Reflection On the Notre Dame Commencement Walkout on VP Pence
I'm not going to comment here on the progressive Trump Derangement Syndrome Notre Dame graduate protest walkout, other than to note this had been a premeditated act, not a spontaneous response to anything Pence said.
In other posts (e.g., here), I've discussed some of my experiences in academia, including while I was working on my MA in math at UT (Austin). I did have one more notable experience as a calculus TA in my second and last semester. (I think the definitive reason my assistant position was not renewed had to do with the incident listed in my first semester with an idiosyncratic East European immigrant professor. The department chair had specifically warned me in person about that.)
I don't think we were ever taught how to deal with disruptions in class; I wouldn't say there was perfect student behavior but nothing like some of the outrageous things I've seen, most of which I'll probably never publish: I wasn't obsessed with grades, but I was anal-retentive about complying with my professors' policies. I never even thought about getting on their bad side; I never even thought about going to a department chair or the administration, even when I disagreed with a professor. I think it dealt with the way I was raised, my personal values; I saw them as role models; but also, I thought I might one day want their recommendation or reference.
With the exception of an undergraduate database class I taught at UTEP (when a coed threw a full-scale temper tantrum after I reminded students of my academic honesty policy; I'm sure I tagged the relevant post), I've really not had to deal with rude student behavior in the classroom; there were occasional insults, etc., but my response was usually low-key. For example, in the UTEP incident, I asked the young lady to discuss the matter with me after class, but she rejected the idea. I really didn't know what to do; I was considering dismissing the class when some of her fellow students chimed in that she should discuss it after class, and she backed down under peer pressure. What I didn't know also at the time was she had listed me as a reference with employers (keep in mind that was the one and only class she had ever taken from me, a first-semester professor, and she hadn't even asked me to be her reference; it never would have crossed my mind that a new student, barely days or weeks into my first class with her, would put me on job applications.). How did I find out? She went to the Dean of Students, claiming that I had threatened to blackball her with employers; that was a pure smear: there had been no threat, not even a discussion that could be distorted out of this discussion; I wasn't even aware she was in the job market. I had minimal contact with industry recruiters or local employers. Even though she had violated my academic honesty policy, I felt that she deserved a second chance. I had not filed charges with the university over her homework assignment in question or her class disruption; in fact, I think my policy was to drop the lowest one or 2 assignment grade and that was maybe 10-15% of the final grade. So I never understood her outright ludicrous lying over my alleged threatening her, but the Dean of Students was a gullible meathead.
So the Dean of Students calls me up one day and threatens against my doing "it"; I had no clue what in the hell he was talking about, it was like being in the doghouse with my hypothetical wife: "You know what you did; don't insult my intelligence by playing these games." [My personal opinion is that Deans of Students are scum of the scum; they are troublemakers and not that bright. I also had a nasty experience with one back at UWM.] It eventually turned out that I got a postcard from Eastman Kodak concerning said student; I basically acknowledged knowing the student and had no comment. I contacted the Dean of Students Office to let them know. If I had a video clip of her behavior in class that day, nobody would have ever hired her.
With the exception of an undergraduate database class I taught at UTEP (when a coed threw a full-scale temper tantrum after I reminded students of my academic honesty policy; I'm sure I tagged the relevant post), I've really not had to deal with rude student behavior in the classroom; there were occasional insults, etc., but my response was usually low-key. For example, in the UTEP incident, I asked the young lady to discuss the matter with me after class, but she rejected the idea. I really didn't know what to do; I was considering dismissing the class when some of her fellow students chimed in that she should discuss it after class, and she backed down under peer pressure. What I didn't know also at the time was she had listed me as a reference with employers (keep in mind that was the one and only class she had ever taken from me, a first-semester professor, and she hadn't even asked me to be her reference; it never would have crossed my mind that a new student, barely days or weeks into my first class with her, would put me on job applications.). How did I find out? She went to the Dean of Students, claiming that I had threatened to blackball her with employers; that was a pure smear: there had been no threat, not even a discussion that could be distorted out of this discussion; I wasn't even aware she was in the job market. I had minimal contact with industry recruiters or local employers. Even though she had violated my academic honesty policy, I felt that she deserved a second chance. I had not filed charges with the university over her homework assignment in question or her class disruption; in fact, I think my policy was to drop the lowest one or 2 assignment grade and that was maybe 10-15% of the final grade. So I never understood her outright ludicrous lying over my alleged threatening her, but the Dean of Students was a gullible meathead.
So the Dean of Students calls me up one day and threatens against my doing "it"; I had no clue what in the hell he was talking about, it was like being in the doghouse with my hypothetical wife: "You know what you did; don't insult my intelligence by playing these games." [My personal opinion is that Deans of Students are scum of the scum; they are troublemakers and not that bright. I also had a nasty experience with one back at UWM.] It eventually turned out that I got a postcard from Eastman Kodak concerning said student; I basically acknowledged knowing the student and had no comment. I contacted the Dean of Students Office to let them know. If I had a video clip of her behavior in class that day, nobody would have ever hired her.
A few years earlier, I had just turned 20 and was TA'ing in the spring semester at UT. As I recall, professors lectured on MWF and we TA's led calculus word problem labs that normally met twice a week (T/Th). I think it was worth 4 semester hours. I don't think we took attendance for the lab sessions. I was now working under a reasonable professor; however, I was puzzled by the fact that my sections weren't full--in fact, I had lost students to the other TA. The other TA was cute; in fact, I had been hoping to ask her out on a date (it never happened). But more than 1 student would tell me how, unlike me, she had to resort to the answer book to work out calculus problems. So I asked, "Why are you going to her sessions instead of mine (since I had better grasp of the material)?" He laughed and said, "Dude! Who would you rather look at at 8 AM in the morning?"
I seem to recall we had a teaching class or seminar where they might videotape us in session and critique our performance. What I don't recall is having a class in how to deal with rogue students. My general response would be not to escalate the issue. For example, more times than I care to remember, I would deal with repeated questions with patience and simply repeat what I said earlier. I always thought humiliating the student for not paying attention was inappropriate; if I were the student, would he do the same to me? So don't sweat the small stuff.
What I was not prepared for was for an open outburst. This older guy, like maybe my Dad's age, in his forties (?), interrupted as I had finished solving the first problem and was in the early stages of solving the second. "I DON'T KNOW ABOUT THE REST OF YOU, BUT I DIDN'T UNDERSTAND A SINGLE WORD HE WAS SAYING." I'm not sure if he were just tired and irritable and I happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time; I couldn't get him to focus on what he didn't understand about the first problem solution. It seemed to degenerate into a personal attack on me not knowing how to teach.
I was trying to figure out how to defuse the situation when I said the wrong thing at the wrong time: "Attendance to the lab sessions is voluntary." (I thought his behavior was disruptive to the class as a whole, and the comment was intended primarily to him.) The older dude quickly stormed out--along with eventually maybe a third of the class, not all at once but notably one at a time. It was, of course, disrespectful but dragging it out was disruptive for the rest of the students who stayed. I'm sure the partial walkout went beyond that, because soon after that incident, the 3 of us (prof and TA's) got hit with teaching evaluations (then, not at the end of the semester). Perhaps I should have suggested a one-on-one session after class.
I don't think it's ever a good feeling when you are openly dissed by other people, e.g., turning their backs to you, walking out on you. A similar thing happens on a minor scale on Twitter where I've had 30-50 followers for most of the last year or two; most of the base is pro-liberty. More recently, it had gone from the lower to higher part of the range. Not sure why; I do happen to do well at hashtag games, or maybe I get some closet Trumpkins or progressives, who follow me, just to drop me. (I don't know why, with nearly 10,000 tweets available, someone would be shocked by my post-follow tweets.) It's not like you get reasons for why followers drop you, but there have been times where it seemed every time I refreshed my screen, I lost another follower. But I don't tweet for followers. I do think authors generally prefer larger to smaller audiences, but audiences are also on a tweet impression basis; I can routinely attract over 1000 pairs of eyeballs during a day of tweets, which far exceeded my following. (I suspect some Trumpkins in particular are secretly following me because I'll sometimes get a reply from one, barely seconds into a newly published tweet.)
Sure, maybe I lose a more general audience (I had a co-worker accuse me of using all these big words, although I don't pretend to be William F. Buckley), and calculus or IT stuff comes to me easier given my general intelligence and background. But whether you lose a student or a follower, you can't take it personally. I don't surrender my self-confidence to someone who disagrees with me. I don't know why that older student at UT went off on me; maybe he didn't get enough sleep. Maybe he was embarrassed that a kid half his age could solve problems he couldn't. These sessions mostly consisted of my solving word problems on blackboards: I was not giving pop quizzes; the students were free to ask questions, before, during and after. The sessions were for their benefit. This student's frustration was more venting than focused. I could deal with "how did you get from step 2 to step 3?", but this "I don't get any of it" was difficult to deal with.
Is this similar to the Pence walkout? Not really except in the sense that they both involve a measure of disrespect. To a certain extent, given Pence's status as a politician (never mind his tenure as Indiana governor), it comes with the territory in a politically polarized country. I had been tracking the story, and quite frankly, I expected a lot more graduates to walk out. I do give progressive Notre Dame credit for having a conservative, pro-life speaker after years of dubious left-wing choices like Cuomo and Obama.
I didn't expect to write another wrestling comment so soon after a cluster around Wrestlemania, but there have been some interesting developments. The biggest item is the WWE decision to take the title off Randy Orton and put it on Jinder Mahal, a mostly enhancement talent and frequent jobber. Mahal, who recently got reassigned to the Smackdown roster, has been pushed as a heel character who seems to be playing the politically correct victim card against American "racist" WWE fans; he also has a couple of meddling sidekicks, the Singh brothers, to distract opponents.
Now, to be frank, Orton has an anti-hero persona, not quite babyface or heel, and his character, in my opinion, has grown stale over the last few years. The insurgent viper storyline against Bray Wyatt was probably the freshest I've seen in some time for his character. But how many times can you recycle another Cena feud? So, beyond the obligatory rematch for the title, it's hard to see where they go next with Orton. True, you have AJ Styles and Kevin Owens, but they are at least quasi-heels. And you certainly could have run a Nakamura reprise of his challenge for the NXT championship, but he was just in his first roster PPV, so it's probably premature.
So I think Orton needs to remake his character. I'm not in WWE creative and can't tell them their business. But for instance this "I hear voices" concept might lead to a Jekyll-Hyde personality; they could develop a heel faction around him called The Viper's Nest (granted, this would deal away his loner gimmick). They could put him in a tag team where he eventually turns on his partner. But his moves and finisher are about as predictable as Hulk Hogan (not a good thing). Even Sting did multiple personas (remember Joker Sting?) So a belt change could have been in order if WWE wanted to revamp Orton's character.
The problem is that I never bought into Jinder Mahal's elevation, the heel gimmick is unconvincing; his mike skills are poor and/or contrived, and his build into a legitimate contender from being a jobber requires overlooking past performances. I just felt that Mahal was an interim contender as Styles got back into the title picture. But a lot of WWE fans liked the title change. Go figure. I just don't think his character can carry the brand. We'll see; I could be wrong and may not represent your typical wrestling fan.
However, the plot was fairly predictable. When I saw Orton paying too much attention to the Singh brothers, the writing was on the wall One of the most predictable storylines is for the challenger to distract attention away by outside interference to set up the finisher.
Owens' countout victory over Styles was also the easy way out of how to book the feud without making either wrestler look weak.
On the Raw side, Finn Balor took out old Bullet Club colleague Anderson. No storyline build, and WWE has done nothing with the Bullet Club concept (including AJ Styles). WWE has also turned Cesaro and Shaemus into an unlikely heel tag team. And unlikely 5'1" Alexa Bliss has become the first title winner over both brands.
I need to see better storylines going forward
Is this similar to the Pence walkout? Not really except in the sense that they both involve a measure of disrespect. To a certain extent, given Pence's status as a politician (never mind his tenure as Indiana governor), it comes with the territory in a politically polarized country. I had been tracking the story, and quite frankly, I expected a lot more graduates to walk out. I do give progressive Notre Dame credit for having a conservative, pro-life speaker after years of dubious left-wing choices like Cuomo and Obama.
An Interim Pro Wrestling Note
I didn't expect to write another wrestling comment so soon after a cluster around Wrestlemania, but there have been some interesting developments. The biggest item is the WWE decision to take the title off Randy Orton and put it on Jinder Mahal, a mostly enhancement talent and frequent jobber. Mahal, who recently got reassigned to the Smackdown roster, has been pushed as a heel character who seems to be playing the politically correct victim card against American "racist" WWE fans; he also has a couple of meddling sidekicks, the Singh brothers, to distract opponents.Now, to be frank, Orton has an anti-hero persona, not quite babyface or heel, and his character, in my opinion, has grown stale over the last few years. The insurgent viper storyline against Bray Wyatt was probably the freshest I've seen in some time for his character. But how many times can you recycle another Cena feud? So, beyond the obligatory rematch for the title, it's hard to see where they go next with Orton. True, you have AJ Styles and Kevin Owens, but they are at least quasi-heels. And you certainly could have run a Nakamura reprise of his challenge for the NXT championship, but he was just in his first roster PPV, so it's probably premature.
So I think Orton needs to remake his character. I'm not in WWE creative and can't tell them their business. But for instance this "I hear voices" concept might lead to a Jekyll-Hyde personality; they could develop a heel faction around him called The Viper's Nest (granted, this would deal away his loner gimmick). They could put him in a tag team where he eventually turns on his partner. But his moves and finisher are about as predictable as Hulk Hogan (not a good thing). Even Sting did multiple personas (remember Joker Sting?) So a belt change could have been in order if WWE wanted to revamp Orton's character.
The problem is that I never bought into Jinder Mahal's elevation, the heel gimmick is unconvincing; his mike skills are poor and/or contrived, and his build into a legitimate contender from being a jobber requires overlooking past performances. I just felt that Mahal was an interim contender as Styles got back into the title picture. But a lot of WWE fans liked the title change. Go figure. I just don't think his character can carry the brand. We'll see; I could be wrong and may not represent your typical wrestling fan.
However, the plot was fairly predictable. When I saw Orton paying too much attention to the Singh brothers, the writing was on the wall One of the most predictable storylines is for the challenger to distract attention away by outside interference to set up the finisher.
Owens' countout victory over Styles was also the easy way out of how to book the feud without making either wrestler look weak.
On the Raw side, Finn Balor took out old Bullet Club colleague Anderson. No storyline build, and WWE has done nothing with the Bullet Club concept (including AJ Styles). WWE has also turned Cesaro and Shaemus into an unlikely heel tag team. And unlikely 5'1" Alexa Bliss has become the first title winner over both brands.
I need to see better storylines going forward
