Kissing your prof's.......
 

Alrighty, I'm currently taking this certain class, it's one of those "your opinion matters more than the facts" classes. This teacher has been known to have biases, though she denies it. Some students think that she give higher grades to students who agree with her opinions. That hasn't been much of a problem for me since we are usually on the same page....but NOT on this current assignment. It is asking me for an opinion about a certain religion. I am totally against this religion, but I know she is of this religion. There's no way that I'm going to lie and give a positive opinion on this religion, yet I want to get a good grade. How should I handle this?

This happened to me once...I stuck up for what I believed in and got a terrible grade, although I had another professor in the same department read the paper and tell me what kind of grade he would have given me, and he would have given me MUCH better than what I got (like, 2 letter grades).

That one paper didn't affect my grade in the class too awfully much, and it was toward the end of the semester, so she couldn't really penalize me on anything else. But I have the pride to tell this story and say that I stood up for what I believed in, and guess what...some employers ask for examples of stuff like that during job interviews and there you go, you have an answer. Nifty!

I say go against her opinion and write your paper the way you want it written.

work your butt off, complete a great assignment based on YOUR point of view, not hers and turn it in. if she gives you a poor grade because she doesn't agree with your opinion, go see the dean. if she gives you as poor grade because you did a crappy job on the assignment, well that's your fault then :)

I was in a situation like this once. I took a philosophy course where we spent about half the semester discussing abortion. My prof and all the teaching assistants were pro-choice. OK, so am I, so far so good.

We had to read this paper that compared pregnancy to waking up one morning to find yourself in a hospital, with your circulatory system hooked into another patient, who happens to be a concert violinist, and you're told you must stay that way, in bed, for nine months, otherwise the violinist dies. Would you be justified in pulling out the needles and walking away? (i.e. having an abortion) The argument was that yes, you were justified, because you have the right to control what happens to your body. I agree with having the right to control your own body - but it was one of the stupidest arguments I've heard in my life. For one thing, most women can lead full healthy lives during pregnancy, and if a woman is put on bed rest, rarely is it for the full nine months.

So we were assigned to write a paper as to whether this was a good argument. I wrote a paper that said what I just said above. Unfortunately, the teaching staff thought the author of this paper was the Messiah or something, so even though it was a well-thought-out paper, I got a pretty bad grade.

Next week, we were assigned to write another paper based on this same document. So I wrote a paper basically worshipping it. I got a full letter grade higher.

That's when I figured out that this wasn't a proper philosophy class that allows for discussion and dissension - it was the professor spouting his views on various issues, and us having to regurgitate it in papers and tests, even if we didn't agree. :rolleyes:

ok, </vent> :)

I feel like a hypocrite telling you this, given that I did regurgitate as ordered, but - stick up for yourself and write about what you believe. Looking back, I wish I'd done so.

My advice would be to do what you can live with.

If you have the time and energy to appeal a potential bad grade, I say go for it. Write what you believe in.

If you just want the grade without any hassle, write it how you already know they want it. It is just one paper in your lifetime. And you know what you believe in, so who cares.

But I know that some people just can't live with that, and I respect that as well.

This may sound bad. But if it were me, I know that I wouldn't put the effort into fighting the bad grade. I would consider it an "opposite paper" and I would write what I know would get me the grade I want and out of that class. :)

I've had those teachers where I wanted to ask them "Tell me what I need to believe to write this paper for you..."

That's essentially the way you should look at it. Homework is not about standing up for what is right, what is just, etc.. It is something that is between you and the teacher. If you were the editor of the school paper and the teacher was telling you to write something you disagreed with in the student paper, I'd take a different position.

In this situation, my advice is to just write what you know will get you a decent grade and earn you the least amount of friction.

Can't you write a paper that expresses your opinion about the religion in question without being overtly critical of it? Don't compromise if you can't live with it, but make sure standing your ground is worth your grade.

You could ask for more specific information about what the professor is looking for when (s)he assigns grades. For example, sentence structure, spelling/grammer, strength and clarity of argument... That way, if you get an unexpected grade, you have a basis for argument.
Grading written work is not supposed to be so subjective that the grades given are off the wall! (I recently taught an assessment class, sorry for the rant) :D

I completely agree with this.

I think everyone somewhere along the line has had a professor like the one you talk about in your post. It stinks, but I wouldn't want to waste all of that emotional energy on worrying if the paper I turned in was going to make him/her spit fire once he/she read it.

I don't know about your particular college, but contesting a grade is not an easy thing to do everywhere. The one instance I tried, I was basically told that the professor is always right.

I hope everything works out for you :)

I don't get it, lots of profs seem to act this way. I'm in education, which, at the University of Toronto, is very, very, very left leaning. I was taking an immigration/race relations course and the discussion was multiculturalism, and how a modern classroom must accomodate each child's culture/ethnicity. We all know that this translates to the "let's forget about North America's Judeo-Christian culture and only learn about others" theory, which, of course, assumes that non-Judeo Christians know about "mainstream" culture. I brought up to the class that this may actually lead to segregation because the non-immigrant kids will not hang out with those who are immigrant (or first generation) and it further splits the school. Other students (and the prof) thought otherwise. I still ended up getting a decent grade in the course, but i think I would have done better if I "agreed" with the prof. I have had similar issues in women's studies courses (I find that women's studies departments seem to have a very post-Betty Friedan view of feminism and not the suffrage era, "for the good of the family" POV)

Bosses are going to act that way too, so learning how to produce what somebody else wants from you is a skill that you will use always!

Dee