To all others who have taught at the college level

[greekspeak]

How many of your students have called you a liberal/atheist/ communist etc. because you did not reinforce their upbringing? I just taught my first Intro New Testament course this summer at a state university, and I am rearin' to read the comments. The first day I was asked what my religion was. I would not tell. I have heard some horror stories. Just wondering how others have fared.

[Dudley_DUright]

1. Teaching physics is much less tricky than teaching religion

in that respect. However, I have taught a course in Cosmology before (Big Bang Theory), and I also tried to keep my own personal religious views out of the discussion. Surprisingly, I did not have much of a problem with the students discussing Cosmology and the evidence for the big bang.

[greekspeak]

3. Back in MO, we had a guy that taught a course on Creationism

He was a staunch defender of science in the face of pseudo-science, like Creationism. I never took the class, but I bet he had a lot of hateful reviews.

[Dudley_DUright]

4. I hope you mean cosmology instead of creationism

(unless he was teaching a course on various forms of pseudo-science). I actually got pretty good reviews, but my course was in the honors program, so the students were the cream of the crop.

[greekspeak]

6. It was about Creationism specifically. He saw Creationism as his enemy

I don't know if he still teaches it or not.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

2. My teaching career was over before the wingnuts got really nutty, but

I had a couple of experiences.

1) At a large state university in the mid 1980s I had one student who managed to look and act like a grumpy old man at the age of 18-22. When I asked him why he was studying Japanese, he gave a one-word answer: "Evangelism." When the other students spoke of going to parties or seeing movies, he always frowned and said, "Yoku arimasen." ("Not good"). Fortunately, he lasted only one semester, but it was sad to see someone so young being such a tight-ass.

Another more normal-looking student left a Chick tract in his final exam paper with the inscription, "Sensei. Yonde kudasai." ("Teacher, please read.")

At that same school, the Spanish professor whose office was next to mine had done her research in Nicaragua and was very pro-Sandinista. She had a "Viva Nicaragua Libre" poster on her door, and I overheard two students who noticed it. "This (name of professor), is she some kind of granola or something?" "Naa, she's just a liberal."

2) The first year at my last employer, a mid-tier private liberal arts school, there were only three students in second-year Japanese. We all got along very well, but one of the students, a young man from rural Oregon (contrary to the image that Oregon has in the rest of the country, the rural areas are libertarian-tinged Republicans) was visibly stunned to find out that I was a Democrat. You could almost see the wheels turning in his head. "Wait! I like her! How could she be a Democrat?"

By the time I left, there was a fair contingent of Alex Keaton types. After the Young Repulbicans invited Dinesh D'Souza to talk against affirmative action, one of the Alexes wrote a letter to the school paper about how unfair affirmative action was.

I wrote a letter back, informing him (and the other students as well, of course) of the other types of affirmative action, such as aa for athletes and for dumb rich kids. I also said that the Ivy League schools could easily have filled their ranks entirely with rich white prep school graduates, but they chose to have some diversity, so that a student from the West Coast had a better chance than a New Englander with the same qualifications.

Young Alex wrote back and said that he could certainly understand THAT kind of aa, because there were genuine cultural differences between New England and the West Coast. However, there were no cultural differences between black and white Americans.

"I rest my case, " I thought. Here was someone whose only contact with black Americans was through watching the Cosby Show, obviously.

[Dudley_DUright]

5. I didn't know you taught Japanese LL

I am a language idiot. I do much better with logical stuff like mathematics.

[undeterred]

7. I taught religion at 3 different Catholic colleges

Jesuit, Benedictine, and a Catholic Community College

The Benedicines were the most difficult, as they were going to a Catholic college for a reason, and expected their teachers to reinforce everything they had been taught. At the Jesuit college the kids were very smart and all over the place in terms of their beliefs- I had the most fun teaching there.