At After School Snack, a teacher describes a dismaying experience grading a student whose beliefs differ from his:

Today I had what is probably my most disheartening experience in the nascent stages of my work as a college English professor. One of the books we're reading for class is Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States. Yep, the whole thing. Anyway, I asked my students to write a formal paper relating an aspect of this text to their personal life experiences or to something else they've read or seen, etc. The basic premise of my instructions were to "make it real" in some fashion. By and large, the first round of papers were rough but fairly impressive. Revisions are a required aspect of the course (it's titled "critical reading and writing"), and so I provide feedback and so forth, you know the drill.

One of my students wrote a very negative critique of Zinn's chapter titled "The Coming Revolt of the Guards," wherein Zinn presents his admittedly-utopian vision for the United States after a peaceful revolution (he intentionally puts pure realism aside, prefacing his vision with "let us be utopian for a moment so that when we get realistic again it is not that 'realism' anchored to a certain kind of history empty of surprise. Let us imagine what radical change would require of us all."). If you haven't read A.P.H. you should; if nothing else find a copy in a bookstore and spend 15 minutes reading chapter 23.

Back to my student's critique. His efforts were focused heavily on saying that Zinn is not only being unrealistic, but that he's flat-out wrong. My student claimed that equality can never exist and that American capitalism is as good as it gets, saying that we live in a violent world and any claim that a people's movement will change that is laughable.

After the first draft, I pressed him on his claim that "most people have it pretty good," because it was clear to me that his definition of "most people" did not correlate with Zinn's definition of "most people," and that my student was ignoring the plight of the lower class and underprivileged groups in his analysis. He turned in a revision that continued to tiptoe around the real assumptions he was making.

I wrote to him--and this is probably the result of poor teaching on my part, I'm still learning how to do this effectively--that he wasn't countering Zinn's logic directly because he was comparing apples to oranges. The only way his argument "works," in my opinion, is if he has some fundamental belief that economically underprivileged individuals are basically evil. If that were the case, as he implies, then he'd be right-- equality couldn't exist, and even if economic equality were achieved, violence would continue to plague our society. So I decided to test him. I told him that if he typed out the following paragraph with his signature and date at the bottom and turned it in, I would award him a perfect score on this draft of his essay (he was in the "C" range under my rubric):

"I, [name], believe Zinn is wrong because socially and/or economically underprivileged individuals are inherently evil; that true freedom, justice, and equality can never exist because the world is a dark and violent place; and that those who bear the burden so that the upper class can exist deserve their fate."

I gave him this option knowing that his beliefs in Christianity play a strong influence in his life (his other papers and comments in class point to this fact) and I assumed that laying it out on the table like this would spur him to see the significance of his implications. Well, you can guess what happened: I now have a student who signed and dated this declaration of his lack of faith in humanity in order to buy a grade on an English paper.

I don't know if I did the right thing; I don't think he really believes this... you'd have to guess that he had some sort of internal debate when typing it out on the computer and signing the sheet, right? Would any of you sign such a declaration if it went against your beliefs to boost your score on a paper?

It's fairly clear that he didn't have a problem signing the sheet. If he doesn't believe what he signed, he doesn't view his education as more than a means to an end (degree and job). If he does actually believe those claims, I'm even more frightened.

Via InsideHigherEd.com.

I didn't leave a comment on that site because I don't want to go on other people's blogs be ugly. But good Lord. This was an ENGLISH class? I had to scroll back up and make sure.

that's "and be ugly" of course.

I'm really shocked by this, and I don't get shocked easily. Both of them behaved badly...the teacher forced a confrontation because the student didn't agree with their politics, but the student also behaved poorly.

And yes, it is surprising that all this took place in an English class. Well, not entirely. Being in the English field myself I know many of us are very political and will go to any length to get our political message heard in the classroom.

The good news is that even if this teacher didn't figure out what he'd done wrong, his commenters did.

I dunno -- my impression is that however disturbing the professor's own behavior is, the number of commenters who applaud him is even more unsettling.

My questions of Alexander would be: 1) Have you ever heard of any other professor behaving in this way? and 2) If not, can you imagine why that might be?

Both of them behaved badly...the teacher forced a confrontation because the student didn't agree with their politics, but the student also behaved poorly.

Unlike a lot of the cases that get mentioned here, where students are defending their right to be obnoxious, I don't see where this guy was even out of line from an etiquette point of view. From the professor's own description, he was insisting upon what the student "must" believe (which might perhaps be logically correct, but if so, Alexander did a godawful job of justifying it), putting words to that effect in the student's mouth and then berating him for pushing back.

Yeah, the kid is probably a bushy-tailed 19-year-old with no experience with reality. But it's hardly unprecedented for such youngsters to attend college, and a professor who flies off the emotional handle when one of them disagrees with him is going to have a long, stressful career.

The kid is probably not the sharpest tool in the shed if he for one could not figure out that Zinn was doing a hypothetical (the whole utopian thing was a hint). Other than the teacher pushing and probing to see if the kid would see where the logic of the argument was not working, there was not much else to do really. That whole "sign your name here" to get yourself a grade is the, I have to say it, the dumbest thing I have seen a teacher do (I have taught high school and college). That teacher just basically walked into it. Her job was to grade the writing as writing, and while I know separating oneself from the writing and the politics (or other very human feelings/views) is not easy, had she done that, her life would have been easier.

I agree with Singer... this pox on both houses is crap.

The professor gladly abused his position of power and became... well... The Oppressor. The evil babyeating christian studnet, for a brief moment in time (no doubt in the professor's view), became The Other. He was dead wrong and way out of line. If I were his chair or head, I'd have thrown the book (the heaviest hardback edition even if I had to wait a week for interlibrary loan) at him.

Incidentally, that's quite a charming site they have there, overall. Scroll down, you have "Christopher Tassava" asking "I wonder, for my part, if Alito, getting close to the prize of a lifetime, is either a) moderating his views so as to be more broadly acceptable or b) lying like a dirty pasta-eater."

Scroll up, you have "Elise" astonished to learn (on November 4th!) that there's apparently some sort of riots going on in France. Given that she's quite the savant about world events, she concludes that this must be the fault of the American media.

I would like to know when English teachers took on responsibility for policing students' political views. I say "teachers" because of some experiences my kid has had. What happened to teaching how to craft a coherent sentence or paragraph? God knows, that seems to be enough of a challenge.

I agree too with JSinger that I don't see how the student behaved poorly.

I think that, after reading the article and the comments, the public is being very badly served by some of the academics. The result of Alex getting the kid to sign that scrap of paper is that the kid now learns that he has to go along to get along in the academic world and that is a terrible lesson to teach any kid.

I thought the whole purpose of an education was to develop our critical skills. Alex is most definitely not doing that. If he indeed thought that the problem was with the reasoning of the kid to reach the end result being faulty with the results attained, then the natural course should have been to show how following his reasoning would result in different conclusions. Instead he just essentially told the kid that he was stupid for believing as he did and if he would just sign away his mess of pottage all would be forgiven. Way to go, prof. Develop another in a long line of Manchurian candidate students who will regurgitate back just what you want them to and then you can pat yourself on the back and say what a good teacher you are.

I think this is inexcusible abuse of authority.

Why exactly are we supporting universities who permit, and even encourage, their employees to act in this way?

Anyone thinking about making an alumni contribution ought to keep incidents like this in mind.

I just drafted a constructive response focusing on "X's" comments on how that student just lost respect for Alex (and possibly the rest of his humanities and liberal arts profs) and how he can win back the student's respect and regain his credibility. Then I read Alex's latest post. I'm floored by his lack of professionalism and obviousness to the broader implications of what he did. I pretty much just hit delete.

My favorite lines

While my student may not think much of this whole process now, there is a very real chance that somewhere down the road he will come across the sheet he's signed or think back to this experience and reflect upon it. His moral position holds greater stakes than the grade on his paper. By signing this sheet for a higher grade, I believe the experience will stick with him..

and

In short, I think what I did has significant pedagogical merit on at least one level, especially considering the stakes surrounding the assignment and also the fact that he still has to engage in one more additional full revision of this paper for a grade (the previous "revisions" were only attempts to increase the final score on the formal paper itself).

For heaven’s sake! Does Alex realize that with that “A,” the student may just have blown him and the rest of this freshman writing class off??!?

I normally tell my advisees to take their liberal arts class very seriously, but if that student was under my charge, and came in with that sort of story, I honestly don't know what I'd tell him. (I have a few things I'd tell the prof's chair though!)

I'm just happy an English instructor is actually assigning his students fiction.

Look, Jane. See the comma faults!

One who professes, in all the senses of that word, to teach writing ought to compose mechanically flawless prose (and be ashamed of anything less).

None of this is surprising--sloppy mechanics and sloppy thinking are often companions. And they are evidence of poor preparation and insufficient mastery of the discplines of writing and teaching.

Placed in that student's position, I'd have done the same thing. My positions are condemned by the teacher's personal views ("The only way his argument 'works,' in my opinion...") and not by anything he is able to logically explain. The best I can hope for in this class is a grade--I'm not going to learn anything.

Sadly, this teacher's attempt at irony proves his fictional point: True freedom, justice, and equality can never exist in his classroom and students deserve their fate so that he can exist.

i don't understand why the student's logic hinges on the fact that all people are inheritly evil. instead i think the professor should consider if people value an abstact idea over survival. until you can convince someone that idealism is much more important than living, i don't beleive you will see anything better than american capitalism. in this sense i beleive the student's thoughts to be more than justified because utopian by definition means "perfect" not "impossible" so since Zinn's utopian writings involve the impossible they are just plain wrong. i think the real tragedy of this is that the professor consciously put the student in a situation where he must compromise his values.

I just drafted a constructive response...Then I read Alex's latest post...I pretty much just hit delete.

Same here. I read his petulant response to my comment, decided to respond in the next post, as he had requested, read it and the comments and gave up in disgust.

Ughh, what a bullying, self-righteous creep. (He's sure a lot tougher with a red pen in his hand, isn't he?)The only thing more depressing than him is the echo chamber / chorus in his comments. Frankly, the guy is _very_ lucky the student didn't take the affidavit and march straight into the department chairman's office with it.

I don't think he believes he's bullying (and I don't think so either). But I DO think he has such a disconnect with the priorities of students in a freshman writing class for non Lib-Arts / Humanities majors (they tend to me "just get me through this so I can pass Calc 2") as well with students with views that are very different from his own. Add to the fact that his treatment of that student was unique, and you have a student who percieves that rightly or wrongly, he was picked out for what objectively is a professonal insult (the contract was pretty petty if you don't read Alex's post-facto playbook on "Time Bomb" teaching) because he disagrees with Zinn and is a Christian. And from there he's going to have a bad view of how professional conduct on "that" end of campus differs from the conventional wisdom. And from there he may apply that template on all other liberal arts and humanties profs. They're all like that because the behavior stands, so why should I take my upper to mid-level history class seriously when I have to pass thermo.

I don't usually post more than once or twice on a story, but this clown has really gotten under my skin. I think what bothers me is that the professor was confronted for the first time with a student who held his ground and pushed back. (Perhaps inarticulately or, very possibly, perhaps not inarticulately.) And the prof forces him into a showdown that degrades both of them. And then his little claque of morons twitters sympathetically about how some students are just, y'know, incapable of logic and need to have it beaten into them.

Anyway.

I don't think he believes he's bullying...

Oh, I'm sure he's completely sincere! In his mind, he's assigning a full volume of Howard Zinn out of an apolitical commitment to instruction in logic, his imputation of motive to his student is rationally unassailable, allowing the student to decide between redoing the essay with specified arguments or confessing to specified thought crimes is offering him a choice and the whole thing is driven by a pious, objective devotion to rational thought.

Knowing yourself is hard, which is an excellent reason to err on the side of caution when you have power over others, as opposed to, say, adapting pedagogical techniques more often associated with Stalin or the Spanish Inquisition.

Like Bill, I went to the site and started to post a comment but then -- seeing Alex's response to the previous commenters -- gave up. Where do you begin to address someone who really, truly thinks that someone could only prefer capitalism to revolution if he or she believes that poor people are "inherently evil"? Someone who thinks that only the vicious or the profoundly deceived could disagree with Howard Zinn's account of American history and his prescriptions for the country's future? Someone who has no idea that Zinn's views are marginal, at best, among historians and other scholars? Someone who expects us to take his word for it that his student plainly affirmed that rich people are "immune to sin"? Someone who believes that, by pressuring a student into "admitting" that he holds views that the teacher dislikes, he is teaching a lesson in "critical thinking"?

Nah. There's no point. The really interesting point to note about this little tempest in a teapot is, I think, is the total cluelessness of Alex. Here is someone teaching in a college or university setting who really can't imagine that any sane and bien-pensant person could possibly disagree with Howard Zinn, and who is brought to the end of his pedagogical tether when he confronts someone who thinks that Zinn is full of shit. If that doesn't provide a perfect illustration of the consequences of intellectual homogeneity in the humanities, I don't know what would.

Please tell me that Alex is still a graduate student, teaching the political drivel that passes for freshman composition at institutions where the grad students do all the comp instruction, and not an actual professor.

"His moral position holds greater stakes than the grade on his paper."

His moral position is absolutely none of his English teacher's cottonpickin' business.

I'd like to see the English teacher made to read and comment on - oh, maybe Rush Limbaugh's newsletter, or Atlas Shrugged - by a teacher who leans to the right, and then see how open he is to having his logic corrected.

Well I just posted a shake-you-like-a-baby-gram over there but I don't know what good it will do (I'll keep hope alive).

Between the public posting of this student's unique case in bold detail, the WTF nature of a that A contract, what I think is a disconnect between how he views this student and how the students in general view these types of classes, I think he needs to consult with his department chair and a prof from the "other side of campus" and hear it directly form someone sitting in front of him.

He's getting nothing but fans and dogpilers (uh us...) and it's too easy for him to accept the support and blow off the criticism. If I were his chair and reading this on multiple blog comment areas, I'd be praying no one tied it to his or her department.

At least when I had instructors like that at Brooklyn College in the 1970s, it was in my History and my Political Science courses. Besides, when an instructor assigns a history book in class, he must expect an argument based upon history. Probably, the student was giving and agreeing with the Founders' point of view. And, since every attempt at utopia on Earth has ended in death and disaster, he may have felt that Zinn's vision would have led to more violence, not less.

I wouldn't have signed the statement, but I would have never respected the instructor again.

I think signing or not signing that paper would depend on whether I would have to deal with that schmuck teacher again ever in order to get my degree and also whether I were getting my degree in that field. If I would not have to deal with that prof or subject area again, I might sign just to get out of the place. After all, an A in the course shows that I really know the subject after all (snark) and will look good for the future.

I also think that my feeling for the professor would be scum suckingly low and I would hope never to meet him again ever anyplace.

The Alito "dirty lying pasta eater" comment really hit a nerve. I submitted a post (see below) and expect to be told I just don't understand the humor. I will then offer him the opportunity to sign a contract indictaing that since conservatives are evil it is permissible to make non pc remarks in order to defend pc principles.

"That's an interesting expression. Since I assume there is no underlying ethnic slur involved here (intentional or otherwise) I can only conclude that the Atkins and Palm Beach diets also increase ones propensity for veracity."

The student may be clueless about backing up his assertions with logic and evidence. Assuming that he is not, however, I don't blame him for taking the "A". The teacher's insulting definition of his beliefs (in the form of the statement to be signed) showed him to be either dishonest or a moron. At that point the idea of dealing with such a person in a straightforward manner is ridiculous. He was offered a dishonest choice and had every right to take advantage of the fact.

My, how depressing. I'm not terribly impressed by the student's decision to go ahead and sign rather than fight. On the other hand, being told that your position arises either from ignorance or implied moral deficiency has a distinct "show trial" atmosphere to it, I can understand that he might not put much value in what he did or didn't "confess".

Alex's decision to continue defending this as a pedagogically valuable action strikes me as remarkably naive. He seems to think that the blinding light of "intellectual honesty" or something like that will one day burst upon the student, who will be horrified to have signed such a statement. A far more realistic outcome is that the student will remember that his professor talked leftist cant, thought conservatives were either wicked or stupid, and that he got an easy twenty points by indulging the professor's attitude.

Actually, the point I find most interesting is an ancillary one, as illustrated by this exchange on the comments thread:

Allen: "Maybe he's been brainwashed by his English Dept. but still he should have know bettter than to have assigned Zinn. He's suppposed to teach English."

Elise: "Allan, this indicates a singularly narrow view of contemporary pedagogy."

This in the context, of course, of why the class is using Zinn's work as the text of an English course; it being notable as a tract of political history rather than for any particular literary value. Its prominence is justified here by the current of progressive change, which has decreed that English professors be prepared to issue dicta on history, philosophy, sociology, political science, psychology and economics, all in the name of interdisciplinary understanding. Unfortunately, the result of this sort of fusion (and metastasis into "X Studies") in the humanities seems to have led to shallowness and banality rather than enlightened rigor. After, all, drawing back to the original example, "that true freedom, justice, and equality can never exist," which Alex seems to have intended to shock his charge, strikes me as simply a statement of the impossibility of "immanentizing the eschaton". This shouldn't be startling as a metaphysical position, and it suggests that Alex is a bit out of his depth in arguing this.

I think you're all missing the point. Perhaps the student really did find the poor evil.Approaching the great unwashed,staph sore infected, skin popping methamphetamine multitude can seem rather daunting. And this would be on one oof their better days.

Robert,

How can we determine that? We have a prof on a public board that is spilling HIS side of a conflictwith a student with no option for the studnet or his academic advisor (his advocate) to intercede with his side of the story. This is his prof's view against.... well... conjecture based on those people who are protecting this unknown studnet (once again on a public board).

Alex could be in serious ethical breach here. If I were the students advisor and I found out about this, there would be Hell to pay, and I wouldn't be going to the prof or to his chair at this point.

I'm floored also to the level at which Alex's friends are enabling this.

Bill, when your say floored do you mean surprised? Quite frankly I'm disappointed but not surprised. This seems to be a logical followup of what 's been happeniing in English Depts in the last 10-15 years or so. This is probably just the tip of the iceberg.

I'm floored that either no one has told this studnet to be discrete in discussing prof-student interactions (you sure as hell don't do it in public to strangers), or that he and his colleagues don't undestand that they are doing something wrong here. He's now claiming that he may be making it up after graphic and gory details. This green kid needs serious counsel.

I'm about to shake-the-baby again, but this is a lost cause.

"I'm floored that either no one has told this studnet to be discrete "

make that prof (or as "Winston" says please let it be graduate student where at least the Bactine is free).

"I think you're all missing the point. Perhaps the student really did find the poor evil."

Maybe he did, and without his essay it's impossible to know. And if the student thinks poor = evil, that's morally wrong. Is it his English teacher's responsibility to correct the student's morals?

I'd be OK about this if the school were a religious school. Really, I would think a teacher in such a school would have a duty to point out a student's moral failings. But in that case the student would know, and would have known going in, that the teacher was taking on that extra responsibility, and what yardstick the teacher would be using.

What's obvious to me (a real live living Calvinist) is that our dear Alex is trying, with rather pathetic results, to force his student to acknowledge that he believes in original sin/total depravity. But he's undereducated, so he's substituted a little word he knows (i.e. 'evil') for the much more complex (dare I say 'nuanced'?) concepts he perhaps has heard dirty rumors about, but surely doesn't grasp. He's probably got a third-hand account of Weber banging around somewhere in his mental attic, but what comes out in that sad little 'contract' has been filtered through so many PC sieves it's just a cartoon.

If I were employing Alex, I'd be worried.

What bothers me the most is this comment that Alex leaves:

"I'm officially done adding to/reading the comment fields in either post. Those of you who feel the need to put your "two" (read: 25) cents in on the issue can do so on the love-fest on Critical Mass."

I left a comment about that, despite this declaration, basically pointing out that it's disingenuous to demand that the student confront beliefs that are counter to his, when Alex himself is evidently not willing to do the same (unless, maybe, the people who agree with Alex outnumber the people who don't).

I'll continue to give Alex the benefit of the doubt since s/he is still a rookie professor, but this kind of classroom stunt is bush league all the way.

To be fair, Alex has made a second post to follow up the first:

http://afterschoolsnack.blogspot.com/2005/11/on-time-bomb-teaching-or-why-i-dont.html

I know a high scholl English teacher who assigned her students Michael Moore. And she's a very thoughtful person in most ways, although very young. I haven't said anything, just looked unimpressed.