# In the classroom, God is more appropriate than safe sex. **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [March 2, 2005, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-classroom-god-is-more-appropriate-than-safe-sex/292649 "2005-03-02T21:15:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Searching\_For\_Truth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/4da419/32.png) [@Searching\_For\_Truth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Searching_For_Truth)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2005, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-classroom-god-is-more-appropriate-than-safe-sex/292649/21 "2005-03-02T23:15:04Z")
> [@robertliguori](#): > > \ At the end of the year, when my grade was locked in and we were giving the ceremonial speeches, I formally thanked my dark lord Satan for my success in this class, at length. Did you really? Did the professor shit a brick? I wish I could turn back time and take your advice. Unfortunately, for this speech, it’s too late. I’m kicking myself for not standing up for myself before. From now on, however, I’m steeling myself so that I don’t feel run over or get dragged into a speech I don’t feel comfortable giving. ---
**Author:** ![Searching\_For\_Truth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/4da419/32.png) [@Searching\_For\_Truth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Searching_For_Truth)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2005, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-classroom-god-is-more-appropriate-than-safe-sex/292649/22 "2005-03-02T23:22:45Z")
> [@Lord Ashtar](#): > > I disagree. When I pay thousands of dollars for my schooling, I want classes that pertain to my major. I don’t want to hear the same Sex Ed crap I’ve been hearing since I was in 5th grade. Public Speaking pertains to my major/minor and is a required course for me. Part of the course requirements is giving X number of speeches, on topics that we are interested in and are approved by the professor. Were you in the class, it wouldn’t matter what you wanted to hear. You would hear what the professor decided was appropriate, according to her standards. ---
**Author:** ![robertliguori](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/46a35a/32.png) [@robertliguori](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robertliguori)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2005, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-classroom-god-is-more-appropriate-than-safe-sex/292649/23 "2005-03-02T23:24:43Z")
> [@Searching For Truth](#): > > Did you really? > Did the professor shit a brick? > > I wish I could turn back time and take your advice. Unfortunately, for this speech, it’s too late. I’m kicking myself for not standing up for myself before. From now on, however, I’m steeling myself so that I don’t feel run over or get dragged into a speech I don’t feel comfortable giving. Ah, well, you can’t do them all the way you want. And yes, I did. She always said 'Good job, [student].", after a student finished a speech, even for the student who came in very hung-over and had to re-start his speech twice. Although you didn’t get your grade back until everyone had gone, you could judge how well you did by how forced she sounded. She didn’t say I did a good job after that speech. It kicked my grade from a B+ to a B, but it was so worth it. ---
**Author:** ![vivalostwages](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/d07c76/32.png) [@vivalostwages](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vivalostwages)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2005, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-classroom-god-is-more-appropriate-than-safe-sex/292649/24 "2005-03-02T23:34:03Z")
> [@Searching For Truth](#): > > It’s possible, but since she’s been teaching Public Speaking since the 60s, I’m guessing that by now she’s tenured. (She is older, and very traditional and conservative, from what I can tell.) There is very little information about her on the school’s website, (besides that she is part time), probably as a direct result of her ignorance of technology. (We’re forbidden to use electricity in our presentations in any way, because “if it can, electricity will get you!”) I don’t see how she can be tenured **and** part-time, unless she’s retired and has come back to do a bit of moonlighting as a professor emeritus. Or should that be “professor ignoramus” ? ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2005, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-classroom-god-is-more-appropriate-than-safe-sex/292649/25 "2005-03-02T23:48:26Z")
> [@GaWd](#): > > This class would pertain to your major, as it is a required class. The subject of a call to action regarding cafe sex would just be a speech, not a subject taught by the teacher, wasting your thousands of dollars. > > Sam Nuh-uhh. I tried that once. Now they won’t let me into Starbucks. ---
**Author:** ![kidchameleon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/898d66/32.png) [@kidchameleon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kidchameleon)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2005, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-classroom-god-is-more-appropriate-than-safe-sex/292649/26 "2005-03-02T23:52:38Z")
> [@QuickSilver](#): > > But infinately entertaining and perhaps informative to all the patrons stopping by for their daily mocha java. 😃 Don’t you have anything better to do than steal all my one-liners? 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Searching\_For\_Truth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/4da419/32.png) [@Searching\_For\_Truth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Searching_For_Truth)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2005, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-classroom-god-is-more-appropriate-than-safe-sex/292649/27 "2005-03-03T00:02:48Z")
> [@vivalostwages](#): > > I don’t see how she can be tenured **and** part-time, unless she’s retired and has come back to do a bit of moonlighting as a professor emeritus. > > Or should that be “professor ignoramus” ? I’ve no idea. I don’t have a good grasp on how the tenure system works. I didn’t know she was part time, but that’s what the website says. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2005, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-classroom-god-is-more-appropriate-than-safe-sex/292649/28 "2005-03-03T00:04:30Z")
> [@Searching For Truth](#): > > Note: I attend a college in a relatively liberal part of a conservative southern state. But is it a public or a private college, and if the latter, is it a religious or church-sponsored one? ---
**Author:** ![Searching\_For\_Truth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/4da419/32.png) [@Searching\_For\_Truth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Searching_For_Truth)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2005, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-classroom-god-is-more-appropriate-than-safe-sex/292649/29 "2005-03-03T00:13:20Z")
> [@Thudlow Boink](#): > > But is it a public or a private college, and if the latter, is it a religious or church-sponsored one? Public. Neither religious or church-sponsored. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2005, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-classroom-god-is-more-appropriate-than-safe-sex/292649/30 "2005-03-03T00:33:35Z")
> [@Searching For Truth](#): > > Public. > Neither religious or church-sponsored. Well, in that case, she’s probably in violation of school policy and you should take your complaints to the administration. I sure as hell would not have changed my speech to “in favor of” abstinence. ---
**Author:** ![anu-la1979](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/47e85d/32.png) [@anu-la1979](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/anu-la1979)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2005, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-classroom-god-is-more-appropriate-than-safe-sex/292649/31 "2005-03-03T01:08:51Z")
This just reinforces my belief that college is a place where you carefully re-state your professor’s own opinions if you want to get a good grade. And I say that having gone to an extremely liberal college. I always got good grades. I am a moderate conservative. ---
**Author:** ![sweetfreak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/958977/32.png) [@sweetfreak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sweetfreak)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2005, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-classroom-god-is-more-appropriate-than-safe-sex/292649/32 "2005-03-03T01:10:53Z")
> [@anu-la1979](#): > > This just reinforces my belief that college is a place where you carefully re-state your professor’s own opinions if you want to get a good grade. :smack: 😉 ---
**Author:** ![anu-la1979](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/47e85d/32.png) [@anu-la1979](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/anu-la1979)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2005, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-classroom-god-is-more-appropriate-than-safe-sex/292649/33 "2005-03-03T01:18:21Z")
I’m just saying, you don’t want your professor to be thinking “no, no, I don’t agree with that” as the paper/whatever is sitting there in front of them. I actually always used to research my profs’ publications that they weren’t making us buy for the class to figure out their deeper position on stuff. That way you aren’t just regurgitating what you learn in class, you provide greater depth of “analysis” by regurgitating non-required reading in a situation-specific context. ---
**Author:** ![sweetfreak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/958977/32.png) [@sweetfreak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sweetfreak)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2005, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-classroom-god-is-more-appropriate-than-safe-sex/292649/34 "2005-03-03T01:27:11Z")
> [@anu-la1979](#): > > I’m just saying, you don’t want your professor to be thinking “no, no, I don’t agree with that” as the paper/whatever is sitting there in front of them. I was smacking myself cos you just explained to me why most of my college profs thought I had an attitude problem. I thought college was about learning to think for myself. Found out that wasn’t true. Imagine getting into a debate with your social science professor, trying to explain to him that even if a table is used as something else, or called something else, the object is still a table. When a table becomes a chair, and two plus two equals five, and I am the only one left that knows those statements are not true, that will be the day that I seriously contemplate suicide. College. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![anu-la1979](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/47e85d/32.png) [@anu-la1979](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/anu-la1979)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2005, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-classroom-god-is-more-appropriate-than-safe-sex/292649/35 "2005-03-03T01:33:26Z")
Ah, sorry, I thought that smack was directed at me. Yes, I learned my lesson early on. I never wanted to be an academic or learn, though. I was more in it for the grades and the piece of paper my diploma-whore parents require me to have in order to be a good little Indian girl. I’m pretty cognizant of my limitations, though. I know I’m really bright but I’m not hardworking enough to put together something of such brilliance that the professor would leap out of his/her chair and say “zounds, I disagree with this cheeky undergrad but clearly this is a paper of unparalleled genius,” so I opted for a brilliant reconstruction of their own work. In a way I have to say it really prepared me for a future academic situation in which I am always being called upon to give two sides of the argument. ---
**Author:** ![vivalostwages](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/d07c76/32.png) [@vivalostwages](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vivalostwages)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2005, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-classroom-god-is-more-appropriate-than-safe-sex/292649/36 "2005-03-03T02:33:02Z")
> [@anu-la1979](#): > > This just reinforces my belief that college is a place where you carefully re-state your professor’s own opinions if you want to get a good grade. And I say that having gone to an extremely liberal college. I always got good grades. I am a moderate conservative. I would hate it if any of my students felt they had to keep things to themselves or impose self-censorship. They are free to write on any kind of topic in my courses. I have heard, though, that not all of my colleagues are this tolerant or encouraging of varying opinions. It bugs me no end. ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2005, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-classroom-god-is-more-appropriate-than-safe-sex/292649/37 "2005-03-03T03:44:54Z")
> [@anu-la1979](#): > > This just reinforces my belief that college is a place where you carefully re-state your professor’s own opinions if you want to get a good grade. And I say that having gone to an extremely liberal college. I always got good grades. I am a moderate conservative. I went to a private PresbyterianChurchUSA college, (administration-conservative, faculty-liberal, students-mixed), was a PoliSci major with all those Profs being center-to-Left Democrats. This was the early-80s, I was a John Bircher Moral Majority C’tian, I gave presentations on the New World Order Establishment (CFR-Trilateral-Etc.) and the Birchite Political Ideology. Never felt obligated to parrot Professorial-views & always got complements as to how I understood the materials & presented my views. Came out with B+/A- overall in my major. That said, Your Prof is a little priss & I’m sorry you didn’t challenge her. ---
**Author:** ![anu-la1979](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/47e85d/32.png) [@anu-la1979](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/anu-la1979)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2005, 3:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-classroom-god-is-more-appropriate-than-safe-sex/292649/38 "2005-03-03T03:53:56Z")
You must be among the geniuses of the “zounds, this cheeky undergrad” calibre or have professors that are paragons of collegiate virtue and not all all intellectually self-masturbatory. Doubtless they exist…I just wasn’t terribly interested in plumbing their psychological depths to determine if it was the case. There was extensive shopping to be done. ---
**Author:** ![TJdude825](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/dec6dc/32.png) [@TJdude825](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TJdude825)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2005, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-classroom-god-is-more-appropriate-than-safe-sex/292649/39 "2005-03-03T04:54:16Z")
> [@Searching For Truth](#): > > (We’re forbidden to use electricity in our presentations in any way, because “if it can, electricity will get you!”) Electricity will get you? If you’re not whooshing me, I’d say that perhaps this person should re-take high school physics before being allowed to teach. I mean, she’s not teaching physics, but still. One should have a basic high school and college education before teaching, especially at a college level. If you forget that a watt times a second is a joule, fine. If you forget that electricity is not “out to get you” and follows predictable physical laws, not so fine. IMHO. ---
**Author:** ![Searching\_For\_Truth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/4da419/32.png) [@Searching\_For\_Truth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Searching_For_Truth)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2005, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-classroom-god-is-more-appropriate-than-safe-sex/292649/40 "2005-03-03T15:02:00Z")
> [@TJdude825](#): > > Electricity will get you? If you’re not whooshing me, I’d say that perhaps this person should re-take high school physics before being allowed to teach. I mean, she’s not teaching physics, but still. One should have a basic high school and college education before teaching, especially at a college level. If you forget that a watt times a second is a joule, fine. If you forget that electricity is not “out to get you” and follows predictable physical laws, not so fine. IMHO. I’m not whooshing you. I think it must be her way of saying “technology is unreliable” but I have a hard time seeing how making handmade posters with markers is more ‘professional’ than learning how to make an effective powerpoint presentation (and having a backup if that doesn’t pan out) or something along those lines. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-classroom-god-is-more-appropriate-than-safe-sex/292649.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-classroom-god-is-more-appropriate-than-safe-sex/292649.md?page=3)