It can't be about Congress, it's future tense. Congress was made redundant some time in 2001 I believe (whether it was September or January, I'm not sure).
"A classroom needs a leader in the same way that every group of people needs a leader."
I as a republican disagree with your assertion. However, setting aside my disagreement with the use of the word "leader" to describe a teacher's role, the only proper reason a teacher should be made such a "leader" is for the benefit of the students. The parent has yet to give any reason for the particular student's ejection, suggesting that the benefit to the other students (if any) of the ejection did not enter the parent's mind, that the parent exercised his power to eject the student arbitrarily as little more than a show of force. In other words, I seem to have every reason to believe the parent acted in an egotistical manner.
"It is better for that leader to be the lecturer than a student."
Any and all powers the students grant the professor had better be in black and white in the syllabus before that power is exercised, and the professor had better be prepared to demonstrate that they are acting in the manner prescribed by the syllabus if they take such a drastic step. Otherwise, it is not automatically better that the teacher be declared "leader," as it allows abuse that benefits none but the teacher (at best).
"but the board of trustees of the college happens to agree with them."... at some point in the past. It is my understanding that the qualifications of a professor with tenure is never questioned, so that even if I concede that a professor was an expert at some point in time, that doesn't mean that they can't have fallen out of touch with the Real World.
"get yourselves a proper senate for the love of democracy."
If you're in the US, you don't have a proper Senate, either. Germany has a decent senate, Inda has a decent senate, but the Seventeenth Amendment just gives us something that flies in the face of "one man, one vote."
I'd rather have a Senate apportioned by population rather than one that's popularly elected, and I'd personally consider trading the US Senate for the UK House of Lords.
"need of a leader is an innate human need in most all circumstances,"
Not much for republicanism, are we?
"and the reason he ejected the student from the class is irrelevant to the discussion."
This particular thread started when I accused the parent of being egotistical. His response was something along the lines of "I can't be egotistical because I'm not being paid enough" along with some platitudes about "loving to teach." However, even then he felt the need to volunteer his personal opinions on the student he ejected and focusing more on his power as a teacher.
Why the student was ejected may or may not be relevant, but the fact that the parent (to my knowledge) has yet to mention a reason (at least none beyond "Because I can") suggests that why the student was ejected isn't anywhere near as important to the parent as the parent's exercise of arbitrary power in the situation (which got mentioned in repeated posts). That is very relevant to my original accusation of the parent being an egotist.
"The room is only big enough for one leader - maybe it should be the one who's teaching? Just a thought."
I wasn't aware there was supposed to be a "leader" in every classroom, at least outside of elementary school.
"You don't go into academia because of ego, you either do it because you love research for the sake of knowledge, or you love teaching."
Not about the ego? All I've seen so far is your trumpeting of your accomplishment of kicking out a student you disagreed with, but I haven't seen you mention exactly what the disagreement was about. That strikes me as being egocentric.
"However, I cannot do my job when some obnoxious nineteen year old is trying to run my class. If he knew what the hell he was doing, he wouldn't need to be in my class in the first place."
Again, you've celebrated your exercise of power, and now you're besmearing the student you ejected, but it seems why you ejected them isn't as important to you as "I have t3h p0w4r!1"
That doesn't work if there's no "truth in course catalogs" policy in the school.
Case in point: a university has two professors teaching thermodynamics: one who is tolerable, and one who nobody likes. Predictably, everybody signs up for a section taught by Professor Tolerable, and yet somehow, by some "clerical mistake," the professors swapped sections just before the first day of classes. After showing up for the first day of classes and seeing who would be teaching, easily one-third of the students in that class dropped it then and there.
Schools don't like the idea of "don't take classes taught by professors you don't like," because otherwise the lousy-but-tenured professors become a cash sink, teaching no more than that handful of students that didn't know any better. It is to their advantage to use tactics like the bait-and-switch to all but require students to take classes taught by bad professors (the very same professors who seem to be loudest about "It's my classroom!").
"You are paying for the privilege of learning from an expert in a subject."
No, you are paying for the "privilege" of learning from someone who claims to be an expert in a subject. It remains to be seen whether the professor in question actually knows what they're talking about, but by the time a student is able to determine one way or the other, the opportunity to get even a partial refund after dropping the class has passed.
"It's nice that you're a Graduate Student and all, but you've obviously not learned proper respect for your professors yet."
Respect is earned. If anything, tuition is little more than a gamble that maybe the person teaching the class is actually worthy of respect, but demanding that everybody respect Person X simply because they gave Person X some money is just plain silly.
"Because that type of "High School" level of thinking is what we need in College, right??????"
I've suffered through a thermodynamics course taught by a university professor that flat-out said "Don't try to understand, just follow the notes." This was a little before he offered bonus points to students who spent time soliciting money from alumni.
And, of course, he's tenured, complete with his own little fanclub among some of the students.
"Last time I looked, which is out the door and down the hall, ONE purpose of College is to "FREE YOUR MIND" (aka think for yourself)!!!"
My own experiences with college is that the purpose is to find somebody who knows what they're doing and leech off of their homework.
Or, more generally, the "ONE purpose of College is to MAKE MONEY!"
Typing, by design, is faster than handwriting (which is why people developed cursive and shorthand to begin with). Requiring handwritten notes places a cap on bandwidth and requires students to prioritize the information ("needs to be written" vs. "doesn't need to be written"), which I assume the professor believes will engage the student's brains more than being mere dictation typists.
"If you don't know the difference between a job and a career, your career will most likely dead-end."
Here's the difference between "job" and "career" I'm beginning to see from this discussion:
Job--that which you do to earn money to allow you to do the things you'd rather be doing.
Career--that which you must dedicate your entire life to, both on and off the clock, using tactics that are best described as "mercenary" (if not "cut-throat") to try to build yourself up while keeping everybody else down, for little other apparent reason than to perpetuate the cycle.
I've seen Office Space (and have lived it to an extent), I think I'll stick with my "job," thanks. The bullshit of having to plan my life around my "career" just so I can keep it isn't worth my time or effort, especially when those "jobs" actually pay better money and allow me more time to myself (since "jobs" end when I clock out).
"You're willing to take a dead end job (since you don't want the option to go all the way to the top)"
Aside from the fact that you're putting words into my mouth, it's King of the Hill vs. Nothing? And I'm supposed to believe that IT isn't a dead-end job with a choice like that? And then I'm supposed to take a pay cut for the "honor" of participating in that dog-eat-dog environment?
"You're IT job will pay far less than other "non-skilled" jobs because it is a desirable profession with some respectibility and a comfortable working environment"
No, they get into it because they think they see easy money, or have you not looked around at some of the computer science majors out there?
"Sure they own their machine, but what were you going to do with that money anyway, give it to a University? See, the problem is that you want a cushy, indoor job with steady pay and good benefits."
That's not the problem, the problem is that the IT field provides only the "indoor" qualification, and I've been in a tech job that didn't even have that (installing computers across an oil refinery in the middle of a tropical storm). Employers would rather hire contractors, which means neither the steady pay nor the good benefits you've mentioned.
"Engineers, Doctors, Teachers - all people who do real "professional" work every day to keep the basic functions of society, but who don't get their hands dirty. They're being beaten down, and beaten out for jobs/salaries by the industries which produce little tangible benefit - Real Estate Brokers, Lawyers, Accountants, Sales/Marketing."
With the possible exception of teachers, they aren't being "beaten out." Those industries you've pointed to are more examples of that "King of the Hill vs. Nothing" choice you're so proud of. 1% make money, 99% make nothing. Or do you believe those people in your local luxury car dealership can actually afford the product they're selling?
"A real estate agent will charge you 6% of the value of your property and building to sell it, and you'll pay it."
If they successfully sell it. And even if they are successful and do get that 6%, that certainly doesn't mean they could afford to buy a home similar to yours.
"If an architect offered you a contract to design your dream home for 6% of the value of just the construction, most people would complain that the price was too high."
An architect can turn around and produce another design to suit your tastes, while a real estate agent only has a finite number of houses they can try to sell you (and convince you to change your tastes), and the more houses they have to push, the more they'll be hurting; each unsold house is less food on the table (especially as homeowners get fustrated and consider taking their business elsewhere).
"I will almost guarantee that the Architect would spend more hours, and more dollars, designing your home than a real estate agent will spend selling it. (I work with both)"
"It is not a dead end career if you on a perpetual look for moving from company to company to further yourself."
Consider that for a moment:
"It's not a dead-end career if you're always ready to jump ship." "It's not a dead-end career if you leave yourself a lifeline." Those are just fancy ways of saying "It's not a dead-end career except for... you know... the dead ends it throws at you that require you to jump ship/leave an out/etc."
It sounds to me the problem with the "myth of IT being a dead-end career" is that it's true. Perhaps if employers spent more time being good to its current tech employees instead of bemoaning the lack of exploitable newbies to can those current employees in favor of, they wouldn't have this problem.
If you have to constantly be prepared to deal with dead ends, it's a dead-end career.
Before flat-out saying "thou shalt let black people vote" with the Fifteenth Amendment, the idea was to penalize a state that denied suffrage to a portion of its men over the age of 21 by reducing its delegation in the House proportionally (and finding out the size of a state's delegation is what the Census is all about). While it may or may not have teeth now that the Fifteenth Amendment has been ratified (though, in my opinion, this idea is far better at enforcing itself), it hasn't been repealed and therefore still needs to be taken into consideration by the Census.
Slashdot Mirror
"It means you work for money?"
It means that you'd do almost anything for money, that you hold no morals or ethics beyond "How much can I get?"
It can't be about Congress, it's future tense. Congress was made redundant some time in 2001 I believe (whether it was September or January, I'm not sure).
"A classroom needs a leader in the same way that every group of people needs a leader."
I as a republican disagree with your assertion. However, setting aside my disagreement with the use of the word "leader" to describe a teacher's role, the only proper reason a teacher should be made such a "leader" is for the benefit of the students. The parent has yet to give any reason for the particular student's ejection, suggesting that the benefit to the other students (if any) of the ejection did not enter the parent's mind, that the parent exercised his power to eject the student arbitrarily as little more than a show of force. In other words, I seem to have every reason to believe the parent acted in an egotistical manner.
"It is better for that leader to be the lecturer than a student."
Any and all powers the students grant the professor had better be in black and white in the syllabus before that power is exercised, and the professor had better be prepared to demonstrate that they are acting in the manner prescribed by the syllabus if they take such a drastic step. Otherwise, it is not automatically better that the teacher be declared "leader," as it allows abuse that benefits none but the teacher (at best).
"but the board of trustees of the college happens to agree with them." ... at some point in the past. It is my understanding that the qualifications of a professor with tenure is never questioned, so that even if I concede that a professor was an expert at some point in time, that doesn't mean that they can't have fallen out of touch with the Real World.
"get yourselves a proper senate for the love of democracy."
If you're in the US, you don't have a proper Senate, either. Germany has a decent senate, Inda has a decent senate, but the Seventeenth Amendment just gives us something that flies in the face of "one man, one vote."
I'd rather have a Senate apportioned by population rather than one that's popularly elected, and I'd personally consider trading the US Senate for the UK House of Lords.
"need of a leader is an innate human need in most all circumstances,"
Not much for republicanism, are we?
"and the reason he ejected the student from the class is irrelevant to the discussion."
This particular thread started when I accused the parent of being egotistical. His response was something along the lines of "I can't be egotistical because I'm not being paid enough" along with some platitudes about "loving to teach." However, even then he felt the need to volunteer his personal opinions on the student he ejected and focusing more on his power as a teacher.
Why the student was ejected may or may not be relevant, but the fact that the parent (to my knowledge) has yet to mention a reason (at least none beyond "Because I can") suggests that why the student was ejected isn't anywhere near as important to the parent as the parent's exercise of arbitrary power in the situation (which got mentioned in repeated posts). That is very relevant to my original accusation of the parent being an egotist.
Is that the number of amps it pulls down or the number of watts in heat it puts out?
"The room is only big enough for one leader - maybe it should be the one who's teaching? Just a thought."
I wasn't aware there was supposed to be a "leader" in every classroom, at least outside of elementary school.
"You don't go into academia because of ego, you either do it because you love research for the sake of knowledge, or you love teaching."
Not about the ego? All I've seen so far is your trumpeting of your accomplishment of kicking out a student you disagreed with, but I haven't seen you mention exactly what the disagreement was about. That strikes me as being egocentric.
"However, I cannot do my job when some obnoxious nineteen year old is trying to run my class. If he knew what the hell he was doing, he wouldn't need to be in my class in the first place."
Again, you've celebrated your exercise of power, and now you're besmearing the student you ejected, but it seems why you ejected them isn't as important to you as "I have t3h p0w4r!1"
That doesn't work if there's no "truth in course catalogs" policy in the school.
Case in point: a university has two professors teaching thermodynamics: one who is tolerable, and one who nobody likes. Predictably, everybody signs up for a section taught by Professor Tolerable, and yet somehow, by some "clerical mistake," the professors swapped sections just before the first day of classes. After showing up for the first day of classes and seeing who would be teaching, easily one-third of the students in that class dropped it then and there.
Schools don't like the idea of "don't take classes taught by professors you don't like," because otherwise the lousy-but-tenured professors become a cash sink, teaching no more than that handful of students that didn't know any better. It is to their advantage to use tactics like the bait-and-switch to all but require students to take classes taught by bad professors (the very same professors who seem to be loudest about "It's my classroom!").
"You are paying for the privilege of learning from an expert in a subject."
No, you are paying for the "privilege" of learning from someone who claims to be an expert in a subject. It remains to be seen whether the professor in question actually knows what they're talking about, but by the time a student is able to determine one way or the other, the opportunity to get even a partial refund after dropping the class has passed.
"It's nice that you're a Graduate Student and all, but you've obviously not learned proper respect for your professors yet."
Respect is earned. If anything, tuition is little more than a gamble that maybe the person teaching the class is actually worthy of respect, but demanding that everybody respect Person X simply because they gave Person X some money is just plain silly.
"You don't like that professor's rules, take your money and go elsewhere - the school doesn't NEED your self centered, obnoxious ass around anyway."
The room is only big enough for your own ego?
"Because that type of "High School" level of thinking is what we need in College, right??????"
I've suffered through a thermodynamics course taught by a university professor that flat-out said "Don't try to understand, just follow the notes." This was a little before he offered bonus points to students who spent time soliciting money from alumni.
And, of course, he's tenured, complete with his own little fanclub among some of the students.
"Last time I looked, which is out the door and down the hall, ONE purpose of College is to "FREE YOUR MIND" (aka think for yourself)!!!"
My own experiences with college is that the purpose is to find somebody who knows what they're doing and leech off of their homework.
Or, more generally, the "ONE purpose of College is to MAKE MONEY!"
"Wow. If I were you, I wouldn't be proud of your education."
At what point did I say I was?
Typing, by design, is faster than handwriting (which is why people developed cursive and shorthand to begin with). Requiring handwritten notes places a cap on bandwidth and requires students to prioritize the information ("needs to be written" vs. "doesn't need to be written"), which I assume the professor believes will engage the student's brains more than being mere dictation typists.
"My main concern was they were focusing on trying to transcribe every word that was I saying, rather than thinking and analyzing,"
My past experience is that "trying to transcribe every word rather than thinking and analyzing" is exactly what most teachers want.
"If you don't know the difference between a job and a career, your career will most likely dead-end."
Here's the difference between "job" and "career" I'm beginning to see from this discussion:
Job--that which you do to earn money to allow you to do the things you'd rather be doing.
Career--that which you must dedicate your entire life to, both on and off the clock, using tactics that are best described as "mercenary" (if not "cut-throat") to try to build yourself up while keeping everybody else down, for little other apparent reason than to perpetuate the cycle.
I've seen Office Space (and have lived it to an extent), I think I'll stick with my "job," thanks. The bullshit of having to plan my life around my "career" just so I can keep it isn't worth my time or effort, especially when those "jobs" actually pay better money and allow me more time to myself (since "jobs" end when I clock out).
"You're willing to take a dead end job (since you don't want the option to go all the way to the top)"
Aside from the fact that you're putting words into my mouth, it's King of the Hill vs. Nothing? And I'm supposed to believe that IT isn't a dead-end job with a choice like that? And then I'm supposed to take a pay cut for the "honor" of participating in that dog-eat-dog environment?
"You're IT job will pay far less than other "non-skilled" jobs because it is a desirable profession with some respectibility and a comfortable working environment"
No, they get into it because they think they see easy money, or have you not looked around at some of the computer science majors out there?
"Sure they own their machine, but what were you going to do with that money anyway, give it to a University? See, the problem is that you want a cushy, indoor job with steady pay and good benefits."
That's not the problem, the problem is that the IT field provides only the "indoor" qualification, and I've been in a tech job that didn't even have that (installing computers across an oil refinery in the middle of a tropical storm). Employers would rather hire contractors, which means neither the steady pay nor the good benefits you've mentioned.
"Engineers, Doctors, Teachers - all people who do real "professional" work every day to keep the basic functions of society, but who don't get their hands dirty. They're being beaten down, and beaten out for jobs/salaries by the industries which produce little tangible benefit - Real Estate Brokers, Lawyers, Accountants, Sales/Marketing."
With the possible exception of teachers, they aren't being "beaten out." Those industries you've pointed to are more examples of that "King of the Hill vs. Nothing" choice you're so proud of. 1% make money, 99% make nothing. Or do you believe those people in your local luxury car dealership can actually afford the product they're selling?
"A real estate agent will charge you 6% of the value of your property and building to sell it, and you'll pay it."
If they successfully sell it. And even if they are successful and do get that 6%, that certainly doesn't mean they could afford to buy a home similar to yours.
"If an architect offered you a contract to design your dream home for 6% of the value of just the construction, most people would complain that the price was too high."
An architect can turn around and produce another design to suit your tastes, while a real estate agent only has a finite number of houses they can try to sell you (and convince you to change your tastes), and the more houses they have to push, the more they'll be hurting; each unsold house is less food on the table (especially as homeowners get fustrated and consider taking their business elsewhere).
"I will almost guarantee that the Architect would spend more hours, and more dollars, designing your home than a real estate agent will spend selling it. (I work with both)"
Anecdotal evidence != signs of a general trend
"Girls really don't care much what you do."
They just care about your bank account balance!
"I work in IT because I enjoy the challenge of new technology and solving difficult problems."
Call me a romantic, but if your dates sound that much like a job interview, I'd have to say you're doing something wrong.
"It is not a dead end career if you on a perpetual look for moving from company to company to further yourself."
Consider that for a moment:
"It's not a dead-end career if you're always ready to jump ship." "It's not a dead-end career if you leave yourself a lifeline." Those are just fancy ways of saying "It's not a dead-end career except for... you know... the dead ends it throws at you that require you to jump ship/leave an out/etc."
It sounds to me the problem with the "myth of IT being a dead-end career" is that it's true. Perhaps if employers spent more time being good to its current tech employees instead of bemoaning the lack of exploitable newbies to can those current employees in favor of, they wouldn't have this problem.
If you have to constantly be prepared to deal with dead ends, it's a dead-end career.
I don't want to be CEO/CIO/whatever, I just want to see an IT job that pays better than delivering pizza (or digging a ditch).
"Robert Mitchell says CIOs and other IT managers continue to bemoan what they claim is a shortage of good technologists."
Darn it, we're running out of workers to exploit!
"If I remember correctly even Jesse Helms (the ORIGINAL SPONSOR of the DMCA)"
You say that as if you believed he read the bill before proposing it and voting in favor of it.
"Instead they weigh students' ideas for making information security more user-friendly,"
besuretodrinkyourovaltine
"Meanwhile, we have the "release early, release often" philosophy"
So does Microsoft.
Your answer
Before flat-out saying "thou shalt let black people vote" with the Fifteenth Amendment, the idea was to penalize a state that denied suffrage to a portion of its men over the age of 21 by reducing its delegation in the House proportionally (and finding out the size of a state's delegation is what the Census is all about). While it may or may not have teeth now that the Fifteenth Amendment has been ratified (though, in my opinion, this idea is far better at enforcing itself), it hasn't been repealed and therefore still needs to be taken into consideration by the Census.