by Patricia Gilliam

Created on: February 15, 2008

"You are (explicit word) retarded if you believe any of that!"

It was at that point my husband (fiance at the time) left the front row of a 300+ student Introduction to Psychology class, along with several other students. This conclusion of the instructor's rant had been in reference to Christianity. This happened at a 4-year public university, and to our knowledge the instructor was never fired or even reprimanded for her comment. It's not that students didn't complain but that nothing was done.

My husband was a returning adult student, and when he told me about this he commented on how there were a lot of 18-year-old freshman in the room that were frozen in their seats on what to do. I could definitely relate. When you are raised your whole life to respect people in educational positions, it is a rude awakening when you run into someone who will not hesitate to abuse that respect by either suppressing opposing viewpoints or even mocking them.

Even though the majority of college and university instructors are good people and not like this, there are enough that are to still consider professor bias as a problem that needs to be addressed. While that psychology instructor is an extreme example, a lot of bias is more subtle in how an instructor directs questions and what they choose to teach and not teach. If you're just out of high school and are focused on grades and just graduating, you're likely not going to notice anything unless it's pointed out to you. A bias comment here or there may go unnoticed, but over time and with multiple instructors your whole thought process can be impacted.

I think all of this plays a major role in conflicts between college students and their parents because of this "all you were taught as a child is wrong" kind of mentality in how some instructors teach. College students think they're becoming enlightened compared to their parents, but in reality they may just be being influenced in a very unethical way. It's very twisted in my opinion that anyone would resort to that kind of tactic to promote their ideology to a group of young adults.

After getting out in the "real world," I found I had to unlearn a lot of bias that had come from the influence of certain instructors, especially when it came to politics, business, and religion. It wasn't something that happened overnight, and I had to struggle a few years after college in sorting out what I really believed about a lot of things. As I've matured as an adult, looking back on this issue makes me disappointed that my tuition money went toward some of those people.

If you're in college right now or are considering it, I don't want to discourage you as far as going. Education definitely has value and is worth pursuing, but don't let yourself get walked all over either. If you run into an extremely bias instructor, change classes. You have to realize that you or your parents should not have to pay money to have someone belittle anything you believe or give you a bad grade because they don't share your beliefs. Being challenged in a respectful way by a caring instructor is not a bad thing, but a skill you need to develop early on is knowing the difference.

If you'd like more information about this topic in regards to science and religion, I recently saw the preview to a documentary by Ben Stein called "Expelled" which is coming out this year (2008). The website for the movie is www.getexpelled.com.

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