Wednesday, December 08, 2004

Someone please Fisk this...

Jeff intones a resounding NO to the question posed by this gem:
We are currently paying a large amount of money to attend this University and receive an education. If I have paid to be taught something, shouldn't there be a repercussion for the teacher rather than, or at least as well as, the student when knowledge has not been taught?
This article is crying out for a comprehensive Fisking: I am too busy trying to keep my head from exploding when I read it (but Tall, Dark and Mysterious is more than equal to the task !) . However, I will excerpt shamelessly and out of context to make unsubtle and unwarranted points by gratuitous highlighting:
...Students pay teachers to educate us, yet they are then allowed to tell us how much we're learning. The whole situation seems akin to a boss paying her employee to clean toilets and the employee turning around and telling the employer how much she is or isn't happy with the cleaning job. If I'm paying someone to do my housekeeping, I'll be the one to tell the receiver of my hard-earned money exactly how well they did....

We are currently paying a large amount of money to attend this University and receive an education. If I have paid to be taught something, ....

...I pay the teacher to teach me, and then I get slapped with the label of failure if the teacher deems that I haven't learned the correct information?

...Students have paid someone to teach them, they have been taught, but an arbitrary grade makes it seem as though this learning never occurred. Their newfound education is not recognized, and they have, in essence, paid money to be told that they are idiots. If I want to be told that I'm an idiot, I could just get drunk and leave embarrassing messages on the phone machines of attractive men -- for free.

An old Sanskrit saying used to subjugate poor oppressed students back in India roughly said that while one was studying, the most important person in one's life was the teacher (and the teacher's wife: students lived at the "ashram" or school during their entire period of learning). One's parents came next, and finally, after all of them, came God.

I guess they forgot to insert Mammon before all of these....

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