Another “quick takes” on items where there is too little to say to make a complete article, but is still important enough to comment on.
The focus this time: When I went to YOUR schools, I went to YOUR churches, I went to YOUR institutional learning facilities?! So how can you say I’M crazy?
First, a little mood music:
Carrying on…
Despite dumbing down college academics in order to make sure that everyone goes to college, it would seem that it is still too much for many students.
“As many as one in four students at some elite U.S. colleges are now classified as disabled, largely because of mental-health issues such as depression or anxiety, entitling them to a widening array of special accommodations like longer time to take exams…
“Small, private schools have the greatest concentration of students with disabilities. Among the 100 four-year, not-for-profit colleges with the highest percentage of disabled students, 93 are private, according to a WSJ analysis of federal data.
“Public schools have also seen a significant uptick in test accommodations. From 2011 to 2016, the number of students with special accommodations increased by an average of 71% among 22 flagship state schools”.
“20 hours a week of the typically milquetoast make-work […] doesn’t genuinely deserve to be called ‘academics’ is so stressful that it causes two-thirds of college students to feel ‘overwhelming anxiety.’ I’ve seen “graduate-level’ assignments that comprise writing brief online forum posts and PowerPoint presentations, and not from the kind of institutions people think of as diploma mills, either. If a sixth grader can do it, it’s not ‘graduate-level’ work, let alone ‘college-level’ work.”
Some professors, however, want to help students’ mental health by measuring their self esteem. And by “measuring their self esteem”, Professor Alicia Walker at Missouri State University means “measure her male students’ penises.”
“Does a larger penis mean more self esteem? One Missouri State University sociology professor is working to find that out and more, and in the name of science is asking men across America to send her pictures of their genitalia.
“Professor Alicia Walker asks participants to voluntarily provide the measurements of their penis when erect and flaccid, as well as photographic evidence, in a research project that has been has been approved by the Missouri State University Institutional Review Board.
“‘The purpose is to investigate how men feel about their bodies in a culture where we place emphasis on size, including size of penises,’ Walker told The College Fix via email. ‘And to further look at how that impacts their tendency toward safe sex, relationships, and more.’
“The professor is using Reddit as a tool to spread word of her research project, and some of the platform’s users have incredulously questioned her about the need for what a few have termed ‘dick pics.'”
But then, ultimately it is up to students to help each other by fighting the true cause of anxiety and horror: White people.
“In one course, titled Deconstructing Whiteness, students will ‘confront uncomfortable conversations about privilege and positionality’ in order to “understand where white bodies have the responsibility to be in movements against white supremacy and in solidarity with marginalized peoples and groups of color.”
“The description makes clear that the course ‘will not be to coddle white fragility, but to deconstruct and relearn whiteness through case studies, speakers, and intense, critical readings.’
“The course syllabus outlines questions to be addressed during the class, such as ‘How does recentering what we see as violent and violence reposition who needs protection?’ ‘What are liberal whites’ roles in colonization of education?’ ‘What does the trope of the “Good White Person” do for allyship and conversations around equality?’ and ‘What is one way that the history of white people as inherently innocent, and their tradition as “natural” and therefore good, be disrupted?’
“The course also addresses ‘Environmental Racism,’ arguing that ‘food practices [have] been gentrified,’ as well as units on ‘White Comfort/Coddling,’ ‘White Emptiness of Culture/Cultural Appropriation,’ and ‘White Entertainment.'”
Modern day Red Guard to the “rescue”…
TTFN.
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