Narrow-Minded Pompous Self-Righteous Professors

So I've been terribly remiss in my blogging duties. It's been a very busy week. With a mere three days remaining in my learning career, I would like to reflect on the hypocrisy that is (most of) the faculty of the Neag School of Education. Here's the issue: they purport to be open to discussion, favor inclusion of all students, and support democracy yet their classes are run like like fascist municipalities supporting communist doctrine and suppressing all attempts at independent thought.

My latest exercise in futility was to question the universality and salience of the gender gap argument in present day America. Since the 1970s, liberals have asserted women are disadvantaged when seeking adminttance to college and in the job market. Surely this was true in the past, as was supported by much empirical evidence. However, much of this research is sorely outdated and the question remains, is this still true? Or at least, is this as true? Current articles (1) , (2), (3), suggest perhaps the answer is no to the latter.

Is this definitive evidence? Not necessarily, but it at least invites discussion of the changing thoughts on the subject. None of this current research was presented in class. It wasn't even mentioned and what we got was a skewed representation of reality. We were presented with one very extreme viewpoint and dissenting views were silenced. This, on its face, is contradictory to the schools supposed values. As it usually does, it gets worse.

In response to my e-mail sending these links to my professor and classmates, in what I would say was a very respectful e-mail, I received a link to a contrary viewpoint from my professor from a somewhat dubious source. Who is this veritable font of knowledge to counter the findings of The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune, and The Week Magazine you ask? Danica McKellar. What? You don't know her. I think you do. Remember Winnie Cooper from the Wonder Years? That's her and she has some opinions on women in science you'd better listen to or she won't kiss Fred Savage ever again.

Alright she's got a degree in math and she did some great proof. That's admirable, but is she an expert on the gender gap? Does she have any evidence to back up her claims? Is this even a reasonable source to counter the articles I submitted? Why was it necessary to send a counter article when this viewpoint was emphatically represented in class? She also sent a link to what appears to be someone's posting in a discussion forum. Is this much better than Winnie's opinion?

This is my problem with professors. Their arguments are often weak and do not stand up to scrutiny so they narrow conversation to articles supporting their views. I think that's one of the major facets of facism is it not? That's certainly not democracy. Do you want these people teaching your children? Worse yet, do you want them indoctrinating the people who will teach your children? I certainly don't.