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I can't believe that you'd ask this. I'm always hearing this, from all the "wrong" sort of people, the people who really don't know better, who think they know all about academia but know nothing, and I'm sick and tired of it. But you? You've been in classrooms most of your life. You're not an ignorant or ill-informed person. How could you put forward such arrant nonsense? Professors don't ridicule their students. Not regularly, anyway. Not the best ones. Perhaps a few insecure professors, younger ones, new in the ranks, unsure of themselves in the seat of authority. Most professors never need stoop to ridicule to make their points, and it's silly even to imply it. In fact, it's ludicrous! It's an insult to the profession. It's a slur on decent, hard-working teachers everywhere, on all of us grinding our fingers to the bone passing the wisdom of the ages on to the young, everyone trying to instill some discipline and respect in them, enough discipline to shut up and learn from their betters, enough respect for those betters to recognize their own relative ignorance and let the wisdom come pouring in. Ridicule students! What next! Next you'll be asking whether we apply thumbscrews, or put our students in straitjackets, or make them go hippity-hop around the room like little bunny rabbits!

(Hey! You know, this guy sounds a little like my old American History professor... now there was a case. Kept his thumbscrews in a little velvet-lined box in his desk drawer, right next to his can of salt and his cat o' nine tails. It was only bad when he was sober, though, 'cause when he was drunk, he couldn't hit the side of a barn. We did love those bunny-hops, though. BK)

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