(no subject)
If you've talked to me in person asking how schools going, you've probably heard me bitching about a class I'v hated since the 1st day. I didn't hate it because it was too hard, the coarsework wasn't hard, but I never once sat allthe way through class without wanting to walk out because I was so pissed at what the teacher was saying.
If you want to have an effect on the community, that’s fine. If you want to encourage us (your students) to do the same, that’s also fine. But DON'T make volunteering at a charity of YOUR choice a required part of the class when Service Learning what nowhere in the coarse description. I know its not, I checked for it this afternoon as I was dropping your class. Charity is not charity when it is forced.
You're focus on politics in this class is also unwarranted. I took a political science class as a state requirement. This is not that class, and does not fill any of those requirements. On those lines, when I was in that class during the '04 election, the teacher never once so much as told us it was our responsibility to vote. He told us that more people will vote for one candidate or another because of frivolous reasoning, then because of the candidates’ opinions and voting habits. He told us if we do vote, to do so responsibly, and to know why we are voting for the person we support. Yet, in your class, it was REQUIRED to vote in the primaries. Voting for the purpose of voting is the more irresponsible thing a person can do during an election; and you asked us to do just that. Then afterwards in class you took a poll in class to see who voted for whom. There was no requirement to say who we actually voted for (that WOULD be illegal after all) but it can be safely assumed that the majority of the class listed who they did vote for. Back to the irresponsible voting for one last touch. I don't believe that research for a presentation of a candidate is suited to this class, but at the very least, that should have been done before the primary election so your students would know who it was they are voting for.
The "Leadership" book we had as a textbook in class is a good one. It talks about theories of good leadership, but the only chapter that was focused on in class was more about moral objectivity and goals in leadership then it was about how to be a good leader. The problem with this is that it is based off sercomstancial evidence the chapter even said so near the end. Moral objectivity is not a goal, or even a requirement of good leadership. It is a responsibility of leadership; one that is optional. The leader has the option to choose to lead in a moral manor, and the group following him should be in place to keep him in check, but it is not required. I have the perfect example. Adolph Hitler. Hitler was a very charismatic and motivational leader. But what he led his nation towards is a black spot on modern history that people will be talking about as long as they will be talking about the Spanish Inquisition. Which just goes to show that a leader can in the view of the world, be completely immoral, and yet still be a good leader. It also shows that morals are entirely subjective. To Hitler and those that followed him, they were doing the right thing.
The other book, the world is flat; I have less then anything nice to say about it. I've never been a mainstream person. The one thing that drives me away from the mainstream is the blind acceptance that people will give just because something is written in a book, or they are told to believe it. Question everything. Does it make sense? What’s the point? When I started reading the Flatter chapter, talking about the fall of the Berlin wall, I could understand how that symbolically stood as a world flattening event, the expansion of free trade and all that, but as it then tried tying in DOS to the fall, I gave up on the book. Are you kidding me? This book is being given as not only required reading, but as a substitute for a textbook? What does anything in that book have to do with leadership anyways? No one leader can take credit for the fall of communism. In fact, no group of leaders can take credit. Communism is self defeating. You can think of is as a fire, as long as more wood is added, it keeps growing, but it destroys everything it touches. to live, it most grow and consume more and more, if there is no room for it to grow, and no fuel being added, it will burn it self out. That is why communism fell. And that had nothing to do with the rise of Windows. That is entirely doe to the business of computer and software designers and engineers. They were unaffected by communism since they were safely in their garage designing the first home useable computers. But that is a discussion for somewhere else, because once again, the argument of communism vs. capitalism is irrelevant to leadership.
I try and keep an open mind about ideas diffrent from my own. I'll never be able to denigh having my own ideas that are off canter, (it goes back to that question everything appeal.) But even I can't stumach this class any longer. As much as I hate the destruction of knowledge, after attempting to stay in your class, I almost wish that book burinings were still around. If nothing else, Thomas Friedman may have written something that will make nice ash to add to my garden. Because everyone knows that the world is not flat.
If you read the whole of that letter, I'm sorry, it was long.
Well, I couldn't stand being in that class anymore. There was one reason I was staying, IDS:101 is a requirement to take IDS: 202. and that is a class everyone is required to take to graduate. and that is the only class I'll have left to take in the summer to be done.
Guess what? I met with an adviser today, and found out my paperwork was approved and I was given a waiver for the IDS:101 requirement! I filled out the drop for a minute later to be removed from that class
If you want to have an effect on the community, that’s fine. If you want to encourage us (your students) to do the same, that’s also fine. But DON'T make volunteering at a charity of YOUR choice a required part of the class when Service Learning what nowhere in the coarse description. I know its not, I checked for it this afternoon as I was dropping your class. Charity is not charity when it is forced.
You're focus on politics in this class is also unwarranted. I took a political science class as a state requirement. This is not that class, and does not fill any of those requirements. On those lines, when I was in that class during the '04 election, the teacher never once so much as told us it was our responsibility to vote. He told us that more people will vote for one candidate or another because of frivolous reasoning, then because of the candidates’ opinions and voting habits. He told us if we do vote, to do so responsibly, and to know why we are voting for the person we support. Yet, in your class, it was REQUIRED to vote in the primaries. Voting for the purpose of voting is the more irresponsible thing a person can do during an election; and you asked us to do just that. Then afterwards in class you took a poll in class to see who voted for whom. There was no requirement to say who we actually voted for (that WOULD be illegal after all) but it can be safely assumed that the majority of the class listed who they did vote for. Back to the irresponsible voting for one last touch. I don't believe that research for a presentation of a candidate is suited to this class, but at the very least, that should have been done before the primary election so your students would know who it was they are voting for.
The "Leadership" book we had as a textbook in class is a good one. It talks about theories of good leadership, but the only chapter that was focused on in class was more about moral objectivity and goals in leadership then it was about how to be a good leader. The problem with this is that it is based off sercomstancial evidence the chapter even said so near the end. Moral objectivity is not a goal, or even a requirement of good leadership. It is a responsibility of leadership; one that is optional. The leader has the option to choose to lead in a moral manor, and the group following him should be in place to keep him in check, but it is not required. I have the perfect example. Adolph Hitler. Hitler was a very charismatic and motivational leader. But what he led his nation towards is a black spot on modern history that people will be talking about as long as they will be talking about the Spanish Inquisition. Which just goes to show that a leader can in the view of the world, be completely immoral, and yet still be a good leader. It also shows that morals are entirely subjective. To Hitler and those that followed him, they were doing the right thing.
The other book, the world is flat; I have less then anything nice to say about it. I've never been a mainstream person. The one thing that drives me away from the mainstream is the blind acceptance that people will give just because something is written in a book, or they are told to believe it. Question everything. Does it make sense? What’s the point? When I started reading the Flatter chapter, talking about the fall of the Berlin wall, I could understand how that symbolically stood as a world flattening event, the expansion of free trade and all that, but as it then tried tying in DOS to the fall, I gave up on the book. Are you kidding me? This book is being given as not only required reading, but as a substitute for a textbook? What does anything in that book have to do with leadership anyways? No one leader can take credit for the fall of communism. In fact, no group of leaders can take credit. Communism is self defeating. You can think of is as a fire, as long as more wood is added, it keeps growing, but it destroys everything it touches. to live, it most grow and consume more and more, if there is no room for it to grow, and no fuel being added, it will burn it self out. That is why communism fell. And that had nothing to do with the rise of Windows. That is entirely doe to the business of computer and software designers and engineers. They were unaffected by communism since they were safely in their garage designing the first home useable computers. But that is a discussion for somewhere else, because once again, the argument of communism vs. capitalism is irrelevant to leadership.
I try and keep an open mind about ideas diffrent from my own. I'll never be able to denigh having my own ideas that are off canter, (it goes back to that question everything appeal.) But even I can't stumach this class any longer. As much as I hate the destruction of knowledge, after attempting to stay in your class, I almost wish that book burinings were still around. If nothing else, Thomas Friedman may have written something that will make nice ash to add to my garden. Because everyone knows that the world is not flat.
If you read the whole of that letter, I'm sorry, it was long.
Well, I couldn't stand being in that class anymore. There was one reason I was staying, IDS:101 is a requirement to take IDS: 202. and that is a class everyone is required to take to graduate. and that is the only class I'll have left to take in the summer to be done.
Guess what? I met with an adviser today, and found out my paperwork was approved and I was given a waiver for the IDS:101 requirement! I filled out the drop for a minute later to be removed from that class