Wednesday, March 02, 2016
Who Would Want to Teach in a Room of Armed Students? Texas Is About to Find Out
jezebel.com: Late last year, Texas passed Senate Bill 11 which officially allows students to carry concealed weapons on campus. The bill, which goes into effect on August 1, has already had a dampening effect on campuses: Earlier this month, the president of the Faculty Senate at the University of Houston warned professors not to “go there if you sense anger,” as a safety measure for faculty.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
9 comments:
This is absolutely ridiculous. You would think that with all of these issues arising after this bill has been passed that some part of state legislature would work on repealing the bill. I have no idea why this bill was passed in the first place, as it clearly puts general campus safety at risk. The most ridiculous part of this whole article is the power point slide advising professors to withdraw content from their curriculum, restrict office hours, and avoid topics if any anger is sensed in the class. This is so upsetting because college is supposed to be a safe place where any and all opinions can be heard and debated in order to foster an effective and conducive learning environment. The fact that actual professors are leaving their universities because of safety concerns and the idea that they would have to alter their curriculums to accommodate angry people with guns is just plain dumb.
I remember reading an article on the blog a few weeks ago that talked about this legislation and how it was going to b put into place. I think that it is absolutely crazy. I am from Newtown Connecticut, so although I may be a little bias on the subject, I also am very educated on gun safety. No school atmosphere needs this. The fact their needs to be warning to the teachers about what they are teaching is easy prove that this is crazy. A college is their to create an environment when classes can explore the sensitive subjects and talk about them. I can't image what the Drama program would turn into if the teachers were scared to talk about sensitive material because any student could at any point whip out a fire arm. I get the feeling that although this article was meant to just explain the situation that it is swayed in the negative way as well. So I would be interested in hearing from the politicians who wrote this into law. I can't image the situations they were presented with that the solution is to have more weapons in the hands of just barely adults on a college campus. This is scary and I really hope that this soon is stopped before anything happens, because it seems that everyone will just be waiting for the ball to drop and another mass shooting to happen before its changed, and thats wrong too.
My favorite thing about this article is the shot of the powerpoint slide meant to show students and other faculty members what to do so as not to upset those in the classroom that are packing heat. I, like Annie, read the other article pertaining to the legislation, and it is mysteriously enthralling to see it actually put into action. Mind you, I think this will lead to significantly more harm than good, but most of the U.S. already views Texas as a lawless wasteland and this is not helping that stereotype. It doesn't surprise me that professors are refusing to teach at universities with this policy, as plenty of students could become enraged at a particularly difficult midterm and just decide to start popping caps left and right. In a world where multiple shooting incidents happen daily, it makes me wonder what mindset the legislators were in when they decided to pass this law. No one looks at the news and sees a shooting and genuinely thinks that more guns are the solution. But maybe that's just the liberal drama student in me pontificating.
Who ever thought this was a good idea? In the past couple of years we have seen an awful trend of increased gun violence in schools, so it makes absolutely no sense for students to be able to carry concealed weapons. Yes, one could argue that it allows them to defend themselves, but I think that is outweighed by the possibility of this law being abused by someone who intends to do a lot of harm. The powerpoint slide shown to the professors at UH is especially disturbing to me. The fact that they might have to avoid certain topics or change their curriculum just to avoid aggravating students is disgusting, as college classes are supposed to provoke you and make you thing. I honestly can't even begin to understand why this law hasn't been overturned yet, and I really hope that this law doesn't start a trend in other states. I know that I would not be going to my classes if I knew there could be someone in there with a gun.
I just do not understand why they would have a law allowing students to carry concealed weapons on campus, it seems to me like they actually want students to use the weapons. There are articles about things that so often make me question if we are moving back in time, and this is one of them. What's most ridiculous to me is that now professors might want to "drop certain topics from your curriculum" to avoid possible anger from certain students - the purpose of getting an education is to learn, and to expose yourself to different opinions and beliefs whether you agree with them or not. Not being able to teach certain topics in order to please the students defeats the whole purpose of learning. The impact that this law will have on education will have huge repercussions. Not only are the professors unsafe, but so are all the students. I wonder if this law impacted the number of people who apply to colleges in Texas at all (I wouldn't want to apply to a college there, no matter how prestigious the program is).
I can’t say I’m surprised to hear this. I mean I guess if you want to see half your faculty leaves the school system this would be a good way to get it done. When I first heard that Texas was passing this bill I couldn’t do anything but laugh but now that I’ve had time to digest what this actually mean I am more scared. I grew up in Massachusetts, which is, well, very different from Texas and if you even had a knife on your person on school property it was a pretty intense crime.
This is only my second semester and college and in these past 6 months I’ve seen many students tempers get test and I fear that if weapons were involved the outcome might have been a little different. My gut feeling tells me that schools should be making there faculty and staff feel safe on campus, not giving PowerPoint presentations on how to protect yourself in front of a angry student fearing they might “pull” a weapon on you. I guess all that is left to say is, good luck Texas.
I don’t understand the thought process behind decisions like this. Its clearly costing them teachers already and its probably going to cost them even more as time goes on. Its almost like they want to get rid of as many teachers as they can. After all what could possibly go wrong when you combine college students and their teachers. Its not like there are any students who feel entitled to good grades and don’t handle anger well or any thing, definitely no way that ends with guns being pulled at all. How are professors do their job if they feel afraid to teach their classes, and on top of that how are they not supposed to feel afraid when the most the school does to ensure their safety is tell them to change their curriculum or avoid uncomfortable topics? How on earth is anyone supposed to learn in that environment? If all you’re going to do is avoid uncomfortable topics then why even bother with college?
This is just horrifying to me. I see no reason why students should be allowed to have guns with them on a college campus. This just gets guns into hands of young adults, which are, statistically speaking, more likely than other demographics to go on a mass shooting spree because of some “upset” or “injustice”. What this bill really does is limit the free speech of the faculty and other students. Who will want to address or speak out about controversial topics if there is a fear that someone will shoot you for it? The thing from the article that really got to me was the picture of the powerpoint slide that was shown to professors. The fact that the university is saying that professors should drop certain topics from their curriculum and limit their office hours is a detriment to the university as a whole. Not talking about controversial topics causes those topics to remain unaddressed and unsolved. I hope that this problem of guns on campuses will get more attention and hopefully get solved for the better, without a mass shooting.
Being from Texas, and having my boyfriend, my best friend, and my brother all either students or teachers on Texas Campus Carry campuses, this law is close to my heart. I know that you guys are like "This is outrageous, how could this happen, etc", and I agree, but coming from Texas, this isn't all that ridiculous. I am a huge advocate of more gun control, more background checks, the whole gambit. But, somehow in Texas, and in a lot of the south and the west, the solution is to fight fire with even more fire. And the law really isn't that popular among the young, college-aged kids who this affects. UT is a liberal school, and has 40,000 kids, and most of the young voters in Texas, espceically in the big cities of Dallas, Houston and Austin are liberals. But the old people who vote for this sort of thing, and are in legislation in Texas are all for more guns. Which isn't really fair. The whole reason this was put through, is that Texas got a new, even more conservative governor last year, Greg Abbott, who wanted to prove just how Republican he could be, by immediately putting through this law. So, yeah it sucks. But my hope is that with the growing population of Hispanic people, and the more liberal ideals of many of the young people in texas, as they grow older, Texas can do less dumb shit like this,
Post a Comment