by Charles Tackett

Created on: November 23, 2008

I am a college teacher. Everyone has an agenda, even college teachers. However, most college teachers that I know have chronically wholesome objectives. No matter how little bias there is among college professors, students will have problems with classes, especially in the humanities. The primary reason they have problems is that they are forced to take these classes, since many classes are "required." Students pay for these classes but find no intrinsic or extrinsic value in anything that doesn't lead to a lucrative skill set. They think of college, for example, as a vocational training experience, not a life-training experience.

It's hard to believe, but these disgruntled students populate many humanities classes. They complain, rebel, and then expect they will see almost no hard work. They're unhappy no matter what you (the teacher) do; they (these disgruntled students) paid their money and they demand their A. Not only do they want an A, they want you, the teacher, to heap accolades on them and elaborate on how great they are. If they get a B or a C, they don't work harder; instead, they tell us (teachers) about their childhoods, or their current problems. According to students, most are failing because they just can't help it. Outside influences are at fault and it has nothing to do with how hard they work.

If there seems to be a bias toward religious students, then let me open your eyes. In any essay assignments, the religious students turn in homework that is often a boxed set of what every other religious student has said so finitely before them. Their ideas plagiarize sermons and biblical passages. Many of them seem to have been indoctrinated with exactly the same sermon. It's just so much echolalia. People who have been so ingrained with indoctrination that they don't seem to be free at all, and don't seem to be able to be objective or to challenge their own logic with questions. Their life is guarded against explorative inquiry, the very core of college.

When a student turns in a boxed-in, dogmatic essay that repeats what every other religious student has ever said, it's hard to grade. What should teachers grade these repeating essays on, their ability to copy or be uniform with other student's opinions? Or perhaps we could grade them on their typing? Their religious training tells them that following their church's training is good, and that they should acknowledge a higher power from outside of themselves to govern their thinking. College teaches

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