any case, he had no right to an opinion on the subject of abortion because he was a man.

 

So a student feels that someone who believe Abortion is wrong can trigger a her to feel "unsafe!". Then make the guy lose his job!!!

This is INSANE!!!!

Edited December 8, 2016 by Boges

[Argus]

del

Edited December 8, 2016 by Argus

[Boges]

Beat you by 2 minutes LOL

[eyeball]

2 hours ago, Boges said:

Not a University, but DAMN!!!!!!

http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/christie-blatchford-b-c-teacher-fired-for-having-the-wrong-opinion

So a student feels that someone who believe Abortion is wrong can trigger a her to feel "unsafe!". Then make the guy lose his job!!!

This is INSANE!!!!

Ahem...

Quote

 

The right's version of political correctness can be far more pernicious.

Missouri State Senator Kurt Schaefer is a Republican from Columbia, home of the Mizzou controversy. Schaefer chairs the state senate's Committee on the Sanctity of Life. As part of his duties he sent a letter late last month to the university claiming that a graduate student who is studying waiting periods for abortion is essentially a “marketing aid for Planned Parenthood.” He wants documentation on how the research was approved and he would like the university to end it.

 

Insanity strikes everyone. It makes no distinctions.  Only the insane would do that.

[Argus]

2 hours ago, Boges said:

Beat you by 2 minutes LOL

Meh!

[Boges]

Guess there's already a thread about this anyway. So we both lose. 

[eyeball]

Yep, correctness is woven into and through everything everywhere now.

[Guest]

9 hours ago, eyeball said:

Ahem...

Insanity strikes everyone. It makes no distinctions.  Only the insane would do that.

It's okay to be personally insane.  Now, if the university grants his request, I'll join you under the placard.

[Rue]

On 12/5/2016 at 0:26 PM, cybercoma said:

I'm more curious what prompted the dressing down. In all my years of both teaching and grading courses, I've never been questioned ever about the grades that I give. Most people create a clear rubric as not just documentation for how they're grading, but as a method for being fair and consistent. Frankly, the only time I've heard of someone being "spoken to" was when a part time instructor gave her entire class As and Bs. The administration found that inconceivable and wanted to be sure that she wasn't inflating grades, but all she had to do was provide the documentation on how they were graded and that was it. She just had a particularly good class that term. So literally the only example I've ever seen personally is of the administration being concerned the students' grades were too high. I'm not saying Rue's story isn't true because every institution has it's own unique politics and bullshit. I just find it surprising.

...come teach at university or community college....and if you are telling me there is no pressure on teachers to give inflated marks in high school to get kids into university try that on someone else...scholarships, private schools....its a wide spread racket now to inflate marks...glad it has not touched you...

[eyeball]

What do you do when you're feeling that pressure from your administrator and students Rue?

[cybercoma]

17 hours ago, Rue said:

...come teach at university or community college....and if you are telling me there is no pressure on teachers to give inflated marks in high school to get kids into university try that on someone else...scholarships, private schools....its a wide spread racket now to inflate marks...glad it has not touched you...

Where did I say anything about high school? I'm certain students are woefully unprepared for university, that's for damn sure. I've never felt pressure to inflate students' grades however. Like I said, I've had a colleague pressured to lower grades.

But I'm unclear now, are you saying there's pressure in university to inflate grades or in high school? Because originally we were talking about university but now you're saying high school.

[Rue]

1 hour ago, cybercoma said:

Where did I say anything about high school? I'm certain students are woefully unprepared for university, that's for damn sure. I've never felt pressure to inflate students' grades however. Like I said, I've had a colleague pressured to lower grades.

But I'm unclear now, are you saying there's pressure in university to inflate grades or in high school? Because originally we were talking about university but now you're saying high school.

I said high school because I can not imagine someone who teaches un university or college could tell me with a straight face there's never been pressure from students and the administration to inflate marks.

[cybercoma]

Students, sure. I've not seen it from our admins. Students who grade beg are another thing entirely and are easily handled. But I'm still not clear on what you mean. Neither I nor most of my colleagues inflate grades and in fact we're all very conscious of inflated grades being a problem.

 

I had one student say to me, "what am I suppose to do with this?" because she got a C on a paper. I told her she's supposed to take it as an opportunity to learn from her mistakes so she does better going forward. I offered to schedule time to go over her grade, but her snotty, entitled response was, "I'm going to Hawaii, how am I supposed to meet with you?"

Never once did I consider raising the student's grade to appease her. Maybe that's something you do; I don't know. It's not something I do and it's not something the people in my department nor faculty do, as far as I'm aware. And like I said, the only time admins said anything to anyone as far as I know was when a prof had a class with almost all A grades. The admin was worried that prof was inflating grades.

[Guest]

Oh dear.  Who are these awful people, and what happened to them to turn them into such humourless, contemptible dolts?

http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/head-of-ontario-university-cafe-fired-over-joke-help-wanted-ad-seeking-slave

[eyeball]

Power...it's gone to their heads and made them think and act conservatively.

That's all this is - a typically conservative application of power and authority, as evidenced by the absence of a more progressive approach like requesting an explanation or clarification followed by a deep breath and a roll of the eyes.

[Guest]

21 minutes ago, eyeball said:

Power...it's gone to their heads and made them think and act conservatively.

That's all this is - a typically conservative application of power and authority, as evidenced by the absence of a more progressive approach like requesting an explanation or clarification followed by a deep breath and a roll of the eyes.

If you say so. It's certainly a new usage of the word, and one I wasn't at all familiar with. I do wish they would stop though

[bush_cheney2004]

55 minutes ago, bcsapper said:

If you say so. It's certainly a new usage of the word, and one I wasn't at all familiar with. I do wish they would stop though

 

Agreed...looks more like a progressive approach to me....outrage....then employment abortion.

[Michael Hardner]

It seems more reactionary to me than anything.  Reactionary has come to mean conservative, but really it means:

 

of, pertaining to, marked by, or favoring reaction

[Argus]

9 hours ago, bcsapper said:

If you say so. It's certainly a new usage of the word, and one I wasn't at all familiar with. I do wish they would stop though

To him it's a handy pejorative he laps on anything he doesn't like, regardless of how nutty it sounds.

This is a student union group. They will be much further to the left than the NDP. Calling them conservative is nuts.

[The_Squid]

11 hours ago, bcsapper said:

Oh dear.  Who are these awful people, and what happened to them to turn them into such humourless, contemptible dolts?

http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/head-of-ontario-university-cafe-fired-over-joke-help-wanted-ad-seeking-slave

Humourless idiots whose first priority is "never offend anyone", unless of course, they offend someone who disagrees with them...  then fuck' 'em.

[eyeball]

2 hours ago, Argus said:

This is a student union group. They will be much further to the left than the NDP. Calling them conservative is nuts.

So is calling them progressive.

[GostHacked]

On 11/20/2016 at 9:39 PM, cybercoma said:

Who cares about pronouns, right? I'm sure Argus would have been totally fine with a colleague at work refusing to use "he," "his," and "him" and instead calling Argus by "her," "hers," and "she." If Argus doesn't like that, he can suck it up because free speech allows people to call him by whatever pronouns they choose, not the ones Argus prefers.

What I fond dumb is the notion that one of these people prefer the pro-noun of 'they', That person is not multiple and the term 'they' cannot logically be applied to a single person. 

[cybercoma]

Take it up with convention and now the Oxford dictionary.

[GostHacked]

14 hours ago, cybercoma said:

Take it up with convention and now the Oxford dictionary.

All this gender confusion is leading to language confusion. Deliberate obfuscation. Real stupid.