Because They Haven’t Quite Infantilised The Students Enough
Amber Athey notes another data point in the decline of academia:
A University of Arizona classroom dialogue guide encourages professors to use the “Oops/ouch method,” where students who are offended in class say “ouch” and the offender responds with “oops.”
Apparently, the way to “maximise free speech in the classroom” is to “create a safe space” in which pantomime ensues, and by advising faculty that “microaggressions,” even those on unrelated matters in personal conversations, should be “interrupted” – and interrupted “immediately” – as being “harmful to the classroom environment.” When not eavesdropping on private conversations and offering unsolicited correction, faculty are advised by the guide to be on the look-out for a range of classroom “challenges” and “cultural misunderstandings,” including:
A heterosexual student claiming that LGBTQIA+ individuals do not have the right to exist.
Because, obviously, that must happen all but daily on a politically correct campus. And,
A white student threatening an African American student over views on affirmative action.
Other forbidden behaviours include acknowledging in class that illegal immigrants have in fact broken the law, or using gendered metaphors in descriptions of atoms, or “questioning the credibility and validity” of (certain) students’ accounts of an event, even if one has contradictory information. “Feelings,” at least those of some students, must not be “nullified.”
Curiously, all of the examples given, and they are numerous, assume that only members of Designated Victim Groups will ever be on the receiving end of “problematic behaviour.” There is no guideline for how to deal with, say, opportunist and vindictive accusations of racism or “privilege,” or attempts to denigrate straight, white male students as inherently ignorant and oppressive, which are hardly inconceivable in an environment where “microaggressions” are regarded as a pressing issue, and where students with brown skin are deemed, automatically and by default, victims of “institutional discrimination” and therefore in need of collective “validation.”
I’m pretty sure that, when I was 18, I would have been offended beyond belief by that “ouch oops” crap. What happened to students that they even put up with it, or apparently enjoy being treated like toddlers?
David, is this similar to your experience overseeing the group of participants at your site?
It’s probably best not to pull at that thread.
engaged in dialogue about oppression, bias, power.”
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Unispeak dictionary:
dialogue (v) to regurgitate received opinion
They’re really big on group learning and “student directed learning” — giving the traditional instructional lecture is very very bad and counter productive.
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They call this ‘style’ of ‘teaching’ “the guide by the side” vs “the sage on the stage”. They seem to think that they can elicit knowledge from the mass of lumpenstudenten in the cheap seats.
The guide is both patronising and incoherent.
And full of typos.
#Excellence
And full of typos
The author of the guide, the university’s Vice Provost for Inclusive Excellence, Jesús Treviño, is paid a mere $214,000 a year. Apparently, that’s not quite enough to make him check his own punctuation and spelling. To say nothing of his numerous, rather obvious logical errors.
But as we’ve seen, more than once, these centres of “inclusive excellence” do tend to hire people who presume to lecture the rest of us while themselves struggling with the basics.
A heterosexual student claiming that LGBTQIA+ individuals do not have the right to exist.
To be fair, this is a belief held by some adherents of a certain Religion of Peace™ who express said beliefs elsewhere in the world by beheading, stoning, hanging, and defenestrating LGBT individuals.
So perhaps Mr. Trevino is tip-toeing here. He doesn’t want an “ouch/oops” moment on campus with that crowd.
these centres of “inclusive excellence” do tend to hire people who presume to lecture the rest of us while themselves struggling with the basics.
Wow. Another win for affirmative action.
Wow. Another win for affirmative action.
Mr Scherer, the director of the Inclusive Excellence Centre at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, does struggle with consistency and evidence, and elementary grammar, even in official documents. But these things are only significant if we assume that the aim of such departments is actually to propagate excellence. I see no evidence that excellence, or even competence, is of any concern to these people. What matters, it seems, is churning out lots of mentally uniform and resentful mediocrities.
It’s weaponizing ignorance and encouraging obstinance. #Excellance!
“Wow. Another win for affirmative action”
Hehehe,oh the stories that us saffas can tell about AA (“our” version of affirmative action) and where it leads…
And when I typed “our”, I really meant the ANC sponsored version of affirmative action.
Speaking of resentful mediocrities, take a squint at this one. Click through and see how effortlessly she switches from anti-racist piety to black supremacist boasting.
Mr Scherer’s qualifications consist of:
a) posession of correct attitudes
b) posession of sufficent melanin
Both are necessary, which is more important? That’s a matter of some debate. If one wished to hold such a debate it would of course not be allowef on the campus. Can’t upset the
sheepstudents.FreeCarefully managed speech is a wonderful thing…. for the managers.I see no evidence that excellence, or even competence, is of any concern to these people.
Standards or ‘social justice’. Pick one.
Standards or ‘social justice’. Pick one.
Given that another favoured buzzword is “equity” – which, when used by campus activists, seems to mean something like “equality of outcome regardless of inputs” – there is a contradiction.
I long for a day when calling someone Stalin is a mortal insult.
The people most deserving to be on the receiving end of such an insult would consider it the highest praise.
My copy of Anna Karenina has a blurb from Lenin.
There is no guideline for how to deal with, say, opportunist and vindictive accusations of racism or “privilege,” or attempts to denigrate straight, white male students as inherently ignorant and oppressive…
Under the circumstances I’m not sure we should be attempting to denigrate anyone; or am I just being niggardly?
I long for a day when calling someone Stalin is a mortal insult.
It was in Stalin’s day. If he caught you.
Don’t get me wrong: group work can be rewarding for everyone, but as the instructor you have to set it up carefully (assign individual tasks to everyone, provide an outline of the assignment and its goals (group and individual), work with each group at points along the way to the finished product…and I’ve found giving group and individual grades at task points and final result very…eh, motivating,they still have to do get a grade on what they personally do). I don’t like just turning people loose, not even graduate students can always be trusted in this way. But it can be used to help them learn some skill sets they may not get otherwise while having some fun.
But I tend to use the framework I learned from the military — because it works better.
And my line of instruction deals quite a bit with finding and trying to avoid bias (English — although my major has turned into a swamp, then again they all have — I get a lot of non-humanities majors, so I read a lot of stuff coming from the STEM departments…uh, they have no room to brag, wow!). I have taught that the truth has power, and an ethical responsibility attached to it, and I suppose I have talked about the oppression of language = the stifling of critical thought and discourse…maybe I should start using the “O” word…hmmm.
But then again, I don’t get to write guides, nor even lead “development sessions”, and I’m lucky to get one tenth of the salary Mr. Trevino does (lowly adjunct).
I’ll see your denunciation of my microaggression and raise you some REAL aggression. To wit: I’m going to slap your designer specs right off your face immediately following this class, you microcephalic twathole.
Just saying.
dicentra @ March 15, 2017 at 14:25 In the American Civil War the opposing sides were divided geographically. Having the enemy camps intermingled means rioting in the streets and blood in the storm drains.
There were lots of places in the U.S. where the enemy camps were intermingled.
For instance Missouri – where the War began with rioting in the streets and blood in the gutters of Saint Louis, and spread to bloody guerrilla conflict in almost every corner of the state. The Indian Territory was just as bad, with ugly internecine fighting between pro-Confederate and pro-Union factions of the Five Civilized Tribes.
“A white student threatening an African American student over views on affirmative action.”
I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that this ‘threatening’ probably involves not enthusiastically agreeing with and involves not demanding even more affirmative action. This ‘threatening’ may even be the Thoughtcrime of not really believing in affirmative action, even while externally vocally supportive. I don’t think that this ‘threatening’ has to involve any actual physical threat at all.
Click through and see how effortlessly she switches from anti-racist piety to black supremacist boasting.
That resembles nothing more than a troll post at 4Chan’s anarchic /b/ board.
These “intellectuals” walk among us…