# What the bleep does my psychology class know? **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [March 22, 2006, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-bleep-does-my-psychology-class-know/349449 "2006-03-22T16:52:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![duffer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duffer/32/1026_2.png) [@duffer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/duffer)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2006, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-bleep-does-my-psychology-class-know/349449/41 "2006-03-23T04:30:28Z")
> [@Left Hand of Dorkness](#): > > As I said earlier, the textbook is really pretty good, if a bit basic (but then, it’s Psych 101; it should be basic). The material we’re covering is, for the most part, not bad. But the way we cover it sucks. One other thing with this. And don’t take it as a jab. Doctors, and especially nurses, will tell you the worst patients they have are med students. They have just enough knowledge about medicine to think they know what is best. Since you’re working for a degree in teaching, might that be a part of it? If not, that’s cool. But the fact you’re upset enough to go to someone about it makes me wonder. Any thoughts on that? In the 3 psych courses I took in college, I had one movie shown. _The Snake Pit_. Appropriate since it was Abnormal Psychology (I was trying to find out what was wrong with me 😃 ). I’ve always hated when teachers slough off a day by showing a movie. Anyway, just a few thoughts. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2006, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-bleep-does-my-psychology-class-know/349449/42 "2006-03-23T04:36:01Z")
> [@duffer](#): > > One other thing with this. And don’t take it as a jab. Doctors, and especially nurses, will tell you the worst patients they have are med students. They have just enough knowledge about medicine to think they know what is best. Since you’re working for a degree in teaching, might that be a part of it? If not, that’s cool. But the fact you’re upset enough to go to someone about it makes me wonder. Any thoughts on that? Your analogy doesn’t make any sense, frankly. I don’t claim to know more than her about **psychology** : she clearly knows more than I do on the subject she’s teaching. However, I can recognize bad **pedagogy** when I see it. And yes, college is about exposure to other ideas. I’m happy to learn about controversial **scientific theories of psychology** in a class on psychology. I’m happy to watch religious films in a class on comparative religion. This, however, is a religious film (and it’s a fruity religion, way more retarded than Jesus on the cross) in a science class. Now, a question for you: did you go to college? Daniel ---
**Author:** ![Stentor\_2.5](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bc8723/32.png) [@Stentor\_2.5](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stentor_2.5)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2006, 4:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-bleep-does-my-psychology-class-know/349449/43 "2006-03-23T04:53:24Z")
> [@duffer](#): > > Isn’t a University education touted as exposure to different ideas and beleifs? Even ones you’re fundamentally against? If you go into the classroom convinced of something and something else is presented that doesn’t mesh, isn’t that part of the exposure to the world? So what’s the moral here? Accept everything as true? ---
**Author:** ![duffer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duffer/32/1026_2.png) [@duffer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/duffer)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2006, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-bleep-does-my-psychology-class-know/349449/44 "2006-03-23T04:57:04Z")
Yes, I went to college, I thought the mention of the psych courses covered that. Maybe not. I wasn’t challenging your aptitude for teaching. I was wondering if maybe you saw that you were better capable of teaching. Whatever the subject matter was. And if that played into the Pitting. How did I know it would be taken wrong after all the effort I made in stating it wasn’t an attack on you? But it all comes down to if a person goes to college to you? Here’s a newsflash, your professor has a college degree. ---
**Author:** ![duffer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duffer/32/1026_2.png) [@duffer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/duffer)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2006, 4:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-bleep-does-my-psychology-class-know/349449/45 "2006-03-23T04:58:16Z")
> [@Stentor 2.5](#): > > So what’s the moral here? Accept everything as true? Yup. Or reject everything you don’t beleive in when you’re 19 as false. Same thing. ---
**Author:** ![Taran](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/edb3f5/32.png) [@Taran](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Taran)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2006, 5:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-bleep-does-my-psychology-class-know/349449/46 "2006-03-23T05:10:25Z")
> [@duffer](#): > > I’ve never heard of this film, but based on the responses I’m getting a feel for it. I do have one honest question, though. And this isn’t to start a war with anyone. Isn’t a University education touted as exposure to different ideas and beleifs? Even ones you’re fundamentally against? If you go into the classroom convinced of something and something else is presented that doesn’t mesh, isn’t that part of the exposure to the world? This is a fair point, but psychology is a science, albeit a somewhat soft and squishy one. It’s not ultimately about viewpoints _per se_, it’s about how they match up to the evidence that we can observe (or, in the absence of evidence, how much sense they seem to make). This isn’t an excuse for rejecting different beliefs and ideas out of hand, but it’s always appropriate to research the merits of the different sides of an argument. And if there’s one unambiguously right side and one unambiguously wrong side, well, science is a bitch sometimes. Preview: hm, things have heated up a bit. Be assured that this isn’t meant as an attack either. ---
**Author:** ![Taran](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/edb3f5/32.png) [@Taran](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Taran)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2006, 5:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-bleep-does-my-psychology-class-know/349449/47 "2006-03-23T05:19:39Z")
I almost forgot: if **LHoD** ’s professor _really_ wanted to mess with peoples’ heads in a University-appropriate way, she’d give them [Christopher Davia’s theories of cognition](http://www.psy.cmu.edu:16080/~davia/mbc/). They’re tremendously controversial, and he is regarded as a crank in some (mostly localist) circles, but the man’s doing real research and the debate definitely has two sides. ---
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2006, 5:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-bleep-does-my-psychology-class-know/349449/48 "2006-03-23T05:29:07Z")
> [@](#): > > **duffer** : Isn’t a University education touted as exposure to different ideas and beleifs? Even ones you’re fundamentally against? Yes, certainly. But those ideas shouldn’t be “fluffy.” They should be worthy of serious academic consideration. The professor was wasting class time and appeared to know that some would think so since she told students that they didn’t have to attend. That is indeed “offensive.” ---
**Author:** ![Contrapuntal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e274bd/32.png) [@Contrapuntal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Contrapuntal)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2006, 5:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-bleep-does-my-psychology-class-know/349449/49 "2006-03-23T05:40:09Z")
Hey\*\* duffer\*\*, have you read the whole thread? Here are a couple of links from upstream to give you an idea about the movie, and whether or not one should open one’s mind to the it. [Cite.](http://www.intuitor.com/moviephysics/bleep.html) [Cite.](http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2843/is_5_28/ai_n6361533) Did you catch the part about Ramtha, the 35,000 year old spirit from Lemuria? ---
**Author:** ![saoirse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5daacb/32.png) [@saoirse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/saoirse)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2006, 7:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-bleep-does-my-psychology-class-know/349449/50 "2006-03-23T07:33:19Z")
> [@duffer](#): > > Yup. Or reject everything you don’t beleive in when you’re 19 as false. Same thing. How about apply some rational standard to deciding what information bel;ongs in the classroom? Honestly, this is like showing _The Passion of the Christ_ in an ancient history class. Many of the students may be intrigued by the ideas in the film, and wish to subscribe to the newsletter, but this is a college class taken for credit. It’d not unreasonable to expect a little fucking quality control. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2006, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-bleep-does-my-psychology-class-know/349449/51 "2006-03-23T13:12:33Z")
> [@duffer](#): > > Yup. Or reject everything you don’t beleive in when you’re 19 as false. Same thing. First, I’m not 19. Second, even when I was 19, I had some capacity for critical thought, and I applied it. I don’t think I’m a better teacher than everyone, but I do know that many college professors haven’t studied pedagogy, and of the ones that have, some of them seem to have no idea how to apply it. As I’ve said before, not all of her teaching sucks. Showing a cultish junk-science movie, one characterized by a co-director as “a religious movie for the left,” does suck. Folks should be exposed to new ideas during college. Where does that stop? Could a professor get away with using several English class sessions to shill for Scientology? Should a professor go into history class, pop a copy of _American Tail_ into the VCR, and leave without ever following up with a discussion of the movie? Should a mathematics professor teach the class that because non-Euclidean geometry exists, that means that mathematics has no rules and you should be able to do whatever you want in mathematics? Or should a professor stick to exposing students to new ideas that expand their understanding of the subject instead of misleading them or wasting their time? I asked you if you’d gone to college because you seem so off-base in your understanding of the purpose of college; if you hadn’t been, I’d spend more time explaining it to you. Daniel ---
**Author:** ![MsRobyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/90ced4/32.png) [@MsRobyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsRobyn)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2006, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-bleep-does-my-psychology-class-know/349449/52 "2006-03-23T19:20:26Z")
I feel for you, **LHoD**. I’m posting this from a classroom where I’m showing a video about visually-impaired children. The regular professor has missed about half of the semester due to various health problems. There was a worksheet the students had to do, too. Most of them did it during the video and so the classroom is half empty. More power to 'em. Robin ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2006, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-bleep-does-my-psychology-class-know/349449/53 "2006-03-23T19:33:48Z")
> [@cerberus](#): > > IMHO, any collegiate class that uses class time for … _movies_ … is an abuse of time. What if it’s a film class? 🆒 ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2006, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-bleep-does-my-psychology-class-know/349449/54 "2006-03-23T20:18:55Z")
> [@Left Hand of Dorkness](#): > > Because I never took a psych course my first time through college, I’m having to take Psych 101 this time as I pursue my K-6 teaching license. What does all this have to do with training dogs?? What? ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2006, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-bleep-does-my-psychology-class-know/349449/55 "2006-03-23T20:23:51Z")
> [@gigi](#): > > What does all this have to do with training dogs?? If I’d referred to a K-9 teaching license, your joke woulda made more sense. But honestly, I think this way is funnier :D. Daniel ---
**Author:** ![Contrapuntal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e274bd/32.png) [@Contrapuntal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Contrapuntal)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2006, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-bleep-does-my-psychology-class-know/349449/56 "2006-03-23T20:27:54Z")
> [@Left Hand of Dorkness](#): > > If I’d referred to a K-9 teaching license, your joke woulda made more sense. But honestly, I think this way is funnier :D. > > Daniel K-6 is puppy school. ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2006, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-bleep-does-my-psychology-class-know/349449/57 "2006-03-23T20:30:08Z")
> [@Left Hand of Dorkness](#): > > If I’d referred to a K-9 teaching license, your joke woulda made more sense. But honestly, I think this way is funnier :D. 9, 6, it’s all the same shape 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2006, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-bleep-does-my-psychology-class-know/349449/58 "2006-03-23T20:32:45Z")
> [@Contrapuntal](#): > > K-6 is puppy school. You actually made me Google this to find out if it was true, damn you! Daniel ---
**Author:** ![The\_Weird\_One](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7bcc69/32.png) [@The\_Weird\_One](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Weird_One)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2006, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-bleep-does-my-psychology-class-know/349449/59 "2006-03-23T20:33:54Z")
> [@gigi](#): > > 9, 6, it’s all the same shape 😉 I dunno, doing the 96 doesn’t sound like nearly as much fun to me. ---
**Author:** ![Contrapuntal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e274bd/32.png) [@Contrapuntal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Contrapuntal)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2006, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-bleep-does-my-psychology-class-know/349449/60 "2006-03-23T20:37:24Z")
> [@Left Hand of Dorkness](#): > > You actually made me Google this to find out if it was true, damn you! > > Daniel Well I don’t know about anyone else but _I’m_ feeling pretty good about myself. 🙂 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-bleep-does-my-psychology-class-know/349449.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-bleep-does-my-psychology-class-know/349449.md?page=4)