DL Truth: Distance Learning Truth

Quote:this elective class, students are required to read through their textbook -- the Bible.

You mean even the passage about sodomy being worth pain of death? About evil Jews? About those who don't like Jesus to be king over them to be put to death? Hmm... Why doesn't Ham think that is going to gain widespread acceptance anytime soon?

Quote:Rigor Please
Mike Adams

For some time, I have made a habit of asking students their major (and minor) immediately after they ask me a silly question. This is necessary because I teach two basic studies courses per semester – both populated by students from across the spectrum of academic disciplines. I have found (consistently) that nearly all inane questions and comments come from students in just a handful of academic majors.

In the past, I’ve gotten myself in hot water for suggesting that the African American Center, LGBTQIA Center, Women’s Center, and El Centro Hispano be shut down in order to ease our current state budget crisis. But, today, I propose that we go further by eliminating all academic majors and minors ending with the word “studies.”

This is not meant to be prejudicial – although, having little else to do, the Arrogant American Centers will try to make it so. Let it be known that I propose eliminating more than just Arrogant American and Hyphenated American Studies. I also want to do away with Communication Studies, Environmental Studies, Liberal Studies, Women’s Studies, and Gay and Lesbian Studies. And I want the cuts to be implemented across our sixteen-campus system.

The data I plan to use to support my proposal is not scientific. If it were, the proponents of the various “studies” programs would not understand it. So I rely principally on an unscientifically gathered collection of stupid questions I have recently heard from students in the Fill-in-the-Blank Studies era of higher education. These student comments demonstrate that their “studies” professors are truly making a difference in their lives and in the dominant “society”:

*At a local grill, the waitress, a UNCW “studies” major, asked "Would you like a sweet tea or a beer?" to which I responded "The latter." She then asked, "Which one is that?" I responded by asking her "Well, why don't you just guess? You have a fifty-fifty shot at getting it right." She responded by saying "I'm not in the mood to think."

*Just two days before an exam I gave my students a review session. I told them they could ask any question as long as they did not ask me what to “focus on.” I explained that asking what to “focus on” was the same as asking “What is going to be on the test?”

First question: “What should we focus on in chapter three?”

When I refused to answer, the response was “There’s just so much to read. Where is our study guide?” (For the record, study guides are most often found in classes ending with the word “studies.” That is why “studies” students so often demand them. It’s an addiction).

*Another student wrote to tell me she was going to be missing the next class. Her question was:

“Will we be talking about anything important?” It’s a fair question. Few of the professors in her major talk about anything important.

My response: No response. I simply deleted the email.

*I walked into class the other day and told students to stop emailing me with questions that were already answered in the course syllabus – noting that since it was over one month into the class it was simply embarrassing for them to have not read the syllabus. I argued that taking a class without reading the course syllabus was like taking a job without reading the employment contract.

Later in the class a “studies” major asked “How many tests will we have this semester?”

My response: “Read your syllabus.” (Note: She asked the same question during the next class meeting apparently having forgotten that she already asked the question).

* I recently asked this simple question of a product of one of our fine and academically rigorous “studies” programs: “Did you re-take the GRE?

The answer: “No. I haven't re-took it yet.”

*Here’s another brilliant question from someone who should be majoring in Inappropriate Communication Studies: “We only have two minutes before class begins. Do I have enough time to go to the restroom?”

My response: “I don’t know. I guess that depends on whether you plan to go #1 or #2.”

*Student: “Can we have a study guide for the next test?

Me: “What is your major?”

Student: “Communication Studies.”

Me: “Is this a Communication Studies class?”

Student: “No.”

Me: “Well, there’s your answer.”

*This question came from a student who ought to be majoring in Entitlement Studies: “Can I take the test earlier in the day - like around ten o’clock?”

My response: “Yes, I plan to offer thirty different administrations of the test – one for each of my students according to his or her personal needs.”

Student: “Are you serious?”

Me: “No.”

*A new Entitlement Studies major would be fitting for the “studies” student who asked this question: “Could you spell that guy’s name – the one who came up with the theory you just mentioned?”

My response: “Sure. R-O-B-E-R-T.”

Her response: “Could you spell his last name, too?”

My response: “Sure. R-E-A-D—Y-O-U-R—B-O-O-K.”

Her response: “Is his name going to be on the test?”

*And, finally, here’s a great question from a student who has been trained by the finest minds on the Fill-in-the-Blank Studies faculty: “What is a propensity?”

My response: “It is a habit, predisposition, or inclination. For example, people who choose majors or minors ending with the word ‘studies’ have a propensity to ask idiotic questions. But they do not have a propensity to use the dictionary.” (OK, I didn’t actually say that but I thought of it later and I can pretend I said it because it’s my column).

Of course, not all of the stupid questions I get are from students majoring or minoring in Something-or-Another Studies. But they do dominate the field of stupidity in a way that reflects poorly on their respective majors and the university. That is the reason why we need to take a Darwinian approach by getting rid of these departments and forcing these students to attempt to survive in a real academic discipline.

The university will have a better student body after the Fill-in-the-Blank Studies students have all flunked out. The patrons of the local grill will also have more dedicated waitresses. Freed from the rigors of college life the latter might eventually be moved to think. That is, if the mood should suddenly strike them.

Well...
That's all fine and dandy...
but honestly...
how many flag wagging, bible waving patriotic morons REALLY understand (or use!) expressions like propensity and former/latter?
Even the popular right-wing equivalent of the various genocide, GLBT, queer [no, GLBT is NOT the same thing but close], chicano, women, African...studies are probably NASCAR people who talk like "It ain't no gonna be no partay"...

Now we see why UIUC considered a dope like Gollin to be the perfect shitwit to preside over a freshman disorientation class.

Quote:Brainwashing U
Colleges’ sick ‘orientation’ game

By ROBERT SHIBLEY
Last Updated: 3:29 AM, August 25, 2011
Posted: 10:47 PM, August 24, 2011

Parents sending children off to college for the first time, beware: Their “freshman orientation” is all too likely to include being herded through a “tunnel of oppression” to learn about the evils of “white privilege,” being lectured about how they’re part of a “rape culture” or being forced to discuss their sexual identities with complete strangers -- before they even meet their first professor.

That’s right: For all we hear about faculty ideological or political bias, campus administrators are often worse when it comes to brainwashing students.


What many university administrators would like to do: The “ideal” freshman orientation might resemble this experiment from the film “Final Destination 5.”

Consider the shocking account from a student trained to be a dorm supervisor -- a resident adviser, or RA -- at [regionally accredited] DePauw University in Indiana. One of her first duties last fall was to lead her new students through a house decorated as a “Tunnel of Oppression,” where supposedly “realistic” demonstrations in each room taught lessons such as how religious parents hate their gay children, Muslims would find no friends on a predominantly non-Muslim campus and overweight women suffer from eating disorders.

Indeed, in her training to become an RA, “We were told that ‘human’ was not a suitable identity, but that instead we were first ‘black,’ ‘white,’ or ‘Asian’; ‘male’ or ‘female’; ... ‘heterosexual’ or ‘queer.’ We were forced to act like bigots and spout off stereotypes while being told that that was what we were really thinking deep down.” Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. must be spinning in his grave.

Unsurprisingly, she turned down the school’s offer to be an RA this year -- she’d rather find another job.

DePauw is no rare case. At least 96 colleges across the country have run similar “tunnel of oppression” programs in the last few years.

Perhaps the most infamous re-education program was the [regionally accredited] University of Delaware’s: Every single student in the dorms endured an Orwellian “treatment” (the school’s word) program to expunge supposedly incorrect beliefs. Delaware demanded that its RAs ask intrusive questions about students’ sexual identity and write reports about their responses while lecturing students on environmentalism and telling them that “citizenship” required them to recognize that “systemic oppression exists in our society.”

The “treatment” was shut down a few years back after a faculty whistle-blower turned materials for the program over to the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (where I now work), which publicized the outrage. But a series of “Residential Curriculum Institutes” started by those in charge of the Delaware program continues to this day.

And the same spirit infects much of American higher education. In New York, [regionally accredited] Hamilton College last fall ordered all first-year men to attend a “She Fears You” presentation, designed to get them to acknowledge their personal complicity (after just a month on campus!) in Hamilton’s “rape culture” and to change their “rape-supportive” beliefs and attitudes. Not coincidentally, the program’s presenter is a speaker at this year’s Residential Curriculum Institute.

Did Hamilton warn incoming female students of the campus “rape culture” before it took their tuition? I doubt it. But publicity did force administrators to make the seminar optional -- just minutes before it started.

How many other schools host similar events that no one off campus ever hears about?

How to fight this indoctrination? First, warn your children or grandchildren about it -- and remind them that every public college (and most private colleges) must leave students free to make up their own minds on such controversial ideas as “all white people are racists” or “all men are responsible for rape.” College is supposed to teach you how to think, not what you must think.

And, for the many students who do go through a creepy orientation program, please save any documents you’re given on the program and tell us about it at FIRE (thefire.org).

Justice Louis Brandeis famously opined that sunlight is the best disinfectant. If students go into orientation with their eyes open and a willingness to alert outsiders, we can hope to purge the infection of thought reform on America’s campuses.

Quote:Avoiding Leftist Indoctrination at American Colleges and Universities
Daniel Doherty
Nov 19, 2011

One of the greatest dilemmas facing American students today is the perennial threat of leftist indoctrination on college campuses. In recent years, institutions of higher learning – which have historically been places for enlightened thought and dissenting opinions – have increasingly become breeding grounds for radical liberalism. College courses, which are often taught by biased professors who espouse leftist ideology, fail to adequately challenge undergraduate students and often leave many of them woefully unprepared for the real world.

In his most recent work, Please Enroll Responsibly: Avoiding Indoctrination at College, attorney turned political activist Lee Doren examines pragmatic ways students can excel on college campuses without compromising their beliefs. He explains through his own personal experiences how students – including many conservatives – invariably hide their political views out of fear that their professors will penalize them. His book, which serves as an authoritative text on ways undergraduates can disagree with their liberal professors and maintain high grades, is a must-read for any conscientious citizen pursuing a postsecondary degree.

And yet, like many students today, Doren recounts in unvarnished detail how his political philosophy was shaped by leftwing professors in college.

“Being a liberal was easy,” he writes. “My professors rewarded me for agreeing with their political views, and I felt morally superior on the Political Left. Since I rarely listened to anyone who differed with me politically, I assumed all intelligent people were liberals too.”

Alas, according to a George Washington University survey published in The Washington Post, 72 percent of professors teaching at American universities and colleges are liberal. Conservatives, by contrast, comprise only 15 percent. Hence, the pervasiveness of liberalism in higher education, in Doren’s view, is not merely a product of rightwing hysteria – but is, by all estimations, an empirical fact.

Nevertheless, after reflecting upon his own unique personal experiences, Doren suggests several ways undergraduates can deal with this reality. One method, he contends, is to build positive relationships with professors by acting friendly and participating in class.

“After you established good rapport with your professor, [he/she] may tolerate some political disagreement,” he argues. “On the other hand, had you never participated, and then decided to object…the only thing the professor would remember about you would be your opposition.”

More important, Doren opines, one must be well read and willing to consult outside materials in order to address the prevalence of liberal bias in the classroom. At a time when nearly one-third of college students – according to a recent survey – confess they do not take courses requiring more than forty pages of reading per week, self-study can have innumerable benefits when expressing a dissenting opinion in class. While students, for example, may instinctively recognize their professors are wrong, Doren reminds us that unsubstantiated invective will do little to win political arguments.

Moreover, when confronted with the prospect of writing a paper from a leftist position, he urges students to embrace the assignment with zeal and enthusiasm.

“My advice may surprise you: Do exactly what the professor wants,” he argues. “This is not abandoning principle. In fact, if you write a quality paper, it will improve your writing and make you more prepared to argue politics in the real world.”

In other words, writing from a different point of view – albeit undesirable – will improve one’s grasp of the English language and help students fully comprehend the nuances of different political perspectives. Thus, when engaged in a debate, understanding the strengths and weaknesses of two disparate positions, he explains, can be the difference between winning and losing a philosophical argument.

While the aforementioned examples are only a few ways college students can resist indoctrination at institutions of higher learning, Doren writes extensively and persuasively on the subject. Indeed, when the failed economic policies of the current administration threaten the livelihood and prosperity of the United States, we need college graduates – now more than ever – who comprehend the ramifications of big government policies. His book, I believe, underscores a ubiquitous problem – and provides bold solutions based on numerous and thorough discussions with students, parents, and concerned citizens.

It’s also worth mentioning that because Doren published the work himself, his exposition is exceedingly inexpensive and includes a supplementary reading list of conservative and libertarian writers. As an affordable and invaluable resource for combating leftist professors on college campuses – his book is also a compelling narrative about his own political transformation and a welcomed reminder why conservative principles matter in the 21st century.

Click here to purchase Lee Doren’s ebook.

Hey! That shit was instrumental in "making the world safe for democracy"...although some argue Wilson cut Black progress back 50 years...what's wrong? After those evil Japanese, mass-murdering Germans and imperialist Italians you don't want a dose of YOUR medicine? Why?
Second, as I always say, go the distance learning route.
Many curricula and textbooks do resemble those of 1970s East Germany, but you are afforded considerable leisure to read whatever you want and to frequent whoever you want without that becoming a determining factor.
Besides, not all marxist hogwash is useless...with minor changes it can be restyled to attack anybody and anything just as well.
You can't have animal house, woodstock and porky's AND at the same time a libertarian or conservative environment.
Hell, with more and more institutions releasing their full courses online, you may get to pick and choose.
Genocide? GLBT? Queer? Chicano? Black? Orientalism? Women's studies? Leave that on shelf and move on.

Quote:Leftist California Professors “Corrupt” Higher Education
by Voices on April 15, 2012

“I don’t know any polite way of putting this — but he’s lying,” said professor John Ellis, president of the National Association of Scholars’ California division. Ellis was reacting to a critic’s characterization of the NAS’s damning report, “A Crisis of Competence: The Corrupting Effect of Political Activism in the University of California.”

California taxpayers spend $2.8 billion to educate the more than 230,000 students at the 10 campuses that comprise the UC system. But the report says the UC system does not help students learn how to think, but rather teaches them what to think. And what they “learn” is that they are victims — whether of racism, sexism, classism or discrimination because of sexual orientation. Liberal profs, says the report, turn the UC campuses into “a sanctuary for a narrow ideological segment of the spectrum of social and political ideas.”

Nationwide, left-wing professors vastly outnumber conservative professors in the humanities. It isn’t even close.

The report cites several studies, including political scientist Stanley Rothman’s 1999 study: “Whether the question was posed in terms of liberals versus conservatives or Democrats versus Republicans, the margins favored the former by nearly 5-to-1 in each case, and in some departments the results were overwhelming. For example, in English departments the margin was 88-to-3, and in politics 81-to-2.”

A different 2007 study, says the report, found the 5-to-1 margin between liberal versus conservative professors had become 8-to-1. Almost 20 percent of professors in social sciences and 25 percent of sociology professors self-identifies as “Marxist.”

And things are getting worse. Younger professors tend to be even more liberal than older ones. Among UC Berkeley’s associate and assistant professors, according to one study, registered Democrats outnumber registered Republicans by 49-to-1 in all departments — including sciences. When Berkeley associates and assistants replace the older professors as they retire, the extreme 8-to-1 tilt in favor of liberal profession could reach 50-to-1.

UC Berkeley professor Robert Anderson, the critic whom Ellis accuses of “lying,” called the report “short on facts, but long on innuendo and anecdotes.” Is it? The 87-page report looked at course descriptions, books assigned, faculty’s political party registration and self-identification of ideology, and student feedback.

Students are immersed in an education that emphasizes the wrongs done to minorities, women, gays and other groups. Gender, ethnic, religious and sexual orientation grievances are highlighted as representative of an imperial, racist, exploitative capitalist superpower that continues to engage in widespread racism, sexism, homophobia and worldwide domination.

“We wuz wronged” takes center stage over a basic understanding of economics, of the concept of federalism, and of the values that turned a struggling bunch of colonies into a political and economic superpower. Indeed, the very mission statements of many departments on UC campuses stress their commitment to activism for enacting social change, or to bring about social or racial or fill-in-the-blank justice.

Take the UC Berkeley history course that majors in that field must take, “The United States from Settlement to the Civil War.” Its course description states its goals: “to understand how democratic political institutions emerged in the United States in this period in the context of an economy that depended on slave labor and violent land acquisition.”

A conservative professor — if there were any — might offer an alternative version of American history: The British colonies defied the mightiest world power by demanding and then fighting for political and religious freedom. They conceived a radical document, the United States Constitution, born out of armed revolution, where for the first time in human history, the new, imperfect country said: “The people rule. Through our Constitution, which we have amended to ensure equal rights of blacks and women, we grant our government limited, non-intrusive powers. The rest is left to the people and to the states.”

Why does this matter?

After all, students expect professors to give opinions. Surely students aren’t potted plants, and can a) read about other points of view and b) freely disagree with professors without fear of classroom ridicule or lower exam grades.

But the report says many students complain that alternative viewpoints are discouraged, scorned or dismissed, sometimes derisively. Students’ complaints to administrators are ignored.

What is the practical effect of this “corrupted” education?

Take today’s debate over whom to “blame” for high gas prices. Without some understanding of supply and demand, voters buy into the patently ridiculous argument that the price of oil results from “manipulation” by oil executives or evil “oil speculators.” Voters ignorant of Econ 101 support populist policies like the minimum wage, which actually hurts the job prospects of the poor — the people minimum wage proponents purport to help.

NAS’s Ellis says the answer is for the UC system to first acknowledge the problem. Then the UC system should stop ignoring its own regents’ “Policy on Course Content.” It states: “(Regents) are responsible to see that the University remain aloof from politics and never function as an instrument for the advance of partisan interest. Misuse of the classroom by, for example, allowing it to be used for political indoctrination … constitutes misuse of the University as an institution.”

Class is now in session.

Quote:Students are immersed in an education that emphasizes the wrongs done to minorities, women, gays and other groups. Gender, ethnic, religious and sexual orientation grievances are highlighted as representative of an imperial, racist, exploitative capitalist superpower that continues to engage in widespread racism, sexism, homophobia and worldwide domination.

Boy oh boy!
Sounds like the abstract of one of those WWII propaganda leaflets...what's wrong, eh bozos? Your medicine is so good you expect everybody else to be treated...but tastes like hog's poo to your refined taste? PFFT!
What?
Your politicking filmmakers, lefty academics and angry minorities found the game so enthusing they didn't hear you say 'cut!' after 1945?
PFFT!
Why what was sooooo right back then looks sooo wrong now?
What goes around...

Quote:Terrorism University
Ryan James Girdusky
May 04, 2012

This week, failed terrorist Adis Medunjanin was found guilty of attempting to blow up the New York City subway system. Medunjanin’s two cohorts, Najibullah Zazi and Zarein Ahmedzay pled guilty and cooperated with the feds. According to the New York Post, “the trio planned to detonate would have caused significant destruction and death in a subway car.”

The story that goes untold is the one of the college that funded and facilitated the trio, while also ignoring the warnings of Islamic extremism on campus.

The three failed terrorists met at Flushing High School where they became friends. Both Medunjanin and Ahmedzay attended the [regionally accredited] Queens College; Medunjanin graduated while Ahmedzay dropped out.

It was during their time at [regionally accredited] Queens College between 2004 and 2009 that they joined the Muslim Student Association (MSA). It was also during that the two decided it would be their life’s mission to fight for the Taliban. The duo reconnected with Zazi who had since graduating high school had moved to Colorado. In 2008, the trio traveled to Peshawar, Pakistan where they would later go on to Waziristan and received training from Al Qaeda. The duo returned to [regionally accredited] Queens College to finish their degrees and Zazi traveled back to Colorado.

In the semester after the two had left school, I became the vice-president of the [regionally accredited] Queens College Republican club. In early November of that year, the [regionally accredited] Queens College Republicans decided to have showing of the film “Fitna” by Dutch politician Geert Wilders. The short film discussed the radical transformation of Europe, which was becoming more Muslim and were losing their democratic values as a result.

It was during that viewing that forty - mostly female members of the MSA attended the small showing, which comprised of seventy in total. After the viewing ended, the members of the MSA began to pass out papers about the misleading information and how the Quran and Islam were part of the religion of peace. When a debate started between the College Republicans and the MSA, the conversation turned ugly.

One male member of the MSA named Muhammad-, who giggled during footage of the Twin Towers falling, stood up and announced that if he had enough money, he would become a suicide bomber. The other members of the club stated that despite his remarks that he was their “brother.” The female members shouted down the club’s then-President, a Jewish woman. They made a series of hateful statements including, “the Holocaust did not exist”, “9/11 was an inside job”, “the Jews are to blame for all the wars in the world”, “We should stone the Jews to death”, “you can not criticize the Quran” and “You can not be an American and a Muslim”. To be fair, one and only one member of the MSA said publicly that she did not agree with her “sisters” on the last statement.

After the viewing, the College Republicans filed a police report on Muhammad. As sitting vice president of the club, I delivered a letter regarding the concern over the MSA, that they clearly held what I believed to be “anti-American” beliefs and the club was a possible breading ground for terrorists to the office of the College President, James Muyskens. I also very carefully explained that in a public college funded by taxpayers should not be funding such an organization. My letter and concerns were flatly ignored.

Days after the video incident, the MSA invited a controversial Imam, Siraj Wahhaj to speak in an event called, “How Islam Perfected Thanksgiving” – which, I should note, was not in the Charlie Brown Special. Authorities called the Imam an un-indicted coconspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombings. Mayor Bloomberg had previously discussed his regrets for bringing the Imam to speak at City Hall and yet [regionally accredited] Queens College and the MSA welcomed him with open arms.

I reported both the [regionally accredited] Queens College events to the New York Post, which covered the story. Facing bad press by a major national paper, the college administration blacklisted our organization, we were defunded, attacked in the school newspapers, and verbally assaulted and even higher members of the schools administration warned other clubs about being actively involved with members of our organization. We are called, “racists”, “bigots”, and “Islamaphobes”.

I became very well aware that the liberal college administration has a role to defend their ideology that diversity is always strength before they defended the best interests of the country.

Just weeks after the MSA brought the un-indicted coconspirator of a terrorist plot to speak on the college campus, the failed terrorist trio were arrested for their attempt to commit an act of terrorism. When The New York Times asked members of the MSA about the arrest of Medunjanin, he was described as “a really nice kid” and “a good guy.”

To this date the MSA is funded by New York City taxpayers and despite the College Republicans’ best efforts, we were defunded and disbanded as an organization. And despite being later proven correct in our intuitions, we were never apologized to by members of the college administration for blacklisting and public defamation of our characters. It is unknown if anyone previously reported suspicious activity by members of the MSA and after the public backlash against the College Republicans, it is doubtful that any people will in the future.

[Regionally accredited] Queens College taught me one valuable lesson: diversity is our strength, unless it is diversity from the liberal administration.

Quote:Ryan James Girdusky
May 04, 2012


One male member of the MSA named Muhammad-, who giggled during footage of the Twin Towers falling, stood up and announced that if he had enough money, he would become a suicide bomber. The other members of the club stated that despite his remarks that he was their “brother.” The female members shouted down the club’s then-President, a Jewish woman. They made a series of hateful statements including, “the Holocaust did not exist”, “9/11 was an inside job”, “the Jews are to blame for all the wars in the world”, “We should stone the Jews to death”, “you can not criticize the Quran” and “You can not be an American and a Muslim”. To be fair, one and only one member of the MSA said publicly that she did not agree with her “sisters” on the last statement.

Hmm...if i understand it correctly, it is good Americans on one side and terrorists on the other, right? I had two groups of navel-gazing fundamentalists going at each other. Republicans? Who are the Democrats? PFFT!