Wasting my time, I went back and re-eradicated the essay. It is 12 paragraphs long, intended to discuss a topic in the context of a specific article. The entirety of the student even acknowledging the article is the following 3 references in the first 4 paragraphs.
This article was very thought provoking and caused me to thoroughly evaluate the idea of gender and the role it plays in our society.
The article discussed peers using teasing as a way to enforce gender norms. I do not necessarilv see this as a problem. …
…par.3…
It is frustrating to me when I read articles like this and discussion posts from my classmates of so many people trying to conform to the same mundane opinion, so they do not step on people’s toes. I think that is a cowardly and insincere way to live.
Then she goes on for 8 more paragraphs, in no way relating her “beliefs” to the article. I would think the TA could have simply indicated that she did not complete the assignment, without writing the comments they did.
I also think that the news reports are at least a tad misleading by characterizing the essay as having “Bible references.”
I recall, in high school, someone in my class received 0 for a history assignment. He asked the teacher why he had received that mark and she replied, “David, I would have given you a mark of 1 for putting your name on the paper but unfortunately you misspelled it.” Everyone, including Dave, roared and she became an instant legend.
I resent the low level of schoolwork from the student. My college experience involved digging laboriously for good cites to write my projects. They weren’t all A level assignments but they at least had some research before drafting them.
I do not agree in the slightest. Explaining was entirely necessary. It’s literally what establishes that the student’s views did not factor into the teacher’s grading. It undermines every point that the right wing makes. She literally got another teacher to confirm, just as proof.
It’s just that the right wing doesn’t care about facts. They can twist anything. They can claim she meant the opposite of what she said. Apparently they’ve convinced people she didn’t follow the rubric, when she did.
All this stuff is hindsight bias and assuming things would go better if she acted differently. Yet at the same time, you all acknowledge that this is a hit job.
That means it didn’t matter what she said.
I’ve faced this stuff, where what you say doesn’t matter. You blame yourself for so much, and it takes a while to realize that nothing you could have done would fix it. Not if they hate you.
I’m not a teacher, but I think if I were, I would do my damnedest to teach that girl how to write an academic paper. “You think people are better off fitting into a proscribed gender stereotype? Ok. Prove it.” Make her wade through the mountain of evidence against her argument to find the two or three studies that might tangentially give some support to her theory. Make her rewrite the paper. She’s allowed to think whatever she wants to think, as long as she can write it well. I think almost every teacher I have ever had and admired would have tackled it that way. The point isn’t to tell you what to think, but to teach you how to think. And maybe dear God she would actually start thinking.
God said it. I believe it, and that settles it. My cite is “The Bible”, end to end. Transgender equals eternal damnation. Of course they’d be better off fitting into the sex they were born with. The end.
When that’s all your mind is capable of “thinking”, that’s all it’s capable of writing.
The profoundly regrettable and continual shift of the Overton window.
We’re being dragged so far, so fast, so hard, and so – it feels like – irretrievably to the (“Christian”) right that “normal” often feels like [however things were two days ago], as opposed to what the rational, logical, thoughtful, reasonable, and NOT cognitively immobilized by (religious) dogma know to be true and correct.
Again … from Asimov:
"Imagine the people who believe such things and who are not ashamed to ignore, totally, all the patient findings of thinking minds through all the centuries since the Bible was written. And it is these ignorant people, the most uneducated, the most unimaginative, the most unthinking among us, who would make themselves the guides and leaders of us all; who would force their feeble and childish beliefs on us; who would invade our schools and libraries and homes. I personally resent it bitterly.”
“Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.’”
I have not read the essay, but I have seen commentaries from people who did, as well as the professor’s original assignment, and they have all said it was a terrible essay and completely missed the point of the assignment, on top of having quite a few grammatical and spelling errors.
I should clarify - I don’t think the teacher deserved to be fired, or that their response merited any condemnation. My comments were inspired by my memory of receiving my first ever C- on my first philosophy paper, because I had no idea how to write a philosophy paper. I had never taken Philosophy 101. And the instructor explained, “This isn’t like a standard essay. It has its own structure.” And once she sat down with me and showed me how to do it, I did just fine. I don’t think my instructor cared what my position was, only that I expressed it well. (Another reason I’m annoyed by the claim that universities are a place of liberal indoctrination - my profs didn’t care what you thought as long as you were thinking.)
My inclination upon reading this girl’s essay was to think, “She has no idea how to write an academic paper.” She’s probably much less interested in learning than I was, so maybe it’s a moot point, but I really wish I could teach her.