Mother Yackle's Deep Things Thread

[Mari Bryn]

So sometimes there are deep things we want to discuss, but don't want to start a new thread for each deep thing. So I made this thread where we can discuss deep things. I have several deep things on my mind so the first person who posts here gets to pick the topic for a while. Here's my deep things, or you can bring up your own and we can have discussions and learn things (hopefully).

The Fukushima Nuclear Problem
Do Taboos exacerbate problems (like cutting, drug use, etc.)
The Apathy of our generation in modern Democracies compared to the political power of our generation in middle east countries
The role of America when it comes to helping other countries

[Bird]

I have something to think over. See, my roommate goes to the same university as me, and he seems to be having trouble with an instructor. This instructor views himself as a "gatekeeper" who is here to filter out the weak.

So I'm curious what roles you think a college professor should assume. Should they be the gatekeepers who discourages those they feel are too weak to make it into a successful career in society? Or should they encourage and nurture their students' self esteem to build self assured adults, at the cost of potentially leading them into a life of delusional success?

[Mari Bryn]

I think there's a fine balance between the two. If the instructors being a douche because they don't like your roommate or think they can;t do it that's wrong. But so is babying someone who really can't do the work.

Professors should teach their students, and expect their students to learn at a reasonable pace. I'm finding it hard to find words so I hope this makes sense. If your roommate is able to learn the material and do the work successfully there is no reason for the instructor should be acting like a gatekeeper due to what he perceives your roommates abilities to be.

The instructor also shouldn't baby any student, or tell them their good when they aren't. As inhumanly possible as it is instructors should try to be unbiased when it comes to their students. Students don't need to be babied and they don't need their self esteemed pumped up with golden stars. They also don't need to be constantly berated or graded down, teach the material and grade the work fairly.

I have an instructor who's constantly trying to build my self esteem without actually teaching me anything and that's crap too.