get ready for the incoming brigade

Had a history proff give me a prompt from a Marxist contemporary about the wonders of modernity.

I wrote him a rather lengthy expose on the wonderful modern ways people had found to kill each other in warfare, including some of the more brutal tactics of the USSR. How I passed that class I will never know.

My first reaction to this thread was "Wow, Terry Anderson is still teaching?"

Like others have said, have him complete the assignment and if there are any grading shenanigans based on your sons viewpoint, escalate.

aggie93 said:

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It's an American History Class prior to 1900. He's got a mid/high A in the class and a 4.0 overall so his grades are very important to him. Then out of the blue the Prof gives an assignment to "annotate and give opinions about". It's an Atlantic Article from 2016 after Trump's election but prior to him taking office essentially saying how Trump was going to roll back all the progress and hope of the Obama Presidency and comes just short of saying that Jim Crow is coming back. The first sentence is "The accomplishments of the first black president will be erased by a man who rose to power on the slander that Barack Obama was not born in America." and it goes downhill from there.

I am furious seeing profs give students stuff like this at the end of the Semester clearly designed to find out their political leanings on a subjectively graded paper. It puts my conservative son in a position where he can either write a paper as he truly believes or try to come up with something they want to hear. Apparently it will be graded by a 3rd Party website that uses an algorithm. My son is thinking of writing the Dean because it has no relevance to the course.

The article just rambles incoherently. I swear A&M really doesn't want any more of my donations again.

Welcome to the Second Redemption

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What's the professor's name?

If he cares about his grade and is worried the Prof will give him a bad grade for his opinion, then he should lie his ass off in the paper.

They were not assigned a compare and contrast paper. They were assigned an opinion paper. Do you understand why the difference might be relevant here?

Urban Ag said:

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B-1 83 said:

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He should have a good time spewing out each and every leftist talking point in his paper knowing he's just playing the prof for an "A". That is a good life exercise in itself

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This.

I did this once. It was quite satisfying and fun and I got my A.

It was a class outside my department/major and this dewsh prof couldn't hurt me in the college I was getting my degree. So some months after the grades were officially in my transcript, I happen to run in to him on campus and told him I completely bullsh** his entire course and laughed myself stupid every time he lapped it up. It was heart warming to see the expression on his face.

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So you were a good boy and followed orders?

If you couldn't stand up for your beliefs under threat of a bad grade, you sure as hell won't be able to when the chips are down.

I took a sociology class in college and during the first class I had a respectful argument with the professor. In the end she could not argue with my points so at the end of class she asked me to stay. Told me I was very respectful but she can't have someone not agreeing with her curriculum so she gave me the topics of the 4 papers needing to be written that semester, told me she did not want to see me any more that year. Ended up getting an A and maybe spending 10 hours total on that class all semester.

What is the profs name?

aggie93 said:

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It's an American History Class prior to 1900. He's got a mid/high A in the class and a 4.0 overall so his grades are very important to him. Then out of the blue the Prof gives an assignment to "annotate and give opinions about". It's an Atlantic Article from 2016 after Trump's election but prior to him taking office essentially saying how Trump was going to roll back all the progress and hope of the Obama Presidency and comes just short of saying that Jim Crow is coming back. The first sentence is "The accomplishments of the first black president will be erased by a man who rose to power on the slander that Barack Obama was not born in America." and it goes downhill from there.

I am furious seeing profs give students stuff like this at the end of the Semester clearly designed to find out their political leanings on a subjectively graded paper. It puts my conservative son in a position where he can either write a paper as he truly believes or try to come up with something they want to hear. Apparently it will be graded by a 3rd Party website that uses an algorithm. My son is thinking of writing the Dean because it has no relevance to the course.

The article just rambles incoherently. I swear A&M really doesn't want any more of my donations again.

Welcome to the Second Redemption

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Have him write a paper staying true to what he believes. But make the administration at the school and the professor know that this is an extremely biased assignment and that he is concerned about retribution for opinions he may express in advance.

Señor Chang said:

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aggie93 said:

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It's an American History Class prior to 1900. He's got a mid/high A in the class and a 4.0 overall so his grades are very important to him. Then out of the blue the Prof gives an assignment to "annotate and give opinions about". It's an Atlantic Article from 2016 after Trump's election but prior to him taking office essentially saying how Trump was going to roll back all the progress and hope of the Obama Presidency and comes just short of saying that Jim Crow is coming back. The first sentence is "The accomplishments of the first black president will be erased by a man who rose to power on the slander that Barack Obama was not born in America." and it goes downhill from there.

I am furious seeing profs give students stuff like this at the end of the Semester clearly designed to find out their political leanings on a subjectively graded paper. It puts my conservative son in a position where he can either write a paper as he truly believes or try to come up with something they want to hear. Apparently it will be graded by a 3rd Party website that uses an algorithm. My son is thinking of writing the Dean because it has no relevance to the course.

The article just rambles incoherently. I swear A&M really doesn't want any more of my donations again.

Welcome to the Second Redemption

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What's the professor's name?

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Not comfortable sharing that publicly at this time.

Back in in the early 90's I had a POLS 206 professor, a female, who I believe had gone to Baylor.

During her lecture she stated her opinion that the Second Amendment only applied to militias, not individuals. I rolled my eyes and ignored it.

Sure enough though, she had a question on her final exam that required that you to agree with her to get it correct, which I thought was utter BS.

combat wombat said:

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They were not assigned a compare and contrast paper. They were assigned an opinion paper. Do you understand why the difference might be relevant here?

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Students can still apply facts and info from the history they just learned to inform their opinion.

Opinion assignments suck balls. I took a Shakespeare class one semester because I was genuinely curious why the English types fawned over the guy. One of the assignments was to do a character analysis over one of the plays we read in the class, so I chose Iago from Othello. Got my paper back and it was a C. I went to talk to the prof, who re-read the paper and admitted I made good points and supported my argument, but it was incorrect. I asked why he thought that, and he told me his thoughts of Iago, which were different than mine. We had a conversation for about 10 minutes where I argued that it was my opinion of the character, which I supported by citing the play, and how I interpret the character may be different than how he does. Ultimately, he reluctantly agreed to increase the grade to a B because I was able to support my opinion, but wouldn't give it an A because my opinion was wrong. Screw him.

In my HS GT class, we had to read a book every 6 weeks and write a paper on it, with the theme of the paper being something specific. One 6 weeks, our paper had to be on "what the author was really trying to say" with the book. So, to look for some hidden meaning that one may try to take away from it. One of my best friends from HS is kind of a smartass, so he decided to write the whole 5 page assignment on the theme of "what if the author didn't want us to take the book at more than it's face value?" He got a 0 on the paper since he didn't find the hidden meaning the teacher took away from it, and he had the ability to redo it for a 70, which he declined because he stood by his paper. He was an engineer for BMW for several years before deciding to follow his heart...he's now a 41 year old General Surgery resident.

B-1 83 said:

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Tarleton??????

A&M Kingsville I can halfway believe (not that I'm doubting you, just the pool they are known to draw from).

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If you mean the same pool that's ruining A&M you are correct…DFW, Austin, Houston, SA…The same students that were the problem when I was at A&M… city kids and their long-standing balance of arrogance/ignorance.

Funny how all major metropolitan areas are run by libtarded ideology. It's the same "pool".

I can assure you that a greater majority of libtarded children conceived from an AgTag come from major metropolitan areas. It's not their fault…It's "you people" that chose poorly.

B-1 83 said:

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He should have a good time spewing out each and every leftist talking point in his paper knowing he's just playing the prof for an "A". That is a good life exercise in itself

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Then after the grades come out, write the professor and tell him that obama was a racist, socialist, worthless POS.

Write what that prof wants to hear and graduate. It sucks but not worth much energy. Get the A and move on. Life lesson that some people suck and and the faster you get them away from you and out of your sphere the better.

96AgGrad said:

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Back in in the early 90's I had a POLS 206 professor, a female, who I believe had gone to Baylor.

During her lecture she stated her opinion that the Second Amendment only applied to militias, not individuals. I rolled my eyes and ignored it.

Sure enough though, she had a question on her final exam that required that you to agree with her to get it correct, which I thought was utter BS.

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Not exactly a perfect analogy but Calvin makes a prescient point:

aggie93 said:

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It's an American History Class prior to 1900. He's got a mid/high A in the class and a 4.0 overall so his grades are very important to him. Then out of the blue the Prof gives an assignment to "annotate and give opinions about". It's an Atlantic Article from 2016 after Trump's election but prior to him taking office essentially saying how Trump was going to roll back all the progress and hope of the Obama Presidency and comes just short of saying that Jim Crow is coming back. The first sentence is "The accomplishments of the first black president will be erased by a man who rose to power on the slander that Barack Obama was not born in America." and it goes downhill from there.

I am furious seeing profs give students stuff like this at the end of the Semester clearly designed to find out their political leanings on a subjectively graded paper. It puts my conservative son in a position where he can either write a paper as he truly believes or try to come up with something they want to hear. Apparently it will be graded by a 3rd Party website that uses an algorithm. My son is thinking of writing the Dean because it has no relevance to the course.

The article just rambles incoherently. I swear A&M really doesn't want any more of my donations again.

Welcome to the Second Redemption

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I think some areas are definitely going off the deep end. My son is on the PT school track and in his human sexuality class the instructor told them they could write about watch a pornographic video or a song that discusses sex (I think the topic was about sex morals/mores, etc. in society). He picked the song but he's convinced the instructor just wanted to make them uncomfortable. I get the idea of getting students to really think about the psychology of how people think and how that affects our society. But seems like there could be a multitude of other ways to get them thinking.
I have faith in TAMU, overall, maintaining mostly conservative norms, but that's not to say that they don't employ some nuts. I'm sure there are always a few, and my son was raised well and took any perceived indoctrination with a grain of salt. But it worries me about other kids.

Kids need to start slashing tires again.

I remember getting C on a sociology paper from a frumpy professor over my political opinion. But it was at Blinn so transferring the credit was all that mattered.

oooh oooh Mister Khata, Mister Khatta

aggie93 said:

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It's an American History Class prior to 1900. He's got a mid/high A in the class and a 4.0 overall so his grades are very important to him. Then out of the blue the Prof gives an assignment to "annotate and give opinions about". It's an Atlantic Article from 2016 after Trump's election but prior to him taking office essentially saying how Trump was going to roll back all the progress and hope of the Obama Presidency and comes just short of saying that Jim Crow is coming back. The first sentence is "The accomplishments of the first black president will be erased by a man who rose to power on the slander that Barack Obama was not born in America." and it goes downhill from there.

I am furious seeing profs give students stuff like this at the end of the Semester clearly designed to find out their political leanings on a subjectively graded paper. It puts my conservative son in a position where he can either write a paper as he truly believes or try to come up with something they want to hear. Apparently it will be graded by a 3rd Party website that uses an algorithm. My son is thinking of writing the Dean because it has no relevance to the course.

The article just rambles incoherently. I swear A&M really doesn't want any more of my donations again.

Welcome to the Second Redemption

---

Has the professor been inserting his/her politics into the course and bashing conservatives? Why is the knee-jerk reaction that this is some sort of political ousting?

The article tries to draw parallels between Trump following Obama to the period of time following reconstruction, which I guess would fall under the scope of a History Class prior to 1900. At a minimum the article is an example of someone making an attempt to tie history to the present day which is something a history prof would be interested in showing students. Your son could make an argument/opinion about how well that was done that's relatively apolitical.

Your son could also write an opinion about how rule-by-executive-order leaves your presidential legacy susceptible to being "overthrown" by whoever comes next. Tie in the first 100 days of Biden's presidency to show the same thing happening to Trump.

Or write an opinion about how sensationalism, hyperbole, and exaggeration with regards to political commentary can lead to a **** article...starting with the first sentence that you quoted for us. Keep it apolitical by showing mirror example Fox News articles inciting cliff jumping during the Obama era.

Without seeing the exact assignment from the professor, and what context/scope they refined the opinion to, my mind can think of a million ways to apolitically write an opinion on this without revealing what I personally believe.

As for the algorithm, that's common practice in most writing-intensive courses across academia these days. It's called turnitin.com and it scans the web, plus other submissions to the website, for plagiarism. It spits out a percentage or "score" of how much the paper was copied. There's only so many ways to say "the dog jumped over the fence" so most papers will score in the 1-10% plagiarism range just based on repeat of common English sentences. Anything higher than that is up to the prof/grader to decide. Unless the prof has access to some secret level of ChapGPT, there's no algorithm in use by academia which grades a written paper based on content. That's still up to a human to do.

Write the paper in such a way that's satirical but easily gets the prof's approval. I'd write it just to screw with him, not believing a word that's written.

Yellow journalism has been around forever. Go with "Remember the Maine" from 1898 to fit the course subject matter.

Most importantly, teach your kid to fight their battles. You can help him with what to say to the prof, the dean, the President, etc. but don't you shouldn't make a call or send an email until you believe your son has exhausted all his options.

murphyag said:

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aggie93 said:

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It's an American History Class prior to 1900. He's got a mid/high A in the class and a 4.0 overall so his grades are very important to him. Then out of the blue the Prof gives an assignment to "annotate and give opinions about". It's an Atlantic Article from 2016 after Trump's election but prior to him taking office essentially saying how Trump was going to roll back all the progress and hope of the Obama Presidency and comes just short of saying that Jim Crow is coming back. The first sentence is "The accomplishments of the first black president will be erased by a man who rose to power on the slander that Barack Obama was not born in America." and it goes downhill from there.

I am furious seeing profs give students stuff like this at the end of the Semester clearly designed to find out their political leanings on a subjectively graded paper. It puts my conservative son in a position where he can either write a paper as he truly believes or try to come up with something they want to hear. Apparently it will be graded by a 3rd Party website that uses an algorithm. My son is thinking of writing the Dean because it has no relevance to the course.

The article just rambles incoherently. I swear A&M really doesn't want any more of my donations again.

Welcome to the Second Redemption

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Have your son transfer to another university that more aligns with your values and beliefs. Unless you are a mega donor, that will have more impact dollar wise.

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Your "beliefs" are of no value whatsoever.

aggiebrad94 said:

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Most importantly, teach your kid to fight their battles. You can help him with what to say to the prof, the dean, the President, etc. but don't you shouldn't make a call or send an email until you believe your son has exhausted all his options.

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fify

Franklin Comes Alive! said:

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You're still donating?

You don't realize yet that the admin despises you?

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Get woke, go broke...

Oh look!
Football!
$$$$$$$$$$

aggie93 said:

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It's an American History Class prior to 1900. He's got a mid/high A in the class and a 4.0 overall so his grades are very important to him. Then out of the blue the Prof gives an assignment to "annotate and give opinions about". It's an Atlantic Article from 2016 after Trump's election but prior to him taking office essentially saying how Trump was going to roll back all the progress and hope of the Obama Presidency and comes just short of saying that Jim Crow is coming back. The first sentence is "The accomplishments of the first black president will be erased by a man who rose to power on the slander that Barack Obama was not born in America." and it goes downhill from there.

I am furious seeing profs give students stuff like this at the end of the Semester clearly designed to find out their political leanings on a subjectively graded paper. It puts my conservative son in a position where he can either write a paper as he truly believes or try to come up with something they want to hear. Apparently it will be graded by a 3rd Party website that uses an algorithm. My son is thinking of writing the Dean because it has no relevance to the course.

The article just rambles incoherently. I swear A&M really doesn't want any more of my donations again.

Welcome to the Second Redemption

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He should write a paper about how using this article for the assignment is an invasion of privacy and an abuse of power in the classroom. And then serve notice he's suing at the very end signed by his lawyer.

aggie93 said:

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It's an American History Class prior to 1900. He's got a mid/high A in the class and a 4.0 overall so his grades are very important to him. Then out of the blue the Prof gives an assignment to "annotate and give opinions about". It's an Atlantic Article from 2016 after Trump's election but prior to him taking office essentially saying how Trump was going to roll back all the progress and hope of the Obama Presidency and comes just short of saying that Jim Crow is coming back. The first sentence is "The accomplishments of the first black president will be erased by a man who rose to power on the slander that Barack Obama was not born in America." and it goes downhill from there.

I am furious seeing profs give students stuff like this at the end of the Semester clearly designed to find out their political leanings on a subjectively graded paper. It puts my conservative son in a position where he can either write a paper as he truly believes or try to come up with something they want to hear. Apparently it will be graded by a 3rd Party website that uses an algorithm. My son is thinking of writing the Dean because it has no relevance to the course.

The article just rambles incoherently. I swear A&M really doesn't want any more of my donations again.

Welcome to the Second Redemption

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I would think given that we know what actually happened during the Trump administration it would be easy to show how the assertions made in the article are garbage.

Seems like you're raising a resilient free thinking young man


…who calls daddy about his homework

TexasAggiesWin said:

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Professor of "History prior to 1900" wants an essay about an election in 2016? LOL

https://media.tenor.com/gVTM7OgLPZsAAAAM/nope-dont.gif

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You know why we study history right?

GnarKill said:

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Seems like you're raising a resilient free thinking young man


…who calls daddy about his homework

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Yes, I have forged a strong relationship with my son and he trusts in me and my opinions but I have also taught him personal responsibility and that life is about choices. He's set to graduate in 3 and a half years and in his field will likely make 6 figures right out of school. He is taking 22 hours with a 4.0 and also has an occassional weekend job working on a charter fishing boat as he is an excellent fisherman with an outstanding work ethic. He can weld and fix most things and he knows how to hunt and clean what he kills to eat it. He bought his own truck with his own money he earned. He has manners and is respectful to everyone.

Of course I'm sure you and your kids are a lot more squared away at 19 though so I'd love to hear your recommendations on how I can do a better job raising him.

This a great opportunity to teach your son that morals,values, and the truth are more important than grades or the communist propaganda.