Many college professors have a lot of questions about their coursework and the way they can best accomplish their academic goals. And they can be quite stubborn about it, too. They can be very resistant to change, so I don’t recommend anyone attempt to change their courses unless they are prepared for it.
A college professor may be a bit of a dick. In reality, they are just one of the many “types” of professors you will encounter in life. In a lot of cases, they are the opposite of the type of professor you want to have in your life. The types of professors I’m talking about here are the ones who have a big ego and are resistant to change. They have huge egos and are very resistant to change because it’s not in their interest.
That is one of the reasons why I love teaching. I love having students that push me to my limits of what I can do. One of the things I constantly tell my students is that students that take the time to read, listen, and study are the ones that have the most opportunity to succeed. They are the ones that really make a difference.
In college I had students (and some professors) that would talk down to me in class. They would make up stories about the worst things that have happened to them in the class. It wasn’t like they were intentionally trying to be dramatic. But it made me very uncomfortable, because I am not like that. I wasn’t one of those teachers that would make up stories about my students. I would just give my honest opinion about what happened and why.
Some teachers have really hard buttons to push, and they are the ones that really get your attention. I have professors in my classes that make me uncomfortable because I see them at work as they talk down to my students. So when they do these things, they are so uncomfortable with you and your opinion of them that they actually push their buttons.
The professor in question is Professor Calcutta, who is lecturing on the topic of the most expensive coffee in the world. He makes us feel uncomfortable because he is the one that is pushing his buttons. He is uncomfortable with our opinion of him because he is so self-absorbed that he is actually going to make us feel uncomfortable about his opinion about our college! We need to be careful with what we say about him.
Calcutta seems like a reasonable person with a lot of ideas. He has a number of ideas, and I bet I’ve heard them all. But his opinion, which is expressed in the context of a lecture, has a tendency to get him in trouble. “My opinion means I don’t have to think about it,” says Calcutta in the above video. “I can just say what I want and say it without having to worry about any consequences.
College professors are like all teachers in the end: you have to pay them. They are not paid to think about the implications of their words for students. They are paid to do their job, which is to tell students what they need to know. If there is a problem with our ideas about them, we are going to have to pay attention and make sure we are not offending anyone.
I think that we need to rethink how we define “teacher.” Not just those who teach in the public school system but also those who teach in colleges and universities. If we are to teach in our classrooms, we need to be clear about what we expect of them, and we need to start doing a better job of making sure that we aren’t offending anyone.
It all comes back to the same thing, in our minds, we can’t teach in our classrooms unless our students are capable of learning. And that is a good thing. But if we’re too afraid to be honest with ourselves, we will teach in the same way that we did in the past, and we will teach in a way that makes students feel as if they are less than, or less important than, we really are. We need to get out of the way.