I missed most of President Obama’s speech last night, but I’ve been getting tons of messages about South Carolina Representative Joe Wilson heckling him during the address, screaming “You lie!” from a seat in the audience. Even though it does seem a little weird and disrespectful that a Congressman would decide to voice his objections in such a backalley way (and he’s since, of course, apologized), was this vulgar display all that qualitatively different from, say, Wilson going on FOX News later on that very evening and calling Obama a liar after the fact?
I actually don’t want to talk about the kind of bubbling-over rage that prompted Wilson to publicly yell at the standing President of the United States, but it reminded me of one of academe’s double standards around public displays of hostility, a double standard that I’ve always found peculiar. It has to do with how students are addressed on campus.
What are we to make of the athletic coach who shouts at his or her players for making a bad play?
I’m not just talking about Bobby Knight-style tossing of chairs across basketball courts. He’s something like the King of Sports Rage. But so many coaches do it, even seemingly mild-mannered ones. And sometimes with four-letter expletives as rhetorical garnish. “What the @#&!$^% were you thinking on that play!? Sit the @!#$& down!!!!”
I spent four years at Duke University watching from the stands while two relatively even-keeled coaches (Coach K and Coach G) periodically hurled quite enraged charges at their undergraduate players. I remember thinking, what would people say if faculty treated those same students that way?
“Where’s your @&#!&!ing paper? This final paper is absolute @&#!!*!”
It would be absurd. Outrageous. But why do coaches get away with such abuse when these very students don their athletic uniforms? What is that about? It seems like just the kind of arbitrary social convention that demonstates a version of what anthropologist Mary Douglas once described as the central importance of culturally specific understandings of “matter out of place.” Things get deemed profane/dirty/obscene/vulgar as a function of “where” they are, not just “what” they are. For some reason, we think about the classroom as the wrong place for university employees to curse at their students. What makes basketball courts or football fields more appropriate? Or it might just be that the coaches are the only university employees with the divine right to raise their voices at students. Does the presence of the crowd somehow matter? What is it?
Of course, just one of the many differences between a coach shouting at one of his/her players and Wilson loudly snapping at Obama during yesterday’s speech is that the coach and the athlete consider themselves to be fighting for the same goal, literally on the same team. How many people in Congress really think about their colleagues “across the aisle” with a similarly inclusive attitude?
33 Responses to Where Is Your @$%!&*ing Final Paper?
redweather - September 10, 2009 at 11:11 am
Professor Jackson, I think you meant to write “hurled quite enraged charges.” The players may have indeed “hurdled” those charges, at least metaphorically, on their way to the bench or showers.But to your point. The key difference, as you note, is that the students in our classes are not members of a team. If one student decides to slack off, he hurts no one but himself. Student athletes, however, are members of a team. When they slack off, or miss an assignment, other team members suffer. So maybe the uptick in verbiage is excusable on those grounds.
charliemarlow - September 10, 2009 at 12:27 pm
At one school, a coach was criticized for slapping the helmet of a player and screaming at him along the sidelines…but players and other coaches defended him, saying that players are so pumped up from the violence and action on the field that they wouldn’t be able to focus on mere words if spoken in a civil way.
charliemarlow - September 10, 2009 at 12:27 pm
At one school, a coach was criticized for slapping the helmet of a player and screaming at him along the sidelines…but players and other coaches defended him, saying that players are so pumped up from the violence and action on the field that they wouldn’t be able to focus on mere words if spoken in a civil way.
charliemarlow - September 10, 2009 at 12:29 pm
Some years ago, a coach was criticized for slapping the helmet of a player and screaming at him along the sidelines. Other players and coaches defended him, saying that players are so pumped up from the violence and action on the field that they can’t focus on someone speaking in a civil manner.
charliemarlow - September 10, 2009 at 12:29 pm
But I repeat myself…
redweather - September 10, 2009 at 12:54 pm
charliemarlow, you handled that with great aplomb.
ramesh1 - September 10, 2009 at 1:08 pm
Real fact is that some white Americans don’t like that black president rule on them.They think they are superior than black people this races mentality still lingering in some white Americans. so they call Obama as a Hitler,presenting fake birth certificate and many other bad rumour spreading about him.
danmaratto - September 10, 2009 at 6:15 pm
The best is Bruce Weber, head men’s basketball coach at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He sounds like Satan screaming: “DEEEEEEEEEEEE! SHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOT IT DEEEEEEEEEEEEE!”Also the athletic director of U of I got in trouble for shouting “Warren, you idiot” at a player during a game. He was right, though, it was a stupid play.The British Parliament’s House of Commons is literally a screaming match during Questions, but such displays are exceedingly rare in the placid, boring US Congress. In Korea, parliamentarians fight each other with fire extinguishers. Matter out of place!
ebertin - September 11, 2009 at 5:44 am
As both a former college football coach and professor, I would often joke with my students that I should raise my voice and yell obscenities at them when they answered incorrectly or made a mistake in class. The fact that one can get away with this behavior on one part of campus yet nowhere else underscores one of the many hypocrisies of sports and higher education.
ksledge - September 11, 2009 at 6:19 am
redweather — I completely disagree that students are not part of a team in the classroom. In a seminar they are obviously part of a team, as their comments and questions contribute to others’ learning. Even in my lecture course, students were required to do some group work both inside and outside of class. They also earned participation points for asking and answering questions in class and in an online discussion board for the course. Students don’t tend to see themselves as part of a team, but we should see it that way and teach them that way. They’ll learn more when learning collaboratively.
redweather - September 11, 2009 at 6:46 am
ksledge — I, too, believe in the value of group work, but in the end students are individuals and not members of a team. They stand or fall on their own.
cybird9 - September 11, 2009 at 7:35 am
Redweather, I also disagree with you on the point that the student hurts nobody but himself. The student should be graded according to how he/she handles the subject, but the dynamics of the classroom are far more complex. The classroom covers not only the ability to handle the subject matter, but also social behavior and discipline. When a student performs poorly, it is often because of external factors that have nothing to do with the class and everything to do with the student and what that student does, not only in the classroom, but outside of it. If a student doesn’t come to class, then he/she hasn’t demonstrated the discipline necessary to handle any profession, and their attrition hurts their employers, colleagues, and destroys the efficacy of the class and the professor’s ability to teach him/her; they miss too many lectures, activities, and assignments to effectively discharge their job and prove that they are worthy of receiving credit. Accreditation rests on the student’s ability to handle the discipline, and they are not worthy of the same credit given to students who can effectively do the job–in the workplace, statistics have shown that more money is lost every year because of absenteeism, incompetence, and the inability to collaborate; they should learn these skills in K-12, but our culture has commodified our classrooms where the student is a consumer who can do as he/she likes–the customer is always right, but our culture is paying for it. They do not simply stand on their own–they may well cause the fall of their colleagues or businesses for which they work, especially when their behavior is unethical, distracting, or downright criminal. Your belief is naive and dangerous for not only the educational system, but society at large. You oversimplify a very complex process, which is far more important than a mere game, but given less importance because it is not for entertainment and for making money for the college, but for measuring the competencies of the students. However, I don’t agree with the idea that coercion is effective–the argument is fallacious on several points. Wilson’s behavior is unquestionably in bad taste and improper, and he ended up hurting, not only himself, but his party, in ways that will have far-reaching effects. His method was not argumentative, not debate (the format was not a debate, either), but mere name calling that has no place in Congress, or in any polite venue. If he wants to hurl obscenties at his television at home or get on Fox to spew his vitriolic diatribes, that is his right, but his behavior there was without question inappropriate and must be sanctioned properly. By contrast, professors in regular classrooms are constantly under fire for making the most innocent comments or statements, accused of all kinds of things, while coaches get away with some of the most inappropriate behavior imaginable, as well as getting paid tons more moolah, all in the name of winning games. Welcome to the world of politics in higher academia.
beans - September 11, 2009 at 7:43 am
This whole conversation is hilarious – funniest things I’ve read here in ages.ksledge & redweather – this is an interesting point you both bring up. After all, it’s not all sports, just team sports, isn’t it? You don’t see tennis and golf coaches screaming at players. Now part of that is the codified system of behvaior we have developed over time, but the rules of this system must have started for some other reason, right? Maybe when it’s an individual, it’s too much like rubbing salt in the wound.Incidentally, you’ll see some tirades in college theater productions too (“Learn your f@%!*#g lines!”), so maybe the yelling is the expression of collective urgency (i.e. get it together, you’re making us all look stupid). Interesting.
mark_r_harris - September 11, 2009 at 8:20 am
The explanation is simple: In this society, sports matter, and academics do not matter. End of story.
redweather - September 11, 2009 at 8:39 am
cybird9 — You’ve moved rather precipitously beyond the classroom. If I’m guilty of oversimplifying that’s simply because I was only responding to Prof. Jackson’s initial post. It seems to me there is a basic difference between team sport competition and students in a classroom vis a vis yelling.But I do believe that students stand or fall on their own. Can unprepared students hamper the education process? Only to the extent that a professor allows that happen. And they certainly should never be allowed to “destroy[] the efficacy of the class and the professor’s ability to teach.” If you are allowing that to happen, you are performing a great disservice to all of your students who arrive prepared and ready to engage in education. Unlike public school students, the students in your classes are there because they have chosen to pursue a college education. You are under no obligation to alter the way you teach, or modify what you teach, in order to accommodate a student who does not want to follow through on the choice he or she has made.
joesuber - September 11, 2009 at 8:49 am
danmaratto…As an African American, I must challenge your assertion of racism in this instance. We seem to forget how much hatred was hurled at former President George Bush by minorities–was that racism? We also seem to forget how much of politics occurs on the levels of ignorance, emotion and outright hostility. The means justify the ends, therefore, it is far more about political point of view than anything else. Nothing hurled at Obama thus far is any different from that hurled at former members of the exclusive 1600 Penn Ave Club. President George Bush suffered “boos” from his across-the-aisle democratic legislators during a speech to a congresssional joint session. African Americans, including Obama, must learn to instinctively squash that initial impulse to cry racism…more often than not, it is to “cry wolf,” which is a serious affront to the real war against bigotry and injustice. More importantly, it weakens alliances with objective Americans and stiffens the spine of the bigot.
joesuber - September 11, 2009 at 8:52 am
My apologies…not danmaratto but ramesh1
willardhall - September 11, 2009 at 9:13 am
Why is it that all students understand that, just because they work really really hard in practice, they won’t necessarily make the team, whereas in a class they think the “I spent two straight days on that paper and worked really really hard” argument should suffice for getting the grade they want?
dwilliams5 - September 11, 2009 at 9:26 am
willardhall, could it be that on the field student-athlete performance is public…coaches and other players can see and evaluate the performance of the player and coaches are judged on the merits of the performance of the their team? It’s not the coach but the whole team who can tell who the most deserving players are. In the classroom, on the other hand, even the law requires that individual student performance be kept largely private; and, we professors often strongly resist being judged on the collective performance of our students.
bridgtonacademy - September 11, 2009 at 9:40 am
Speaking to mark_r_harris’ point…How many local, regional, or national newspapers (in print or on-line) have an “Education” section? Okay, now how many newspapers (in print or on-line) have a “Sports” section? Like the man said: “End of story.”
john_d_foubert_phd - September 11, 2009 at 10:42 am
I am deeply discouraged by the decline of civility in our nation, especially in our nation’s government and increasingly among college students. I even see it among graduate students I teach. At my former institution, I had a masters student insist that I resented her because she made more money than I did (for the record, I had no idea what her salary was, but she was quick to ask me on the first day of class what I made; I gave broad ranges). Other students berated me to no end for “giving” them an A- on a paper when I clearly didn’t know “how things were done here.” How dare I “give” them less than an A. I guess the subtle message was how dare a professor have academic standards. Of course when I found out that near 90% of the grades my colleagues in the School of Education were GIVING were A’s, a huge part of the problem became more clear. Still, there is something wrong in this society when an Congressman calls the President a liar from the floor, when a student berates a professor for an A- on a paper or for resenting them for making less money (and how is that?), and sometimes the problem is the academy — a look inward couldn’t hurt for all of us.
redweather - September 11, 2009 at 11:09 am
john_d_foubert_phd — If students asked me about my salary I would respond by telling them that only when and if they were ever required to supply that information to me would I be willing to share the same with them.Sounds like a fun class. Not.
goxewu - September 11, 2009 at 11:33 am
In a lot of states, the salaries of public employees are available to the public. This includes professors at state institutions. When I chaired a department long ago, one professor complained to me that he was as good a teacher, scholar and colleague as a certain other professor but yet that other professor made a few grand a year more than he did. Other professors’ salaries weren’t supposed to be part of our merit-raise discussions and I was not permitted to disclose them, I said, and asked how did he know his perceived rival’s pay. He said he simply went to the state records office and found it. Nowadays, I imagine, it’d take only a few mouse clicks. And today’s students are, if anything, pretty handy with a mouse.
jasonpaneque - September 11, 2009 at 12:13 pm
Anyone watch ABC’s Nightline last night? They ran a short piece on how President Obama (and all U.S. presidents in general) has it easy. In many other countries, barbs and insults fly all over the place during federal sessions. In England, the prime minister is routinely jeered by other government officials, and he/she returns the favor in kind.
djbutler - September 11, 2009 at 2:41 pm
Yes, public displays of rival disrespect are more common among government officals in other countries (e.g., England, Soth Korea, Russia). Nevertheless, I don’t think that is any reason to expect anything less than dignified and civil behavior from our leaders. Just because someone else does it, doesn’t make it right.
ledzep - September 11, 2009 at 3:29 pm
Well, this difference obviously can’t be discussed intelligently without taking into account the differing roles of passion, broadly construed, in sports and the classroom. The example somebody brought up about theater suggests this as well, since the kind of emotional decorum appropriate to the classroom is not the same as that appropriate to the stage, much less the playing field. That said, I think we are far too tolerant of obscenity and rage from coaches. But even a sportsmanlike or gentlemanly coach will probably yell at players; it’s possible that an exceptional coach could communicate and motivate effectively without raising his voice, but given the emotional pitch of sports, it’s not at all likely.To qualify again, however, it’s not as if there is some constant emotional pitch or intensity that’s appropriate for sports. We do see, in most big-time college sports, a lack of standards of sportsmanship and a glorification of victory over everything else. Losing one’s control in a frenzy of competitiveness is basically smiled upon, and I don’t think that’s a good thing by any means. But it’s kind of crazy to think that we could have competitive sports without some competitive fire, and so you can’t measure civility by volume or tone of voice across sports and academia.It’s also exceptionally relevant that athletes on a team are subject to the real possibility of failure and dismissal from the team if they don’t put an exceptional amount of effort into it, whereas most students are not as long as they basically go through the motions. It’s often the reverse: if a teacher doesn’t serve the consumer expectations of students, that teacher is likely to be out of the profession shortly. That doesn’t explain why coaches scream and curse (and are allowed to do so) – that has more to do with the passions. But it does explain why coaches use a degree of criticism that is very rare in the classroom.
maudish - September 11, 2009 at 3:49 pm
William’s behavior definitely does not behoove someone at his position in the society. It certainly deserves to be reprimanded.When we compare this act with a coach’s expletives at his team on field, we also need to take into consideration the state of mind of the person on the other side. On the field such comments are taken more sportingly than they would be in a classroom. In fact, this may as well boost up the spirit, motivate the player’s sporting zeal and bring up better results.However, profane remarks, if used, by professors in classrooms would be detrimental to the overall development of a student from career perspective. One would never be able to learn corporate etiquettes and continue to behave with the same coarse behavior at all the levels in the society.Besides, this may as well prove harmful to the student’s psychological process. If you are not able to solve a query and you get abused about it, it will definitely not evoke a sporting spirit in you and prompt you to work harder. In such a case, discussing out your problems with a mentor will be helpful.
johnwiley - September 11, 2009 at 6:33 pm
Abusive, profane coaches–necessarily?John Wooden.Why shouldn’t they all be held to a higher standard?
maudish - September 11, 2009 at 11:33 pm
@johnwiley:I agree that both should be treated at the same level and it is definitely not necessary to have such coaches for the team to perform well.But if that is gonna get the best out of you on the field, why not? And the coach after all has to assess his team and its capacity to stand such remarks. Only after he is quite conversant with the individuals in the team, he would be knowing their strengths and weaknesses, he shall make any such statements.On the other hand, expletives in classroom are definitely not going to help student perform any better; instead they may prove to be de-motivating and making the student loose confidence in himself.Though it may sound unfair, the two categories, therefore, should act in a manner that behooves their respective roles.
goxewu - September 12, 2009 at 10:14 am
Ramesh1 may not have articulated his or her point well, but it’s a point the grounds for which minnesotan might find in a quick perusal of michael savage, the “birthers,” the rev. wiley drake, or the hundreds of comments on any AOL story about obama. Or minnesotan could just type “‘Obama is unfit’ AND ‘black’” on Goggle and read some of the 93,600 citations.
dgcamp - September 12, 2009 at 3:50 pm
Some of my students could benefit a great deal from me going into “drill instructor mode.” Some of them need a major butt chewing and wake-up call. But doing so, would certainly cost me my job.
cronknews - September 12, 2009 at 7:37 pm
Interesting challenge of norms that we often accept without consciously considering – particularly at the time of year when both academic and athletic seasons begin. I appreciate the intellectual finger snap, Mr. Jackson.-CronkNews.com
cybird9 - November 19, 2009 at 1:59 pm
Redweather, you don’t sound like a very experienced professor to me. Quoting you, ” But I do believe that students stand or fall on their own. Can unprepared students hamper the education process? Only to the extent that a professor allows that happen.” Are you kidding? I’ve seen many instances of students failing and taking down as many of their friends with them as they can. Students are the meat of the classroom, and if they are in the class, while it’s true they chose to take the class, they can and do destroy classes; the professor therefore can only maintain the class by ejecting the student(s) in question, which I have certainly done before. I’ve seen students who bring non-students (friends or family, especially children) to class without permission out of the clear blue sky, then force the professor to deal with their needs; that is only one example. Another is where you have students who show up inappropriately dressed (or undressed), like one student who showed up to class in pajamas, complete with her bunny slippers–however, I handled it by not handling it. By ignoring her, she was forced to sit through the entire class with no attention drawn to her, which was what she wanted me to do. I don’t think yelling is appropriate–but to say that individual students can’t take down a whole class is preposterous. One bad apple can spoil a whole bunch, and in ways so subtle that it’s sometimes frightening. You might want to rethink the idea that your instruction or lack of intervention has no effect after the fact, as well. Your manner of speaking is insulting and supposes that I am an unsuccessful teacher. Your connotations are insulting and quite frankly, demonstrate an inability to take criticism.