Comment by elliekelly
6 years ago
> I also was not being a smart ass.
It really bothers me that you even have to clarify something like this. Students should be skeptical of what they're being told. That doesn't make a student a smart ass - it makes them a critical thinker. Teachers who take offense when their "authority" is innocently questioned are doing a massive disservice to their students.
There's two types of people who ask the questions
1) Those that want a response that they can consider. These are critical thinkers.
2) Those that don't care what the response is. These are smart asses.
In schools the latter are far more common, and far more likely to speak out
Note that the difference is not necessarily obvious. I was once in several classes with a guy who would ask questions that were just slightly off-topic and odd---possibly about differing interpretations, possibly just trying to completely derail the class. I still don't know which of the two cases was right. I do know he managed to drag the class so that we missed rather a lot.
AI classes, by the way.
Quite, and I'm sure that many actually inquisitive students are shot down enough to beat the inquisitiveness out of them, on the errant assumption they are a smartass.
I'm also sure that a student who is one day asking a genuine question, is the next day beign a smart ass. I certainly used to do that.
Kids are terrible. When there's 30 of them in the room, half of them who don't want to be there, it's even worse.
To be fair, I have been guilty of being a smart ass, and I can totally imagine other people being one when confronted to bullshit.
It's not a productive reaction, and you grow out of it, but it's not a surprising one.