School text books-infused agenda

Oldpbnoob;
staying young is a lot of work. People freak out when I tell them my age. it makes me smile.

In my first speech in oral communication in which I stated my age my instructor couldn't believe that I am older than her. I actually nailed it and got comments like"your speech was amazing"lol because I hate talking in front of large groups.

I'm also now a class sign language interpreter at college communicating between the deaf teacher and students.she let me teach the class this week

Edited by Lightningbolt - 05 October 2012 at 9:06pm

choopie911 wrote: usafpilot07 wrote: choopie911 wrote: Yes, because we all know college/ university is where you go to be sheltered from thoughts and ideas and activities that you aren't used to. It should be a safe, conservative haven where new ideas and progressive exploration are absent. I'm not agreeing with LB, but I definitely had a couple classes(with mandatory spoken participation) where I was afraid to speak up because professors would deride conservative opinions or just act like I was unequivocally wrong. Having a bad professor is entirely different from saying "Universities should not discuss things I do not personally agree with!" New ideas make people uncomfortable, but they need to learn to deal with it, not shut down new ideas. It's the same reason those profs are bad, now why would you want to make an entire school run that way? Education needs an overhaul as it is, the last thing it needs to do is go back to how it used to be. I can understand someone finding it uncomfortable if a professor mentions sex, drugs, or swears, or has other ideas they're not used to, but you're in university, it's time to GROW UP and be exposed to the world as it really is, not how you want your sheltered kids to perceive it. You're welcome to disagree with them/ anyone about their opinions, and you may choose to never swear or discuss drugs, but you have zero right to request that a school and its staff do the same. We don't need more sheltered weirdos.

I certainly agree that people shouldn't be sheltered when they get to college, and I personally grew and evolved politically through college(though more may have been due to this forum than school), but the coin goes both ways. Someone shouldn't be shouted down or spoken down to because their beliefs(especially ones that's re not easily articulated) differ from their professors or the majority of the collegiate aged group. 18 may be too old to be sheltered, but it's not old enough to avoid succumbing to peer/authoritative pressures. It's an age where people should be given the chance to form their own opinions.

impulse418 wrote: So grateful I don't have kids.

We agree on something for a change.

You're telling me that there aren't lines in the contract for employment that they signed that deal with and forbid condoning the use of illegal drugs. Genius

I'm willing to bet political bias is far more of a regional problem than a college problem.

Here in Texas the vast majority of my professors have been conservative. The very few liberal professors I've had were still amazing teachers and in fact my only really crappy professor was an ultra conservative.

I think, going back to my post in another thread, it's important to define liberal here. I'm afraid alot people go to school with the expectation of liberal / anti Christian bias and therefore spend half the class looking for excuses to be offended. This is especially true in more abstract subjects like philosophy...the butthurt gets palpable.

I belIeve that college exists to develop critical reasoning skills. A big part of critical reasoning is dissecting an argument and analyzing it. If, by the end of college, you're unable to properly look at someone's point of view and break it down, you've either had a very poor college experience or you half assed it.

As for some of the examples you listed...you'd be hard pressed to find anyone under the age of 50 that's not pro legalization of marijuana. Most of my professors swear. Very few of them are what I'd call religious. Very few of them are going to care about your opinion or respect it.

If being exposed to radical ideas or ideas you disagree with are a problem, I'd suggest a good trade school.

Edited by stratoaxe - 06 October 2012 at 6:10pm

Discussing pot and it's place in society is totally unrelated to an employee defying company policy.

something else about "oh noz don't mention marajuana I'm afearin' it so much";

For a business communication class we had to come up with a  business concept which involved groups of 4 students.  A 40 something year old dopey insisted that we do a pro-dope in the workplace concept which had all sorts of holes in the concept.  She was so stoned out of her mind that she was more concerned with "fighting for her right to party" than seeing that the concept was seriously flawed.

The two young girls in the group absolutely disagreed on the concept but we didn't have time to argue with dopey on her beliefs.  We literally had about 5 minutes to create a concept. 

My logo concepts were complete lol.  And the brownies at the company picnic were the best.  I told the class that we would have brought brownies to class to share "but we ate them all duuuude".  The openly pro-dope instructor laughed pretty hard at that one.  She did however flip on her acceptance to dope with me when she came to understand my position on the subject.

I made a disclaimer in front of the class that I neither use dope or condone it.  The instructor also has an email on file stating my position on the subject.  All I need in my future work environment is someone saying "hey I remember that guy!  he smokes dope".

As hard as we worked to make the concept viable, at the end of our presentation the professor and students were asking "what exactly does your company do?"  I waited for dopey to dig herself out of her intellectual property dilemma but she stood their speechless so I had to step up and dig her out.

yeah.  Got an A in the silly class.  I think I had the highest score having more than the total points possible.

Edited by Lightningbolt - 06 October 2012 at 8:02pm

So... you had a crappy team and let a stupid concept run free, and somehow the entire school system is brainwashing the youth into pot smoking crazies?

You need to get over it. Some of the most successful people in the world do it regularly, and clearly it hasn't turned them into space case idiots. My stance is pretty obvious on it and I'm doing better and better each month right now.

Choopie you're really twisting things to suit what you want to say.go back, re read the entire thread and tell me that it's about pot. Get over yourself

Lightningbolt wrote: Choopie you're really twisting things to suit what you want to say.go back, re read the entire thread and tell me that it's about pot. Get over yourself

Sorry I don't mean to say the whole thing is about pot, just that the fact you are personally uncomfortable with things doesn't give any grounds for thinking the system is brainwashing people/ too liberal/ corrupt.

All my point is: Post-secondary education should encourage other points of view. You being opposed is 100% fine and should be heard, just as much as someone who is 100% for it, for any topic. It's how we learn.




I still stand by what I said though, you had a crappy team with a crappy idea, and still let the idea go through. That's a problem with the people you're working with/ yourself.

What I'm really pointing at is moral degradation. I think my strongest point is what is most likely a breech in employee contract in some of my points. What is this act in itself teaching students in a business communication class? Replace marijuana with heroin. I'm sure that there is information out there stating that there are actually some benefits to heroin. Who would I be to say what drugs are acceptable in a situation where they are used illegally?