Anyone ever had a professor push a political idealogy?

[Provocateur]

My conservative teen has been subjected to utter nonsense since she started taking Community College courses.

Her English classes have ended up being nothing more than opportunities for the teachers to push their agenda.

Already this semester, which just started two weeks ago, the first assignment in her English course was to respond about whether she agreed with the following article. A letter to my students « The Berkeley Blog

Yesterday, the teacher spent most of the time discussing how the Muslim Brotherhood is great.

Tomorrow, she will be assigned a side in which to debate whether or not foster children should get preferential treatment in college enrollment.


I am content that she isn't fearful to express her opinions and share her views with her classmates.

 

[MaggieMae]

Naah, just preachers.

Yup, me too. I did have two who played people favorites, though, which caused extensive eyerolls among the rest of us in their classes.

As for bias, I suspect a lot of open discourse in classes on political science, economics, and the like occurs because the students all have laptops and smart phones they can refer to for a quick Google search of controversial material and it's possible the students themselves are responsible for luring a professor into stating his/her opinion on a matter. Classrooms are a lot different than they were when I was a student.

 

[Mr. H.]

My niece had a run in with her junior high teacher regarding a question on a civics test.
"Who won the 2000 Presidential election"
Her answer- Bush.
Wrong.
Teacher insisted Gore won. My brother confronted her teacher. Didn't budge.
Liberal stickers all over her desk.

 

[uscitizen]

So Soggy is a CPA so is our other NO poster on here....
Hmmm

 

[MaggieMae]

This is a very interesting topic for me as I have a niece that graduated from UofOR in 08. Her degree is sociology/PreMed. While she was in school we could barely be in the same room together as she was constantly spewing socialist crap. I was always questioning her where she was getting this stuff. I was treated as if I were just STUPID and didn't understand things. It was extremely disturbing.
Now she tells me that All of her professors were either socialist or marxist. This was her normal. She has heard this stuff all through the years including HS. She has all the books if I wish to take a look. She told me that OR is the most liberal unniversity filled with socialist & marxist professors & that she has never known anything else.
She says there is a very real indoctrination going on in the unniversities that our children are attending. I believe her............

Her wake up was ObamaCare while in med school ~
Hummmm..............All that socialist stuff doesn't look so good after putting in 9 years of school and more debt than she will earn for years to come.

So how's anyone supposed to know that's true? I had a feeling the original question was going to bring about a lot of, er, stories. I'm not saying your story isn't true, but because it can't be verified, must be taken with a grain of salt, especially since you injected your own bias in the telling.

 

[rdean]

behe

 

[MaggieMae]

My conservative teen has been subjected to utter nonsense since she started taking Community College courses.

Her English classes have ended up being nothing more than opportunities for the teachers to push their agenda.

Already this semester, which just started two weeks ago, the first assignment in her English course was to respond about whether she agreed with the following article. A letter to my students « The Berkeley Blog

Yesterday, the teacher spent most of the time discussing how the Muslim Brotherhood is great.

Tomorrow, she will be assigned a side in which to debate whether or not foster children should get preferential treatment in college enrollment.


I am content that she isn't fearful to express her opinions and share her views with her classmates.

Have students at Berkeley become such weenies that no one stood up and ASKED why a letter published by Michael O'Hare, professor of public policy at Berkeley, was included in her lesson plans? I would have.

 

[MaggieMae]

My niece had a run in with her junior high teacher regarding a question on a civics test.
"Who won the 2000 Presidential election"
Her answer- Bush.
Wrong.
Teacher insisted Gore won. My brother confronted her teacher. Didn't budge.
Liberal stickers all over her desk.

The reason I don't believe shit like that is all it takes is a phone call to all school board members, who will put a stop to it. Either that, or people just like to bitch and complain, rather than taking action.

 

[xsited1]

I read this all the time, and I never had a single professor talk up a particular candidate or party or idealogy.

I once had one professor in geology show evidence of global warming based on his field research, however he never said a word about whether or not it was man-made. So I guess that's the closest thing you could get into spinning whether or not he pushed a particular party.

What about you guys? I went to Ohio State just as an fyi, any of you ever experienced this?

Several times, although it's been a few years since I went to College.

A Cultural Geography professor of mine would take about the benefits of Communism over all other systems weekly. We just tuned him out, but it got to be annoying after a while. And a History professor would slam Reagan regularly, and explain how the political Left was the superior choice. I even had a Physics professor occasionally talk about his leftist views.

 

[Provocateur]

My conservative teen has been subjected to utter nonsense since she started taking Community College courses.

Her English classes have ended up being nothing more than opportunities for the teachers to push their agenda.

Already this semester, which just started two weeks ago, the first assignment in her English course was to respond about whether she agreed with the following article. A letter to my students « The Berkeley Blog

Yesterday, the teacher spent most of the time discussing how the Muslim Brotherhood is great.

Tomorrow, she will be assigned a side in which to debate whether or not foster children should get preferential treatment in college enrollment.


I am content that she isn't fearful to express her opinions and share her views with her classmates.

Have students at Berkeley become such weenies that no one stood up and ASKED why a letter published by Michael O'Hare, professor of public policy at Berkeley, was included in her lesson plans? I would have.

She doesn't attend Berkeley, but I'm assuming that her teacher is friends with O'Hare. The professor stated on the first day that she is a raging liberal, or something along those lines. She said she would be fair in her grading, and not hold it against the students for holding a different viewpoint.

Her first English teacher was equally as bad. She ultimately ended up with an A in that course.

One only needs to look at the ongoing blogs from Berkeley to answer whether or not professors have an agenda, and whether or not they feel a need to hide that agenda.

 

[McDowell's]

I don't know about the rest of you, but I recently had a professor push his gay agenda right down my throat!

 

[BluesMistress]

This is a very interesting topic for me as I have a niece that graduated from UofOR in 08. Her degree is sociology/PreMed. While she was in school we could barely be in the same room together as she was constantly spewing socialist crap. I was always questioning her where she was getting this stuff. I was treated as if I were just STUPID and didn't understand things. It was extremely disturbing.
Now she tells me that All of her professors were either socialist or marxist. This was her normal. She has heard this stuff all through the years including HS. She has all the books if I wish to take a look. She told me that OR is the most liberal unniversity filled with socialist & marxist professors & that she has never known anything else.
She says there is a very real indoctrination going on in the unniversities that our children are attending. I believe her............

Her wake up was ObamaCare while in med school ~
Hummmm..............All that socialist stuff doesn't look so good after putting in 9 years of school and more debt than she will earn for years to come.

So how's anyone supposed to know that's true? I had a feeling the original question was going to bring about a lot of, er, stories. I'm not saying your story isn't true, but because it can't be verified, must be taken with a grain of salt, especially since you injected your own bias in the telling.

OK I'll give you that.
Now please try to explain why she was talking about the same type of stuff as right here A letter to my students « The Berkeley Blog without my bias or story that may or may not be true. I do believe that this professor is very clear about his left leaning ideas. They tend to run in the same direction as the professors at University of Oregon - Eugene, Oregon.

 

[Mr. H.]

My niece had a run in with her junior high teacher regarding a question on a civics test.
"Who won the 2000 Presidential election"
Her answer- Bush.
Wrong.
Teacher insisted Gore won. My brother confronted her teacher. Didn't budge.
Liberal stickers all over her desk.

The reason I don't believe shit like that is all it takes is a phone call to all school board members, who will put a stop to it. Either that, or people just like to bitch and complain, rather than taking action.

You think school boards are objective?
Not in Urbana, IL.

 

[JamesInFlorida]

My son is a poli sci major at a SUNY school here in New York....one of the top ones...considered the ivy league of SUNY
His professors push a very liberal/progressive ideology.

My son grew up in a conservative household and now when we speak, he and I have some very interesting and sometimes eye opening debates.
It is my choice to pay for my son to go to school there....and to be frank, I see it as healthy.
Let him hear the other view...and let him learn from it...for good or bad.

He has yet to receive a grade based on his conservatism. They may push their ideology, but they dont insist all believe in it. His grades are based on his own interpretation and his factual and opinionated articulation of it.

I have no issue with it.

I went to SUNY Buffalo, graduated 1 1/2 years ago (UB is the top rated school in the SUNY system a lot of the time-obviously also depends on what program it is). Not sure if that's where he goes or not-but I never had ONE professor push any political view on me there. Maybe he just got the wrong bunch, or I got the right bunch. I've had some challenge my views (and everyone else in the classroom)-by asking why you think something, can you back up your facts with evidence, etc.

 

[Annie]

My degrees are in sociology, political science, history, and education. Yes, many of my professors pushed an agenda, only one of them graded down if students disagreed and backed it up. The one who didn't was in the 70's and tried to require attendance at a political rally or lose a full grade. I protested within the department and grade was not harmed.

 

[kwc57]

I attended a very, very large state school for undergrad. As I recall, I had a couple profs who wore their opinions on their sleeves. I never felt it was a problem, however. For the most part they taught the material and left their opinions for comments, additional info etc...and the opinions gave some depth to the material.

In graduate school i had several very highly opinionated profs, and I'd expect nothing less. When you're in grad school, you should be capable of parsing fact and opinions - and capable of challenging profs when you disagree with their opinion. I never got the impression that my disagreement would negatively impact my assessment, and in most cases I think profs encouraged that disagreement. It's a good way to learn.

I thought the only degree available in Texas was animal husbandry.

 

[midcan5]

Ideology is in the eye of the beholder. 'Push' is the critical word in the question and I have to say, no. Just because a person sees the world in another frame than yours doesn't mean they are pushing anything. Some like chocolate some vanilla. Personally I would have loved to have a prof push their position, it means they thought about it and it offers you the ability to think about it too. Only spoon feed knowledge, so called facts, is boring in my frame.


"...the exact same experience can mean two totally different things to two different people, given those people's two different belief templates and two different ways of constructing meaning from experience. Because we prize tolerance and diversity of belief, nowhere in our liberal arts analysis do we want to claim that one guy's interpretation is true and the other guy's is false or bad. Which is fine, except we also never end up talking about just where these individual templates and beliefs come from. Meaning, where they come from INSIDE the two guys. As if a person's most basic orientation toward the world, and the meaning of his experience were somehow just hard-wired, like height or shoe-size; or automatically absorbed from the culture, like language. As if how we construct meaning were not actually a matter of personal, intentional choice. Plus, there's the whole matter of arrogance..." David Foster Wallace

 

[8537]

I attended a very, very large state school for undergrad. As I recall, I had a couple profs who wore their opinions on their sleeves. I never felt it was a problem, however. For the most part they taught the material and left their opinions for comments, additional info etc...and the opinions gave some depth to the material.

In graduate school i had several very highly opinionated profs, and I'd expect nothing less. When you're in grad school, you should be capable of parsing fact and opinions - and capable of challenging profs when you disagree with their opinion. I never got the impression that my disagreement would negatively impact my assessment, and in most cases I think profs encouraged that disagreement. It's a good way to learn.

I thought the only degree available in Texas was animal husbandry.

That's why I had to go out of state for Grad School! Who wants a graduate degree in cow poking?

 

[MaggieMae]

This is a very interesting topic for me as I have a niece that graduated from UofOR in 08. Her degree is sociology/PreMed. While she was in school we could barely be in the same room together as she was constantly spewing socialist crap. I was always questioning her where she was getting this stuff. I was treated as if I were just STUPID and didn't understand things. It was extremely disturbing.
Now she tells me that All of her professors were either socialist or marxist. This was her normal. She has heard this stuff all through the years including HS. She has all the books if I wish to take a look. She told me that OR is the most liberal unniversity filled with socialist & marxist professors & that she has never known anything else.
She says there is a very real indoctrination going on in the unniversities that our children are attending. I believe her............

Her wake up was ObamaCare while in med school ~
Hummmm..............All that socialist stuff doesn't look so good after putting in 9 years of school and more debt than she will earn for years to come.

So how's anyone supposed to know that's true? I had a feeling the original question was going to bring about a lot of, er, stories. I'm not saying your story isn't true, but because it can't be verified, must be taken with a grain of salt, especially since you injected your own bias in the telling.

OK I'll give you that.
Now please try to explain why she was talking about the same type of stuff as right here A letter to my students « The Berkeley Blog without my bias or story that may or may not be true. I do believe that this professor is very clear about his left leaning ideas. They tend to run in the same direction as the professors at University of Oregon - Eugene, Oregon.

I don't know about your niece's perception, but I read the letter by the Professor of Public Policy, and he was right-on. One would think that students should be made aware of how far their educational opportunities have sunk because of politicking, and be very worried about it.

 

[MaggieMae]

My niece had a run in with her junior high teacher regarding a question on a civics test.
"Who won the 2000 Presidential election"
Her answer- Bush.
Wrong.
Teacher insisted Gore won. My brother confronted her teacher. Didn't budge.
Liberal stickers all over her desk.

The reason I don't believe shit like that is all it takes is a phone call to all school board members, who will put a stop to it. Either that, or people just like to bitch and complain, rather than taking action.

You think school boards are objective?
Not in Urbana, IL.

It's been my experience that when no action is taken by school boards over matters such as this, that the next stop is the press. That stops it in its tracks, with the school board members back-pedaling with "...oh my, I never knew that was happening..."