It hurts to be so smart sometimes

I couldn't decide between that title, or "Where have all the intelligent and original university professors gone?"

anyways, in the past i had always wondered what university professors were good for, simply because it seems like every course if ever taken (with a few exceptions), the professor uses the power point slides that come with the teacher's edition of the textbook. they use the tests and the teacher's notes that come with it too.

what i'm saying is basically that a monkey could teach any course with as many resources as there are now.

i could go on, but no one is going to read this, much less have anything to add to it.

i think a better, less ridiculous way to put it
would be like this:

"with all of the resources currently out there,
its quite possible to receive a college-level
education while being self-taught"

i have to point out a few flaws in what you said,
namely because it is due to these flaws that cause
me to disagree with your post altogether.

while it is true that many professors slack off
on giving more original means of testing and
educating, i find this to be true of the more
commonplace courses and not so much in the more
abstract courses... namely fine arts.

but then again, an education in fine arts should
have already been prefaced with some form of
self-taught education in the subject.

but let's be serious here....

a lot of schools have mandates that have to be
met... little trivial nuances that are a must...
perhaps a bit political in nature... such as
using particular tools for the class (ie teachers
edition books and other regulated materials).

many times in the past i've felt a twinge for
something more profound and grecian in as far as
being educated... from my experience, some profs
dip their toes into this form of teaching...
but tend to shy away after a certain point due
to socio-conventional ideals impressed upon
them to 'stay within the lines'.

its a shame... but its true.

i'm not going to re-read my initial post and see if i actually worded my thoughts correctly, because i just really can't be bothered.

The reason for the post was simply this...

Today in class, the professor was "teaching" about a certain software testing algorithm. She asked the class to do some minor calculations on a very simple function that was presented on the slide. The immediate response was in fact '5'. Which is what I initially suspected the answer to be. Upon further review, myself, and at least 3 other classmates, voiced our opinion that the answer was not '5', but '12'. After about 15 minutes of arguing about the result, the professor finally admitted that she honestly was not really thinking about it, she was simply following what the book was saying. It was obvious, because she was not able to give any reasonable supporting evidence that her/the books answer was correct. Eventually, she admitted that we, as the students, were correct, and she would contact the publisher to let them know that the information it was propsing was incorrect.

If the professor had spent any time researching the material she was presenting, or...heaven-forbid...come up with her own lectures, the entire 15 minutes debate would have been avoided. That 15 minutes could have been spent either teaching something else, or allowing us to leave 15 minutes early from class.

i had a really intelligent reply, but figured
this board doesn't need highly debatable topics
so i quickly decided to just pop the balloon and
end it like this:

this reminds me of the infamous simpsons episode....

why can't this board have debatable topics? are you saying that the necropolis is the only board that is "smart" enough for a debate?

or are you scared that since you aren't on your own turf, you don't stand a chance to win a debate?

and i don't know what simpsons episode you are talking about

*runs*

Quote:

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Originally posted by GravyTrain:
why can't this board have debatable topics? are you saying that the necropolis is the only board that is "smart" enough for a debate?

or are you scared that since you aren't on your own turf, you don't stand a chance to win a debate?

---

<font size="4" face="Comic Sans MS, Verdana">hahahaha... no.

i haven't had a decent debate in ages... so its
not like my board is the only place worthy of
one. i just meant that it seems that when things
get heavy, people naturally ruin a good debate
by posting ridiculous statements that change
the mood. (hense my simpsons post)

i'd love a good debate, quite honestly.... but
considering the subject matter, i really feel that
you and i would eventually end up agreeing on
this topic and it seems kinda futile.

WHY?!?! WANNA START SOMETHING?!?!?!? *pushes you*

oh and the simpsons thing was when lisa stole
all the teachers edition books and bart was the
hall monitor....

your first post reminded me of the teacher's
reactions just after receiving their teachers
edition books back [img]tongue.gif[/img]