I went to that school. The teacher was a real bitch.
Yeah, I’m feeling pretty good about you, too.
Daniel
O.K. that made me smile.
Bart and Lisa try to rescue their stolen puppies from the second floor of Mr. Burns’ house:
Bart: I know, the window! [picks up puppy, prepares to toss him out]
Lisa: No, Bart! What are you doing?
Bart: Dogs always land on their feet.
Lisa: That’s cats.
Bart: No, it’s dogs. I’ll prove it. [drops a puppy from six inches; it flips in midair and lands on its back] Best two out of three.
As long as we’re talking about puppies and 6 and 9, I may as well quote one of my all-time favorite bits.
Well? It’s Monday! Where’s our update?
Class normally goes until 5:30, but she let us out early; here I am!
She handled it pretty well, actually, well enough that I feel kinda guilty.
She opened class by asking if anyone had any comments. One guy said that he liked the water experiments, liked the whole movie, and she said that the water experiments reinforce the idea that Believing is Seeing. Then she smiled at me, having noticed that I was about to say something when the other guy spoke, and asked me if I had comments.
I did.
Strangely, I was almost terrified as I spoke, and my voice shook for the first part of it (I don’t like real-life conflict, despite my occasional Internet Warrior persona). But she smiled throughout and listened to what I had to say. I covered Emoto’s experiments, Hagelin’s DC experiment, the physicist who repudiated the movie, the Columbus nonsense; I explained Ramtha’s history and mentioned the co-director who called it a religious movie for the left. I closed by saying that the movie was an example of how religious people could twist and distort science to further their religious agenda.
When I was done, she congratulated me on my research, called it beautiful, and had the class applaud me. I thought she was mocking me at first, but I’m pretty sure she wasn’t: she then went on to say that another student had brought her the movie to see for its bit on cell differentiation, and how she hadn’t watched it as enthusiastically as I had (I think she meant that she hadn’t done research into its various claims), and that she’d shown it because she’d been looking for an interesting activity for us to do on Wednesday when she was unable to make it to class. She asked me whether I’d found it a valuable experience.
I told her that I thought it could be an interesting starting point for a discussion on how science could be misrepresented, but that as part of a study of perception, I hadn’t gotten much out of it; she thanked me, and said that that was good to know.
And she continued with class, as I blushed furiously; and if I’m not mistaken, her own voice was trembling throughout her Power Point lecture. She skipped over a lot of her slides and let us out very early. I worry that, even though I didn’t ever say anything like, “You’re a terrible professor!” my feelings about the experience shown through, and she ended up feeling awful about it.
Hopefully I’m overestimating my own importance to her. As I hope I’ve said, she’s done some good stuff in the class, and although the Power Point format isn’t one I like, she’s not done anything as egregious as What the Bleep before.
Argh. This is why I don’t like conflict: if I come out behind, I feel powerless and frustrated, and if I come out ahead, I feel guilty.
Daniel
Thanks for the update. Sounds like you handled it about as well as you could have. As did she.
I’m glad to hear you went through with it. And I’ve been waiting avidly to hear your experiences.
As for your emotions - I know where you’re coming from. I too get guilt when I’ve “won” an argument.
For your own peace of mind, maybe you should try to have a word with her in private, and let her know you didn’t mean to freak her out?
I could of course be reading way too much into it, not having been there. But it sounds like she was pretty patronizing. She almost asked you for a brochure rather than engage you.
I would be most curious to know what was on the slides she skipped. (…not that I expect that you do ('cause, you know, she skipped them)) I’m just saying I would want to see that before I could take a guess at her reaction. It is possible that she was going to offer some counterpoints to some of the movie’s claims, but was embarassed at your having done a (much) better job.
…and I also completely understand what you were talking about with public confrontation. I get that way even when I make a proposal and I know that it’s a shoo-in.
She actually went over those slides very quickly, but I saw them; they appeared to contain technical information about how sight works (names of parts of the eye, parts of the brain that process vision, etc.). She may have decided that they were overly technical for the gist that she wanted to convey.
jjimm, I’ll probably send her an email tomorrow to offer an olive branch of sorts. Lissener, I was also afraid at first that she might be patronizing me, but the fact that she came back to me later to ask whether I’d found the movie helpful makes me think that she really wasn’t expecting my response and really hadn’t considered the points, but was considering them now. (I’d be astonished if she ever shows the movie again).
I’d thought of asking her in advance whether she’d be all right with my presenting a refutation of the movie, but I figured it’s easier to ask forgiveness than permission, and if she’d said no, I woulda been really irritated. I think that’s what I feel bad about: based on her response, I think that she would have welcomed a counterpoint even if I’d asked permission to give one, and so I didn’t need to blindside her like that.
Daniel
You did exactly the right thing. You were not disrespectful, but you didn’t back down, either. It’s important to challenge you professors on issues like this, and especially important to do it in a way that allows your argument to be understood.
:bites tongue:
You’re awfully cocky; how many women have you proposed to, anyway? 
Thanks, TWO, I needed that laugh! 
oh, and
pppppppppbbbttttttthhhhhhh!
Sounds like the professor learned a lot more from the class than the students did.
I salute you sir. I don’t think you needed to get her approval before hand. The class was for the purpose of discussing the movie, and you did your homework, and came prepared. How can that be a bad thing?
Wow, some of the physical symptoms you report sound very familiar! Whenever I get into a discussion about something heavy or important, my voice shakes but I also get cold and shivery. A co-worker gets a red rash on her neck when she has to publically speak unexpectedly. Darn bodies betraying us!
It sounds like she was impressed by what you did and perhaps a bit shaken, but if you didn’t attack it as being a stupid choice on her part, or imply that she is a crappy professor, she is just processing the work you did. One of my friends who is quite intelligent is intrigued by this movie (I tried to show him literature debunking it and he resists), and it certainly has its followers, so it’s not like she picked something no one is giving credibility to.
Maybe you just couldn’t seem them because they dealt with subject matter you hadn’t encountered before.
**See ** them. :smack:
DAMN YOU!
I have to go clean my monitor now!
Don’t worry, I didn’t see the M.