Feeling Festivals in the classroom.

If I were to become a college professor, could I make students put money in a jar each time they use some horrible platitude to justify an argument?  I would make so much money!  

Sigh.  

I suppose platitudes are better than certain statements.  Statements that make me want to smack people in the heads with yardsticks.  Like, in Interpersonal Communications we're asked to give characters or people we know who either exemplify interpersonal competence or interpersonal incompetence.  A student said Martin Luther King jr. exemplified interpersonal competence, where as African Americans of "this time" represent incompetence.  That's it.  So, then when a few people (not the professor) call her out on it she said "I did not mean to be offensive or stereotyping.  End of discussion."  

Ugh.  Why do college courses so easily become what I like to call "feeling festivals."  

A FEELING FESTIVAL is where students don't use any logos or ethos, but rather pathos, and draw upon their own "feelings" to justify something.  These "feelings" don't even involve personal anecdotes, rather than just some gut instinct, such as: "I FEEL that someone who wasn't born in the United States won't have our best interests at heart, like someone born here would."  Then, when presented with evidence of traitors like FBI agent Robert Hanssen or, say, ALL OF THE SOUTHERN MILITARY LEADERS DURING THE CIVIL WAR, they say: "I understand what you're saying, but I still FEEL . . ."  

Last semester I was in a really good course with fairly smart peers, but there was still someone who FELT something so much that she continued to write an essay about a religion that doesn't even exist.  After she was shown proof that it didn't exist, even by the professor, she still wouldn't acknowledge the truth.  Her FEELING that it existed was just that great. 

A feeling festival also means that a student can say "I did not MEAN to do/make/say . . ." thus, they didn't do/make/say it, and so whatever dumb or offensive thing they did/said simply didn't happen. The weird thing about this type of feeling is that functions purposely to dismiss the feelings of others who may be hurt by the statement or action. 

And, of course, what is a platitude but a feeling.

So, why does this happen? 

Well, from my observation this happens primarily in courses where there are no guidelines on discussions or no instruction on how hard a student needs to work to be considered "participating" in a course.  My best online courses always involve at least a minimum word count that someone must write in order to receive full participation points.  It's rare, although not impossible, that a student can stretch out a feeling or platitude for 250 or 500 words.  Even better classes will have stricter guidelines that involve using source material to construct arguments or offering more specific ways to respond that is constructive and actually forces you to put some sort of effort into the course.  

Although a minimum word count wouldn't work as well in person, the idea of having some standards for participating and constructing responses or arguments can still exist and help avoid so many damn feelings.

Classes without these standards usually leave me remembering one reason why I dropped out of school in the first place--not to mention bitter, annoyed, and with this suspicion that school is worse for my brain than television.  

At least I enjoy television.  Well, some television.  So, okay, I guess school is a lot like television. Sometimes you get quality programming, and other times you get The Jersey Shore.