Troubles at Mizzou

[top_dollar]

The lack of understanding of the first amendment here is staggering and embarrassing.   I know big words are hard to read, but pick up a freaking history book.

[Flysmallie]

38 minutes ago, vernon said:

Maybe he needs to start referring to himself as "Bobby" Lee before he's banned from sports journalism and broadcasting altogether.  

 

He needs a good lawyer. This is getting ridiculous. ESPN has been on a downward trend for awhile, I think they believe the first network to reach rock bottom and implode wins some kind of prize. 

[Browning Guy]

The good news in this thread is there are a number of like minded and good people with different backgrounds who all enjoy the outdoors.  From what I have read, most are sensible and can base their decisions on facts rather than illogical rhetoric. Thank you for this as it makes me believe America is still good, just off the rail right now.  We need to work together and put her back on track.

My wife and I pay close attention............. to which movies we see (65% of the nuts in Hollyweird will not benefit from our attendance).  Disney has been crossed off the list (chose to go elsewhere for vacation).  ESPN is crossed off.  CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, NBC and sometimes Fox is turned off. Several Universities are crossed off the list for our upcoming students.  PayPal is reduced when possible. No Starbucks for us. The list is long, but we stick with our principles until the media, athletes, actors and corporations stop with their own bigotry, inserting themselves in politics and BS rhetoric.  This thread has nothing to do with fishing, but it has everything to do with common sense and reality amongst those who have a common interest in fishing/outdoors.  Now, what do we do about it? Push back gently? Help in voicing concerns of what is happening to TR? Etc......

[bkbying89]

Two of my cousin's, extremely intelligent ladies, and graduates of the Journalism school at MU both tried to talk one of their kids out of going to MU because they feel the academics have suffered. Not just because of what happened but because the focus was more on the non-academic. As pointed out in a previous post, enrollment is down on campuses thru out the country. Students are terrified that they will be in debt for life, and or will not be able to find jobs. My wife has worked at a small university that thrived until 2008 and enrollment have suffered ever since. Blaming anybody for what happened at MU is pointless. If you want to blame something blame politicians and politics.

[Phil Lilley]

Moved to General Chat. 

[SpoonDog]

First off, your kid's not gonna see anything more "radical" at Mizzou that they wouldn't or couldn't see at MO State, or Truman, or SEMO, or anywhere else.  Mizzou's just bigger. The same discussions and protests went on at MSU without impacting enrollment, so the explanatory factor isn't the presence of "liberal protestors."

Campuses run on young people and young people are overwhelmingly liberal.  It's that way now, it was that way in the 1990s it was that way in the 1970s.  Heck, a lot of smaller colleges started out as women's institutions at a time when that was about as radical as you could be.  Despite that Mizzou has 60 religious organizations on campus, young Republicans, ROTC, and who knows what else- it certainly isn't monolithic. 

A public institution like Mizzou has an obligation to foster the education of ALL citizens, even the ones you don't agree with.  And a good university spends as much time teaching students HOW to learn- how to gather and evaluate evidence to make an informed decision, how to construct and deconstruct arguments and think critically about them- as it does teaching students WHAT to learn.  Sometimes that aspect is lost in an effort to churn out more degrees, sometimes it's abused by professors and administrators, sometimes it results in challenging conversations at the Thanksgiving table.  College isn't just supposed to be academically rigorous, it's supposed to be intellectually challenging, as well. 

It's an opportunity to see and learn from other people from other places and socioeconomic backgrounds you may never otherwise engage with.  And if your kid wilts at the prospect of self-reflection, of having ideas challenged...if they can't hack that, they're not ready for college.  They could stand to spend a year or two traveling, volunteering, working a wage gig and meeting all sorts of interesting folks and developing a little character. 

For myself and the kids I went to high school with, choosing a university was the first adult decision we really made.  If parents are making those decisions for their adult children based on perceived ideological leanings of the university as opposed to economic considerations or the institution's quality, let's call it what it is: helicopter parenting.  You're picking for your child based on your politics- at that point it's pretty clearly no longer about the student.  It not only sends the message that you don't trust them to make a decision in their best interest, but that your politics come before their education.

 

 

[Mitch f]

1 hour ago, SpoonDog said:

First off, your kid's not gonna see anything more "radical" at Mizzou that they wouldn't or couldn't see at MO State, or Truman, or SEMO, or anywhere else.  Mizzou's just bigger. The same discussions and protests went on at MSU without impacting enrollment, so the explanatory factor isn't the presence of "liberal protestors."

Campuses run on young people and young people are overwhelmingly liberal.  It's that way now, it was that way in the 1990s it was that way in the 1970s.  Heck, a lot of smaller colleges started out as women's institutions at a time when that was about as radical as you could be.  Despite that Mizzou has 60 religious organizations on campus, young Republicans, ROTC, and who knows what else- it certainly isn't monolithic. 

A public institution like Mizzou has an obligation to foster the education of ALL citizens, even the ones you don't agree with.  And a good university spends as much time teaching students HOW to learn- how to gather and evaluate evidence to make an informed decision, how to construct and deconstruct arguments and think critically about them- as it does teaching students WHAT to learn.  Sometimes that aspect is lost in an effort to churn out more degrees, sometimes it's abused by professors and administrators, sometimes it results in challenging conversations at the Thanksgiving table.  College isn't just supposed to be academically rigorous, it's supposed to be intellectually challenging, as well. 

It's an opportunity to see and learn from other people from other places and socioeconomic backgrounds you may never otherwise engage with.  And if your kid wilts at the prospect of self-reflection, of having ideas challenged...if they can't hack that, they're not ready for college.  They could stand to spend a year or two traveling, volunteering, working a wage gig and meeting all sorts of interesting folks and developing a little character. 

For myself and the kids I went to high school with, choosing a university was the first adult decision we really made.  If parents are making those decisions for their adult children based on perceived ideological leanings of the university as opposed to economic considerations or the institution's quality, let's call it what it is: helicopter parenting.  You're picking for your child based on your politics- at that point it's pretty clearly no longer about the student.  It not only sends the message that you don't trust them to make a decision in their best interest, but that your politics come before their education.

 

 

A few things I took from your post. 

Colleges are overwhelmingly liberal..agreed.

Kids learn critical thinking and are exposed to kids of different socioeconomic backgrounds....agreed,  but 40k a year to learn this is certainly no bang for the buck. 

Choosing your child's path because you don't trust them to make a decision in their best interest...... Ok, at 40k a year,  I won't sit back and let them choose a useless degree choice. If that makes me a helicopter parent then ok, I'm fine with that. They pretty much have zero experience in this area. Hopefully all the training you've given them has helped a little. 

Maybe they should be working a wage gig,  as you suggest, DURING high school. When you work at Burger King, the customer comes first. It's most certainly all about pleasing someone other than yourself. There are no safe places to go to, no trigger warnings, No micro aggression classification for words. Just do your job. We've been raising kids with self esteem that's way too high.

 

 

[Mitch f]

9 hours ago, top_dollar said:

The lack of understanding of the first amendment here is staggering and embarrassing.   I know big words are hard to read, but pick up a freaking history book.

I think you'll have to agree that free speech isn't so free anymore. If your speech gets put into a classification of hate speech...you're banned from speaking. The definition of hate speech keeps being changed everyday. 

[SpoonDog]

1 hour ago, Mitch f said:

Choosing your child's path because you don't trust them to make a decision in their best interest...... Ok, at 40k a year,  I won't sit back and let them choose a useless degree choice. If that makes me a helicopter parent then ok, I'm fine with that. They pretty much have zero experience in this area. Hopefully all the training you've given them has helped a little. 

Maybe they should be working a wage gig,  as you suggest, DURING high school. When you work at Burger King, the customer comes first. It's most certainly all about pleasing someone other than yourself. There are no safe places to go to, no trigger warnings, No micro aggression classification for words. Just do your job. We've been raising kids with self esteem that's way too high.

40K for out-of-state students, sure- but other than that we agree on quite a bit.  But here's the rub:  while in the abstract sense you feel kids today should harden up, in the real sense you've chosen to take the decision out of the student's hands for fear they'll make what you've deemed a mistake.  By shielding that young adult from making their own decision and preventing them learning from mistakes, in the realest sense possible you've created the safe space you're simultaneously mocking.  When parents are so vigilant against failure it gives students the impression they can't fail- creating the high self esteem you see as a problem.  I understand it's an expensive gamble- having kids is an expensive gamble, raising them eightteen years is an expensive gamble, at some point the idea is you sever the umbilical and let them make decisions on their own.  Of course they have zero experience- that's kinda the whole point- as you can't expect them to turn out as emotionally mature adults if they're never given the opportunity to make emotionally mature adult-type decisions.  Sure it's arbitrary, but if they're adults in the eyes of the law I don't see why they shouldn't be making decisions about their future.  And I don't see why they shouldn't be able to start with the one decision (college vs no, and what degree) that'll probably have more impact on their career than any other. 

High school kids can't afford college on BK wages, and when the best schools require participation in extracurriculars, volunteering, and internships for financial aide, sacrificing opportunities that'll make you competitive in the eyes of admissions isn't worth $7.70 an hour.  That and a staggering number of older Americans are working menial jobs in retirement to make up for what they didn't save, why hire a 16 year old for twelve weeks when you can hire a 60 year old all year?  And it's tangential, but...sometimes adults don't know best.  When I was a senior in high school no one was saying "Go into Geology!" because no one knew fracking was going to become ubiquitous and that with only a Bachelor's you could have 3-5 offers ranging from $50-70K starting before you even graduated.  No one knew how lucrative a degree in Arabic would become, but government agencies and the private sector are falling all over themselves for more.  Yeah as a general rule a nursing degree's gonna be more valuable than a philosophy degree, but it success really does depend more on where an individual's interests lie and, more importantly- what they're willing to put up with.

As for the safe space/trigger stuff, you and I both agree it's lame and it never got much quarter when I was teaching.  But the reason professors and administrators emphasize it isn't to coddle millennials, it's because of the non-zero probability one day one of them's gonna come to class and start shooting.

[bkbying89]

2 hours ago, Mitch f said:

A few things I took from your post. 

Colleges are overwhelmingly liberal..agreed.

Kids learn critical thinking and are exposed to kids of different socioeconomic backgrounds....agreed,  but 40k a year to learn this is certainly no bang for the buck. 

Choosing your child's path because you don't trust them to make a decision in their best interest...... Ok, at 40k a year,  I won't sit back and let them choose a useless degree choice. If that makes me a helicopter parent then ok, I'm fine with that. They pretty much have zero experience in this area. Hopefully all the training you've given them has helped a little. 

Maybe they should be working a wage gig,  as you suggest, DURING high school. When you work at Burger King, the customer comes first. It's most certainly all about pleasing

1 hour ago, Mitch f said:

I think you'll have to agree that free speech isn't so free anymore. If your speech gets put into a classification of hate speech...you're banned from speaking. The definition of hate speech keeps being changed everyday. 

 

You may or may not know that the students study path, once they are enrolled and the tuition is paid is up to the student. My wife has had several instances where the parent comes in and wants to change the student's classes.  By law, you can not make that decision. 

As far as freedom of speech. If I don't like what is being said I will tell that person so. If the majority of a group says what is being said is inappropriate then majority rules.

 

 

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