I taught as a college lecturer for a few years and one of my courses was Environmental Studies, which got rave reviews and eventually additional sections were added for me to teach.

So here's a (yikes, long) thread with some nuance on how we shit on today's youth...

For starters, I designed the course in sections. In each section 2 or more views were presented regarding a policy issue. Sometimes there were 3 or 4 views, with nuance and overlap between them. Homework was reading or watching a video of these different views...

In class, we'd discuss or debate the views. I'd have to do a lot of recap (only about 50% did all the readings).

During discussions, people could take any view, but they *could not mischaracterize* a different viewpoint. Same went for the short essays (1 page) defending a view.

This wasn't a debate course. But I found it to be the most effective way to make the students consider how hard policy decisions are.
Many were stuck on the best decision given all the tradeoffs. This was for all sorts of decisions re: water rights, energy, species managt, etc.

I wanted to pull them away from the tired "those people just hate the environment argument" and it *mostly* worked. Many students said they felt less sure of what was always the right decision and there was a lot more to consider than they anticipated when starting the section.

The surprising thing is that many students (the ones who were engaged with material) said they "learned more in this course than in the rest of their college career", or that it had them "thinking more than any other course", and it "challenged their prior beliefs."

I don't say this to boast. I have to say it though to show a point, which is that I feel I was hardly a great instructor. I pulled in multiple other views written by others to facilitate learning and put a generally normal amount of effort in to get the materials ready. And yet,

If my course did all that for so many students, then there's a major problem. Students come to college to learn, thinking they are paying to expand their learning. But they end up with ideological instructors who teach them THEIR view, not the various views there are.

(As a side note, not everything has multiple views, but certainly my course did.)

Most students (75%) WANT to learn. They appreciate their brain thinking in new ways and sign up for courses that sound like they'll do this.

The academic institution is doing a MAJOR disservice by not exposing students to teachers who refuse to inject their ideology into the course. And yes, to be clear, my students never knew my view and it became a running joke. I argued every angle for them.

Not all students understand that this ideological injection is what's happening in many of their courses. When I was a student, I didnt see it either, but as I reflect back, I can see it clearly. The framing of issues and the "right side" is in everything.

In faculty meetings, I heard other instructors boast (public declarations are key to wokeness) about their ideology in class.

Ex: one instructor said she was no longer using the words male and female in genetics because "it's something I feel strongly about as the right thing"

One of the telltale signs that someone hasn't considered an opposing view is statements about another's intentions. I wouldnt allow this in my class because it's lazy thinking and shows you don't understand the material. Prime example:

"Some people just don't care about others. If you don't support X, you hate Y"

These are tired, lazy, and juvenile arguments that show no understanding of the arguments on the table.

Yet, this is how many colleges are teaching students how to think about issues.

So when it comes to thinking all these young people are dumb, I give a little pause as I consider the root cause.

Yes, it's up to each person to consider issues themselves. But a lot of these students are in massive debt AND did not get taught proper thinking skills.

Perhaps we need to be a bit more lenient on the young people but WAY more fierce about the institutions that have used them & spit them out

& it's time we truly find a better alternative "higher" education. There are still some good parts, but the tumor in academia is massive.