Veterans Are Violent and Ignorant

[SF-TX]

The Penn State Counseling and Psychological Services has a training video entitled "I Deserve a Better Grade... Or Else." The antagonist in the video is portrayed as an angry and ignorant veteran.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RspC-sIm_P0

http://www.ihatethemedia.com/penn-st...-school-policy

Are any of you that are back in school experiencing any hostility from the faculty? Disdain?

I have actually had discussions with seemingly intelligent people that have told me that my experiences and opinions are based on only what the military wants me to know and think. In other words, many on the left and in academia believe we are unthinking, uncritical automatons.

[SF_BHT]

This has already been posted....

[SF-TX]

Please post the link to thread. I couldn't find anything. Perhaps I am using the wrong search terms (Penn State, Penn State Video, Penn State Training Video).

Thanks

[Richard]

Originally Posted by SF-TX

Please post the link to thread. I couldn't find anything. Perhaps I am using the wrong search terms (Penn State, Penn State Video, Penn State Training Video).

Thanks

http://www.professionalsoldiers.com/...ad.php?t=22721

Gutes lesen!

Richard

[SF-TX]

It was 'hidden' in plain sight, with no detail.

I suggest we make this a new thread.

[Richard]

Originally Posted by SF-TX

It was 'hidden' in plain sight, with no detail.

Best place for a dead drop.

Richard's $.02

[greenberetTFS]

My son Tony got his Masters in English literature at Penn State. He owned a Book store until Wal-mart put him out of business. So,now he's working for them as the Director of Sales,Penn State University Press. I'm sending him this video. I'm completely sure he's going to be pretty upset with it and will check into whose idea this was to make and why.......................

GB TFS

[nmap]

Originally Posted by SF-TX

Are any of you that are back in school experiencing any hostility from the faculty? Disdain?

I have actually had discussions with seemingly intelligent people that have told me that my experiences and opinions are based on only what the military wants me to know and think. In other words, many on the left and in academia believe we are unthinking, uncritical automatons.

Although I am not a vet, I have hung around campuses for quite a long time, both teaching as adjunct faculty and as a student. I suspect there is hostility, but not directed at the individual so much as at the military in general and some of the values vets have. As an example, I am an unabashed capitalist and tend to dismiss socialism rather undiplomatically. This is not a particularly good way to win friends in the College of the Humanities. And, too, there is a tendency to blame national policy on the individual veteran - as if an E5 (or, for that matter, an O5) had personally made the decision to commit the nation to war. I do not suggest that any of this is right, or proper, or fair - but they are my observations.

The second paragraph - the one suggesting that the military molds minds - brings on a chuckle. Because the entire process of higher education tends to do precisely that. And the faculty - particularly the tenured faculty - have gone through quite a long process that nearly guarantees that their attitudes and ideals fit a specific mold. In the case of tenure-track faculty, an individual is hired as an assistant professor. They have about 5 years to prove themselves, at which point the faculty vote on offering tenure. The administration can over-rule the faculty, but it is rare. So if one wants tenure, one had best get along well with the rest of the faculty in the department - and that means an harmonious set of attitudes. If anything, the faculty are the ones who have been molded.

The way to deal with such problems is rather simple. One must keep in mind that Universities are filled with people who do not wish to deal with students. In fact, the appraisal system consists of three elements - research, teaching, and service to the university. Research is, by far, the most important. Teaching will not (at least, in my experience) get one tenured. So - in the video, the young man should have smiled pleasantly, gone to the learning center, and gotten assistance. Not for the purpose of getting assistance, but rather to obtain a third party within the university who can pass judgment on the assignments. A disparity can be used.

Another nice tactic is the "weakness power game". In the video, the young man says "I'm going to get you fired". Not good. Instead of acting strong, act weak. It would have been much better to have gone to the department chair, talk about concerns, fears of doing badly, and distress that the papers are being graded unfairly. Ask for advice. Display pathetic gratitude. Clasp hands across the stomach, and gaze at the top of the desk - in short, display a submissive attitude. Notice that this attacks the heart of liberal values, since they perceive themselves as the type who would never attack a weaker opponent.

Finally, appeal, appeal, and appeal. The dept. Chair has an important job - keep students out of the Dean's office. The Associate Dean has an important job - keep students out of the Dean of the College's office. And the Dean has an important job too...(see the pattern?)

Ah, well. Our Universities value diversity of thought. So they welcome different ways at looking at things! (That's sarcasm as strong as any acid.)

[Sigaba]

nmap, thank you!

In a few concise paragraphs, you have described the academic environment with a degree of clarity superior to anything I could craft in a draft for a post that had rambled along for a couple of pages in Microsoft Word. As the saying goes "That was easy."

FWIW, my experiences are very much in line with your observations about the ambivalence many academics have towards teaching.

Fortunately, I never had cause to challenge a mark I received on a graded assignment or in a class. Even on those occasions where I was profoundly disappointed, I felt that I'd earned the grade I had received. It was up to me to find ways to improve my performance.

When it was my turn to stand in front of classes, I would give so much feedback and have such an aggressive approach towards individual consultations (including mandatory office visits) that students understood why their C+ essay was a C+ and not the A they thought they deserved and that particular C+ was not going to transform itself into any other letter.* No student I taught could make a credible case that their performance suffered from a lack of academic support.

Then this was all shortly before the students with 'helicopter parents' began to show up in ever increasing numbers.

An observation. It remains amazing to me that social historians can leave no stone unturned in their collective quest to 'recapture lost voices' and thereby describe counties, cities, and towns with such detail that you can hear the blacksmith's hammer but they cannot get their heads around the possibility that the American government is as complex. While I only encountered one outwardly hostile professor ("Why would anyone want to study naval history?" she sniffed on multiple occasions) I received no small amount of skepticism for holding to the belief that maybe...just maybe... the members of the armed services have never been unthinking golems in service to a bloodthirsty monolithic state hell bent on global conquest.

___________________________
* A certain professor now at Penn had an unwritten policy when he was at Cal: if a grade can go up, a grade can go down.

[Guy]

No more "F**K-OFF" are needed any more.

That's exactly whay I would have said, taken my grade and came back the next day; sat my happy a** in class and continued on.

Stay safe.

[SF-TX]

The following is a link to a short documentary on political indoctrination at the University of Delaware:

http://www.thefire.org/index.php/video/10389

Video: ‘Think What We Think... Or Else: Thought Control on the American Campus’

by Erin Osovets

April 2, 2009

Today, FIRE releases a new documentary entitled Think What We Think... Or Else: Thought Control on the American Campus. Produced by FIRE and Free to Choose Media, the video explains the University of Delaware's Office of Residence Life's invasive thought-reform program and features personal interviews with FIRE staff and UD students and faculty involved in revealing the scandal.

In the fall of 2007, the University of Delaware implemented an Orwellian program of ideological reeducation aimed at coercing students to change their thoughts, habits, and values to conform to a highly specific ideological agenda. Over 7,000 undergraduate students living in the dorms at UD were required to attend training sessions, floor meetings, and "one-on-one" meetings with their Resident Assistants (RAs), who followed procedures described internally by ResLife as a "treatment" and defined "learning" as "specific attitudinal or behavioral changes" in line with ResLife's social, economic, political, and environmental agenda.

When FIRE learned of the thought reform program at UD, we immediately launched a campaign to bring the attention of the national media to the situation. People from across the ideological spectrum were outraged that a public university would enact such a program, and pressure was on the university to either justify or abandon the program. After a weak attempt at justification and several days of intense scrutiny and terrible publicity, UD President Patrick Harker finally terminated the program.

Think What We Think... Or Else serves as a reminder to college and university administrators that programs like that established at the University of Delaware are flagrant violations of students' right to freedom of conscience—and that colleges with programs that emulate UD's failed effort just might end up as the subject of FIRE's next documentary.

http://thefire.org/index.php/article/10391.html

[Penn]

Along the same lines, I have encountered some resistance in establishing a Veterans organization at my school. Most, if not all, can be classified as territorial disputes, political correctness assurances, and the like. Not once have I meet any form of outright disdain, or prejudice. I have meet boatloads of caution. One technique that has work well, and I assume it would with regards to grades, is the innate guilt some express towards not having served, be it the Armed Forces, or the Peace Corp. Habitat for Humanity, etc.; all worthy causes. However, when I sense that, it’s a done deal.

[Utah Bob]

Originally Posted by nmap

Another nice tactic is the "weakness power game". In the video, the young man says "I'm going to get you fired". Not good. Instead of acting strong, act weak. It would have been much better to have gone to the department chair, talk about concerns, fears of doing badly, and distress that the papers are being graded unfairly. Ask for advice. Display pathetic gratitude. Clasp hands across the stomach, and gaze at the top of the desk - in short, display a submissive attitude.

Good tactic, but for some of us, a very difficult thing to do.
Very difficult.

[nmap]

Originally Posted by Utah Bob

Good tactic, but for some of us, a very difficult thing to do.
Very difficult.

I understand. If I may, I will preface with a joke (a rather old one):

A guy goes into a clothing store to buy a new suit, but he doesn't want to spend too much money. The tailor shows him a really nice suit for $400, but
the guy says it's too much. He shows him another suit for $200, and the guy says it's still too much. After showing him several others, he finally shows
him one for $10.

"That's more like it!", the guy says, and he goes to try it on. He comes back and looks in the mirror and one sleeve is about two inches shorter than the
other.

"No problem," says the tailor, "Just hunch up your right shoulder."

So the guy hunches his right shoulder way up, and the sleeves look OK, but the lapels are crooked.

"No problem," says the tailor, "Just stick out your left arm and cock it like a bird's wing."

So the guy sticks out his left arm and the lapels look OK. But then he notices that one pant leg is shorter than the other.

"Well, just keep that leg stiff," says the tailor, "and no one will notice."

"I'll take it!", the guy says.

So the guy leaves the tailor shop wearing the suit, walking with his left leg stiffened, one arm stuck out like a bird's wing, and one shoulder hunched
way up.

As he's walking down the street he passes two orthopedic surgeons. One of the doctors says to the other, "I have never seen anyone in such bad
shape in my twenty-five years of practice!"

"Me neither," the other doctor says. "But he sure has a nice suit!"

------------------------------

If a tactic really doesn't fit, one shouldn't use it, just as with the suit. On the other hand, within the classroom, the instructor can regard themselves as "in charge", while at the same time being somewhat insecure. It's the insecurity that creates the problem, because they do not know what to do when challenged.

Add in a few psychological nuances. Perhaps the student is of similar age, or older. The student may be physically larger. And - the student may well be more familiar with exercising authority than is the instructor.

Back years ago, a fellow named John Molloy wrote a book titled "Live for Success". He videotaped various human interactions and analyzed them. One such scenario involved a large ex-football paper who was in sales, and contacted small people who worked as purchasing agents. In the tape, according to the book, the purchasing agents looked almost as if they were attacking - because they were intimidated by the size of the salesman.

The solution? The salesman had found that if he fumbled his papers a little - displaying a weakness - that it created sympathy and defused the purchasing agent's fear.

Perhaps a similar pattern applies here.

[Warrior-Mentor]

Screw Penn State. My wife is a grad and those jack-asses are always looking for money. F*ck them. The more I think about this video the angrier I get...oh...wait...I must be the angry vet they were talking about.

Virginia Tech, Columbine, Post Offices...none were military veterans....why didn't they do a video about Koreans? or Postal Workers? WTF?