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Going to school and college in India, I always thought it would be better in the west, where I assumed teachers would, on average, be more open minded towards d

Going to school and college in India, I always thought it would be better in the west, where I assumed teachers would, on average, be more open minded towards different opinions from students. Cause bias against opinions expressed in writing assignments was a concern I had too.

WalterBright 7y ago
I just avoided classes that had writing assignments because I was tired of having to ape the teacher's opinions.
- chmod775 7y ago
  I often had opinions very unlike those of my ethics teacher and she gave me decent grades anyways as long as I made reasoned arguments. Depends on the subject really. It's probably not a good idea to try any stunts in history etc.
  - sdenton4 7y ago
    You might enjoy this song, "how I failed ethics" by the magnetic fields. https://youtu.be/Hu5dEXZ7DOY https://youtu.be/Hu5dEXZ7DOY "Though majoring in Visual and Environmental Studies And minoring in History of Sci I had to retake Ethics from my Mennonite professor For whom my skepticism didn't fly. "The first time I made mincemeat of the standard propositions Establishing a so-called moral science And I declared morality an offshoot of aesthetics And got a failing C for my defiance."
- salawat 7y ago
  I have never really felt compelled to "ape" a teacher's opinions. Demonstrate a sufficient and working understanding of? Yes; which I guess could be considered aping. However I can't recall a time I've been outright penalized for challenging a teacher's take as long as some greater mistake in making my case was not at the same time undertaken. For instance, the misapplication of logical device, or tortured cherrypicking of data/context. I've never professed to understand why many people view academia as an institution in which the end goal is to agree with the professor for the grade. I've always treated it as an institution for the search for answers to questions where the searching for good questions is arguably more important and more difficult than finding the answers. I can't count the number of times I've felt dejected because I've had an armload of data or observations that are somehow related, and I've not been able to do anything but stew in angst because while there was some meaning to it, I could never figure out how to formulate the question to which the observations were the answer. Then again, I stuck around long enough for my Bachelor's, then got out. I might not have gotten to the point where there is a much higher stake in tipping the Professor's Sacred Cow.
  - WalterBright 7y ago
    > I've never professed to understand why many people view academia as an institution in which the end goal is to agree with the professor for the grade. I didn't believe it either until I experienced it personally.
vorpalhex 7y ago
For me it depended heavily on the professor. Some marked me down almost assuredly because I argued against their preferences. Then again, one professor would keep running arguments in their grading of my papers just to end it with "Disagreed with everything you wrote, excellent arguments. A"

WalterBright 7y ago

I just avoided classes that had writing assignments because I was tired of having to ape the teacher's opinions.

chmod775 7y ago
I often had opinions very unlike those of my ethics teacher and she gave me decent grades anyways as long as I made reasoned arguments. Depends on the subject really. It's probably not a good idea to try any stunts in history etc.
- sdenton4 7y ago
  You might enjoy this song, "how I failed ethics" by the magnetic fields. https://youtu.be/Hu5dEXZ7DOY https://youtu.be/Hu5dEXZ7DOY "Though majoring in Visual and Environmental Studies And minoring in History of Sci I had to retake Ethics from my Mennonite professor For whom my skepticism didn't fly. "The first time I made mincemeat of the standard propositions Establishing a so-called moral science And I declared morality an offshoot of aesthetics And got a failing C for my defiance."
salawat 7y ago
I have never really felt compelled to "ape" a teacher's opinions. Demonstrate a sufficient and working understanding of? Yes; which I guess could be considered aping. However I can't recall a time I've been outright penalized for challenging a teacher's take as long as some greater mistake in making my case was not at the same time undertaken. For instance, the misapplication of logical device, or tortured cherrypicking of data/context. I've never professed to understand why many people view academia as an institution in which the end goal is to agree with the professor for the grade. I've always treated it as an institution for the search for answers to questions where the searching for good questions is arguably more important and more difficult than finding the answers. I can't count the number of times I've felt dejected because I've had an armload of data or observations that are somehow related, and I've not been able to do anything but stew in angst because while there was some meaning to it, I could never figure out how to formulate the question to which the observations were the answer. Then again, I stuck around long enough for my Bachelor's, then got out. I might not have gotten to the point where there is a much higher stake in tipping the Professor's Sacred Cow.
- WalterBright 7y ago
  > I've never professed to understand why many people view academia as an institution in which the end goal is to agree with the professor for the grade. I didn't believe it either until I experienced it personally.

vorpalhex 7y ago

For me it depended heavily on the professor. Some marked me down almost assuredly because I argued against their preferences. Then again, one professor would keep running arguments in their grading of my papers just to end it with "Disagreed with everything you wrote, excellent arguments. A"