There’s an older fellow in one of my classes this semester, who has indirectly put me in a bit of a bind. I’m stuck considering when one should go from tolerating rudeness and derogatory remarks, to not tolerating it anymore and doing something about the problem. Let me explain:
The class is about world history up to 1600. As to be expected, we started out with a primer on prehistory, and then moved on to Mesopotamia, Egypt, China – the river valley civilizations. From the very start, the man in question has kept taking over the class. He has interrupted the professor and started talking loudly, usually about the Bible’s take on the history. Such-and-such passage says this about the Egyptians; such-and-such passage says that about Babylon. He’s gotten into arguments with the professor about the history, usually because her take on it (or the view presented in our text) did not mesh well with his Biblical view. He’s asked the professor a question about what she was teaching, and then would not allow her to answer; she’d get about 3 words out and he’d drown her out, “No, no, I know that, what I’m asking is…” Often, he has interrupted and just started spouting off something about the Bible, something that wasn’t at all related to what she was lecturing on.
All of this, he’s done practically every class session. Everytime he has done it, it’s clear that the professor is uncomfortable with the situation, as is everyone else in the class; you can feel the tension practically zipping around the room. Thus far no one has said anything; the professor has been able to steer things back onto course (often repeatedly in one session).
Last Tuesday, he hit his high mark (or perhaps it’d be better to call it his low mark). We were working on the chapter about the rise of Islam, and so we were obviously dealing with Mohammed. It was prime territory for the guy to do some Bible-beating, and he pounced on the chance. He started arguing with the professor about the generally kinship-based successions in the caliphates, saying that that went against Jesus’s word, because he had said that only God could select a ruler33. He asked, if Muslims believe in the Christian God, why are they disrespecting Jesus in such a way? The professor patiently explained that, despite believing in the same God, the fact is, Mohammed said that Jesus had some things wrong, and that Mohammed’s way was the right way to do things. After all, Mohammed created Islamd; he didn’t follow Christianity. She was not “standing up” for Islam, simply stating the facts about the history of the religion. The guy’s response was: “Well, huh, Mohammed’ll have something coming to him, then, heh heh. He’ll see.”
Now, am I being overly sensitive about this, or is that remark just completely discriminatory? I’m not Muslim, but if I were, I’d find that pretty insulting. If the guy has his beliefs, that’s fine, but saying something like that in a room full of, more or less, strangers? Not cool. It’s this remark that has me pretty much ready to go to someone who can take action against the guy. I’m not even going to bother attempting to talk to him in private about it, because while I’m not omniscient, I think I have a pretty good idea how productive the conversation would be.
What do you folks think? He’s an irritation at the least, and his “my history via the Bible is better than all of this!” attitude is maddening, but being irritating and having some peculiar ideas about history doesn’t warrant reporting him to someone. Does his remark warrant it? I feel like it does, but like I said, maybe I’m not seeing the situation clearly; I admittedly can’t stand the guy. Then again, I’d say that holds for the majority of my classmates…
(By the way, some of you might be wondering, if this guy is so bad, why hasn’t the professor done something? Good question. Answer: this particular professor is extremely nice, and goes above and beyond her duty to keep the peace. I truly believe that if this guy pulled this stuff in some of my other classes, he would have been booted weeks ago, with or without the knock at Islam.)3
- I’ve no idea if that’s actually in the Bible or not; just writing what this fellow said. I’d say it’s fairly obvious that I wouldn’t trust this guy’s word much.333
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Tags: All Entries, college, people, personal
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I don’t find the bolded remark particularly interesting. Put in the context of his general assinine behaviour, it seems pretty normal for him.
And, all put together, should be enough for you to go and have a chat with the lecturer. The fact is, he is wasting valuable class time each and every lesson, which isn’t what you pay college fees for.
I’d actually get as many of the other people in the class to join you when you talk to the lecturer too. If there’s a group of you, action will have to be taken.
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I don’t even get the remark. Mohammed is dead as far as I know. What the frak does he have coming? Better still, what the frak is that guy doing in college?
But my advice would be very similar to Cyrris’s. Form an alliance, see the teach and tell her your paying good money to hear her lecture about something you have an interest in and need to build a career on, not some lout wasting everybody’s time and effort.
If that doesn’t work, consider going higher up. This looks as if it’s becoming ridiculous.
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Sounds like you’ve got a “know-it-all” in the class. Boy how they annoy me.
Ask the prof to remind the class that they can see her at her office hour (if she has one) for longer questions. And ask her to tell the instigator that whenever he begins a rant.
Usually these people are after the attention, if you can undermine that you’ll shut them down quickly.
If you have the time for it, beat him into submission scholastically. In your case that would require memorizing the bible… That shuts them up quick too.
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Cyrris: Most (all?) of his comments are assinine, but that one seemed to really push the limit with me. Maybe I was just particularly fed up with him that day. And indeed, you’re right – the fact is, he’s burning up our class time with his idiocy. I’ve already spoken to one other guy in class who is pretty tired of the fellow, and I’m sure I can round up a few more.
Nils: I think he was implying that when Mohammed gets to heaven, he’ll “have something coming” – i.e., Mohammed’ll end up in hell for his actions. Or something like that. You know I’m not exactly up-to-speed on Biblical.. stuff.
Regarding what he’s doing in college: well, I’ve just told you! Being a pain in the ass.
Seriously, though, I’m not sure what he’s majoring in. Maybe he’s taking history courses in the hope of backing up his Biblical ideas; I truly don’t know.Tom: She’s told him such things repeatedly, I’m afraid. He often asks her questions (usually out of the blue) about modern countries. He asked one about modern Libya a while back, and on another day, he started ranting about how the United States was going down because everything was being made in China, and if we lost our imports from them we’d all die a horrible death, and… well, you get the idea. If his question is on topic but is covered in the lecture, she says to basically “hang in there”, because the answer is coming. If it’s off-topic, she tells him we can’t really discuss it in the class, because she needs to stick to the syllabus. On one occasion he got vaguely angry and said he’d just shut up for the rest of the course (a wonderful idea, in my opinion), but we’ll see if it actually pans out.
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Yeah, but assuming that Mo’d gone to heaven or hell, that would have been in the 7th C already. He wouldn’t have that still coming. Or perhaps the guy’s referring to the last judgement which supposedly arrives in the year 2000. No, wait… See, you can never beat these guys.
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Sounds like somebody from my “Early American Literatur” class has started to study on your university…This guy was really…scary would be the right description. I had translation class with and he sat right in front of me. One day we were working silently on a translation and when more an more people finished their work they started talking to their neighbours. I did so too, silently. Suddenly that guy turned around and shouted at me: “Keep your mouth shut or I’ll rearrange your face!”
Well, that story was a little bit of topic, but it helps to get an impression of that guy. He did just the same thing like your co-student in that literature class, interrupted the professor, acting like a know-it-all especially about religious topics. After two or three weeks the professor told him, that he is the teacher and if the student thinks otherwise he should leave class. Guess what: Everybody started clapping their hands! -
Nils:
See, you can never beat these guys.
It can be done, it’s just not particularly easy.
Zeitlos: That fellow does indeed sound scary. I’m surprised he didn’t get into trouble for his remark to you; that’s a threat, isn’t it?
Good for your professor; I wish mine would do that. I’d clap, and I’d wager most of the class would, too.
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Well, as the teacher was not in the room at that moment some other fellows offered to beat him up. But I rather turned down that favor…
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Zeitlos: Aha.
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