Minds work best when turned on!!!
Whoa!!! Where are we headed in this country when expressions such as..... “America is the land of opportunity” and “I believe the most qualified person should get the job", are deemed offensive by some students? Fine to feel offended, but not file to file a protest against a professor that is challenging your sensitivities Engage and have an enlighten discussion on why you are offended.
I've been teaching as an adjunct instructor at Alaska Pacific University for nearly 20 years. I've offended some students with comments I've made over the years, but not to this extent. Occasionally my progressive side leaks out to the extent some students take offense with a particular view. The difference is I've used those times for energized discussion and engagement.
I don't shy away from having deep and meaningful dialogue with my students. The #1 goal I have for my students is that will hopefully leave the class better thinkers. Becoming more aware of the belief systems that limit and narrow our thinking can be a huge undertaking. So, being challenged as an instructor (really, a facilitator) is welcomed. However, being willing to be challenged should be equally welcomed. To avoid confronting one's beliefs constricts and limits your capacity to grow intellectually. It also limits your awareness of other, and possibly, valid views and beliefs.
Stimulating article. One of the authors, Jonathan Haidt, is a favorite. His book, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion, is one I've used in some of my classes.
Here's an overview of his book....."Why can’t our political leaders work together as threats loom and problems mount? Why do people so readily assume the worst about the motives of their fellow citizens? In The Righteous Mind, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt explores the origins of our divisions and points the way forward to mutual understanding.
His starting point is moral intuition—the nearly instantaneous perceptions we all have about other people and the things they do. These intuitions feel like self-evident truths, making us righteously certain that those who see things differently are wrong. Haidt shows us how these intuitions differ across cultures, including the cultures of the political left and right. He blends his own research findings with those of anthropologists, historians, and other psychologists to draw a map of the moral domain, and he explains why conservatives can navigate that map more skillfully than can liberals. He then examines the origins of morality, overturning the view that evolution made us fundamentally selfish creatures. But rather than arguing that we are innately altruistic, he makes a more subtle claim—that we are fundamentally groupish.
It is our groupishness, he explains, that leads to our greatest joys, our religious divisions, and our political affiliations. In a stunning final chapter on ideology and civility, Haidt shows what each side is right about, and why we need the insights of liberals, conservatives, and libertarians to flourish as a nation."
Bill Moyers interview with Haidt.
http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=bill+moyers+jonathan+haidt&FORM=VIRE2#view=detail&mid=96F365C070DAFDD8225296F365C070DAFDD82252
College students are increasingly demanding protection from words and ideas they don’t like. Here’s why that’s disastrous for education.
THEATLANTIC.COM|BY GREG LUKIANOFF AND JONATHAN HAIDT
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/09/the-coddling-of-the-american-mind/399356/
Whoa!!! Where are we headed in this country when expressions such as..... “America is the land of opportunity” and “I believe the most qualified person should get the job", are deemed offensive by some students? Fine to feel offended, but not file to file a protest against a professor that is challenging your sensitivities Engage and have an enlighten discussion on why you are offended.
I've been teaching as an adjunct instructor at Alaska Pacific University for nearly 20 years. I've offended some students with comments I've made over the years, but not to this extent. Occasionally my progressive side leaks out to the extent some students take offense with a particular view. The difference is I've used those times for energized discussion and engagement.
I don't shy away from having deep and meaningful dialogue with my students. The #1 goal I have for my students is that will hopefully leave the class better thinkers. Becoming more aware of the belief systems that limit and narrow our thinking can be a huge undertaking. So, being challenged as an instructor (really, a facilitator) is welcomed. However, being willing to be challenged should be equally welcomed. To avoid confronting one's beliefs constricts and limits your capacity to grow intellectually. It also limits your awareness of other, and possibly, valid views and beliefs.
Stimulating article. One of the authors, Jonathan Haidt, is a favorite. His book, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion, is one I've used in some of my classes.
Here's an overview of his book....."Why can’t our political leaders work together as threats loom and problems mount? Why do people so readily assume the worst about the motives of their fellow citizens? In The Righteous Mind, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt explores the origins of our divisions and points the way forward to mutual understanding.
His starting point is moral intuition—the nearly instantaneous perceptions we all have about other people and the things they do. These intuitions feel like self-evident truths, making us righteously certain that those who see things differently are wrong. Haidt shows us how these intuitions differ across cultures, including the cultures of the political left and right. He blends his own research findings with those of anthropologists, historians, and other psychologists to draw a map of the moral domain, and he explains why conservatives can navigate that map more skillfully than can liberals. He then examines the origins of morality, overturning the view that evolution made us fundamentally selfish creatures. But rather than arguing that we are innately altruistic, he makes a more subtle claim—that we are fundamentally groupish.
It is our groupishness, he explains, that leads to our greatest joys, our religious divisions, and our political affiliations. In a stunning final chapter on ideology and civility, Haidt shows what each side is right about, and why we need the insights of liberals, conservatives, and libertarians to flourish as a nation."
Bill Moyers interview with Haidt.
http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=bill+moyers+jonathan+haidt&FORM=VIRE2#view=detail&mid=96F365C070DAFDD8225296F365C070DAFDD82252
College students are increasingly demanding protection from words and ideas they don’t like. Here’s why that’s disastrous for education.
THEATLANTIC.COM|BY GREG LUKIANOFF AND JONATHAN HAIDT
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/09/the-coddling-of-the-american-mind/399356/
