OPINION & EDITORIAL
Outbursts in class unacceptable
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Also by Cynthia Martens:
- America maintains unhealthy obsession with body image (February 10, 2006)
- Genocide not limited to Holocaust (January 27, 2006)
- Undergraduate fears of commencement unjustified (February 3, 2006)
- Outbursts in class unacceptable (April 7, 2005)
- Teacher evaluations not always effective (February 17, 2006)
Related Stories:
- Lessons in lecture hall etiquette (September 1, 2004)
- A bad bill (January 30, 2002)
- The politics of lecture-hall seating (September 19, 2003)
- John Edwards may prove best option (December 4, 2007)
- Crossing the line (April 21, 2004)
by Cynthia Martens
Thursday, April 7, 2005
Imagine slumping into your seat, preparing for a long bus ride, only to have a fellow passenger regale you with his second-rate Bill Clinton or Dubya impersonations. There you are, a captive, stuck for hours, definitely “feeling your pain” and “strategerizing” an escape.
This feeling of being a captive audience shouldn’t wash over you in your lecture hall, as a fellow student rambles on at length about his political views.
At what point do students offering differing opinions disrupt a class, rather than contribute to it? Are limitations on class discussions necessarily a free-speech issue?
Lars Fransson, director of Uppsala University’s International Office in Sweden, commented that in the last 30 years Uppsala hadn’t seen many class disruptions over political views. He added that in Sweden, classes are usually “quite open and unbiased,” and that especially in social science classes the faculty encourage an exchange of opinions.
Should a disruption occur, the instructor and other students may ask the student causing the disruption “to take a more low-key position” and respect others’ right to contribute to the class.
Fransson noted that sometimes students who attempt to monopolize class discussions are invited to continue their debates outside the classroom, with any other interested students as well as the instructor.
“This avoids the unnecessary misuse of class time … Teachers have usually been willing to spend (some) time to take part in such debates, if perceived as ‘constructive’ and not solely repeating well-known points of view,” Fransson said, adding in Uppsala, student organizations routinely host debates on a variety of topics.
Serge Ricard, a professor at the Sorbonne in Paris, has also taught at the University of Texas. He explained that in France, while differences of opinion are welcome, professors believe the classroom is a place with a specific structure in which the professor has the authority.
“Monopolizing class discussion or interrupting the professor would be tantamount to disrupting the class, i.e. a disorderly conduct and lack of respect, and the student would be kicked out and even expelled from university if he repeated the offense,” Ricard said.
He observed that American professors’ deep desire to remain politically correct makes them hesitant to challenge a disruptive student. Yet for the French, monopolizing a class discussion is not an issue of free speech; it’s an issue of rudeness.
“This right of free speech gets bandied about all the time,” Ricard said. “The French would have no hesitation. Let the teaching go on. The student should not be speaking unless permitted to. You just don’t do such things. It’s a breach of discipline.”
Ricard allowed that a student could complain if a professor were carrying on about extreme political views that had nothing to do with the course.
“But then you complain to the administration,” he said.
Ricard also remarked: “A university student in France is under no obligation to attend a class and put up with a professor he doesn’t like. He can always change professors or even universities.”
University professors are often cast as hopelessly left-wing. This view exists in France as well.
“In France, the faculty almost everywhere is reputed to be left-wing, especially in universities. It’s kind of a right-wing cliché. The truth is really professors are on the whole respectful of students’ beliefs,” Ricard said. “There is a tradition of tolerance in French universities. There are no rules, but university professors tend to be pretty broad-minded.”
France, which historically struggled between royal and papal authority, is determined to remain secular in the classroom.
“Religion should be banned from the discussion unless it relates to the course material,” Ricard said, noting students with strong religious inclinations could attend a private school or continue religious debates after class. “Secular thought — la laícité — is very important to the French.”
As colleges across the globe wrestle with class disruptions, professors should consider the approaches other democratic societies have taken in university classrooms. All are concerned with free speech, but they’re concerned with their teaching missions, too.
University of Wisconsin students should embrace their diverse viewpoints and speak openly with each other. But those just looking for an audience should head for Library Mall; at least there the audience isn’t captive.
Listening to people rant on a street corner can be entertaining. Having such people monopolize a classroom is not.
Cynthia Martens (cmartens@badgerherald.com) is a junior majoring in Italian and European studies.
Anonymous (April 7, 2005 @ 8:11am):
Sometimes that can be better than listening to some fossil talk for an hour.
Anonymous (April 7, 2005 @ 9:10am):
I'm not even sure what you are talking about. Are you talking about the people who "monopolize" class discussions or lectures by being the most frequent students to answer or ask questions? Or are you talking about people who "monopolize" class time by using it as a bully pulpit for whatever their views. The first should not be stopped, even though some of the people who do this are very annoying because they ask stupid questions sometimes. I never experienced the second, except from TAs in Poli Sci who not only espoused extreme left wing politics (I'm a moderate independant) for the whole hour but sometimes would punish me grade-wise because of it.
Anonymous (April 7, 2005 @ 11:15am):
Yeah, boo discussion. Sifting and Winnowing be damned.
Also, what's up with the French and Swede way of doing things? I'm not bashing France or Sweden, but it'd be cool to discuss things on their own merits, not just because France does it a certain way.
Example: we just recently outlawed the death penalty for minors. This sort of seems like an open and shut case. At least it's manifest to me that we shouldn't kill minors. Anyway, the justices cited the fact that other countries don't kill minors as justification for why we shouldn't.
Doesn't it bother anyone that the ONLY reason why we don't kill kids is that other people don't? I mean, shouldn't it be really REALLY obvious as to why we shouldn't do that?
Anonymous (April 7, 2005 @ 12:58pm):
More mindless crap!
Anonymous (April 7, 2005 @ 1:43pm):
I've got a great idea - why don't we implement a speech code. That way, we can decide what people should and shouldn't say in class. If someone violates the speech code, we could just kick them out of school so that none of us ever has to experience a contrary point of view.
Anonymous (April 7, 2005 @ 3:17pm):
"Doesn't it bother anyone that the ONLY reason why we don't kill kids is that other people don't?"
BIG mistake, get 'em before they can breed more little monsters!
Anonymous (April 7, 2005 @ 3:27pm):
"BIG mistake, get 'em before they can breed more little monsters!"
But children are funny- look at Wonder Showzen.
Anonymous (April 7, 2005 @ 11:36pm):
Oh, there's an ASM elect person that wants speech codes! Watch out Madison, you're in for a ride next year!
