I attended two different universities and I never encountered professors belittling people for having a dissenting opinion. If anything, I found that students that challenged assumptions were more often than not, favorites of the professors. Have you personally experienced this? edit: I also don't think you give young college students enough credit. Most young adults have a finer-tuned bullshit detector than most adults. If a professor is passing off opinion as fact, most students will pick up on it.
Just came across this discussion while looking through the "rant" tag. Hubski is so much fun. re are students allowed to have dissenting opinions? (A conversation worth taking to the greater community - do you think?) Anyway, I've taken to beginning classes by putting my underlying assumption on the table. On Wednesday I ran a workshop on communicating nondefensively. My underlying assumption was this: in any disagreement, your initial response can make the conflict WAY worse quite quickly and shut down productive communication or your initial response can open the possibility of further communication. I asked the class if they agreed with that premise. When it seemed they had bought into that assumption, I continued. I think I'll do this more often....of course it requires examining my underlying assumptions. I think, though, the above is probably the underlying assumption of all my workshops.
I attended two different Uni's as well and it was clear to me on day one of each which professors were spouting "received wisdom" and which wanted to engage. Remind me someday to tell you about the "history of conquest in the new world" class with the avowedly Marxist prof. Great class but don't cross the prof vibe. On the upside there was Tequila at the end of class party. -XC
Oh, like many prof's the root of all evil was white european men. Arguable when you're talking about the conquest of the new world one can draw that as a conclusion. Anyway, this guy was a throwback hard drinking heavy smoking tenured prof in his early 40's who was busily working his way through the female graduate student body. It was a neat class - he was a dynamic speaker, really knew the history, and didn't mind if you didn't agree wiht his interpretation as long as you were cogent. I didn't mind his rank communism. I heard later he married a gal whose family had been early Wal*Mart investors. Irony is tasty as a main dish. -XC