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The article argues that college campuses have become overly protective spaces that shield students from uncomfortable or offensive ideas. It asserts that administrators are scrubbing words and concepts from classrooms and debates to avoid causing discomfort. However, the article claims this approach prevents students from developing critical thinking skills needed to thrive in diverse, complex worlds. It suggests colleges should teach students how to think, not what to think, through open debate of controversial topics rather than avoidance of issues. This will help students build tolerance and withstand discomfort, rather than being insulated from challenging ideas.

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47 views

Summarizing

The article argues that college campuses have become overly protective spaces that shield students from uncomfortable or offensive ideas. It asserts that administrators are scrubbing words and concepts from classrooms and debates to avoid causing discomfort. However, the article claims this approach prevents students from developing critical thinking skills needed to thrive in diverse, complex worlds. It suggests colleges should teach students how to think, not what to think, through open debate of controversial topics rather than avoidance of issues. This will help students build tolerance and withstand discomfort, rather than being insulated from challenging ideas.

Uploaded by

api-341337748
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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NOTES

JEREMY WEEKS

SOMETHING STRANGE IS happening at Americas colleges and


universities. A movement is arising, undirected and driven
largely by students, to scrub campuses clean of words, ideas,
and subjects that might cause discomfort or give offense

Colleges are being turned into a safe place where students are shielded from
words and ideas that may be uncomfortable
Teach how to think not what to think Socratic method
Protectiveness of parents
Morality can affect the value of your critical thinking
Rising social media exposure can make it easy to have your values swayed
Social media can be used as a threat
life is what you deem it
Colleges should teach how to thrive in a world that may not be pleasant

Summary
In September 2015 writer Greg Lukianoff wrote the article The
Coddling of the American Mind protesting the cleansing of college campuses
by administrators and faculty of any words and or concepts that may be
perceived as too offensive. The article went on to describe college campuses
as being a haven from any ideas that may put a race, gender, or social group
in an uncomfortable situation or setting. The goal of this cleanse is geared
toward protecting the emotional well-being of students but while it may
succeed in the conservation of their immediate emotional well-being they are
simultaneously withholding them from developing important critical thinking
skills necessary in thriving in a world bombarded with diverse concepts and
ways of thinking that you may not agree with. By questioning controversial
topics rather than discarding them among first impression students can
develop a better sense of Socratic thinking which is a method teaching how
to think about what concepts an individual may accept as true based on
internal judgement and critical thinking rather than forcing a certain life
curriculum on someone and teaching what to think. Lukianoff suggest that
rather than being cleansed of new ideas students should be exposed to an
outside the comfort zone source. This could be instituted by encouraging
debate among conflicting ideas and diversifying the faculty among cultural
and political ideas and backgrounds.
Partners summary: SUMMARY
The article The Coddling of the American Mind by Greg Lukianoff writes about how young
adults are being shielded from the real world, by using "trigger warnings" as an excuse.
Teacher/Professors are supposed to change their material to accommodate for the students, to

prevent trigger warnings from happening. "The new climate is slowly being institutionalized and is
affecting what can be said in the classroom, even as a basis for discussion or debate."
The quote from the article, "Campuses clean of words, ideas, and subjects that might cause
discomfort or give offenses" says it all. Without learning what is wrong in the world, we will suffer
a greater loss in the end.
Microaggressions will turn from small actions or word choices to violence nonetheless. Students
tend to magnify by exaggerat[ing] the importance of things." This is caused by PC (Political
Correctness), it is scaring many teachers. One example from the text Im a Liberal Professor and
My Liberal Students Terrify Me. A professor shouldn't be terrified by his students and the trigger
warnings they bring to class. Trigger warnings serve as an assurance that students, will not
experience unexpected discomfort.
In cases, trigger warnings are needed, but in most cases being exposed to theses,
subjects/topics are better for humans to develop a "thicker skin." Students believe that what
has happened or will happen, will be so awful that they wont be able to endure the topic.
Thomas Jefferson once said "This institution will be based on the illimitable freedom of the
human mind. For here we are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor to tolerate any
error so long as reason is left free to combat it." If professors don't present the truth (teaching
subjects that might be upsetting) to their students, then the students are not receiving what is
important.

Reflection:
I noticed that wording the gist is Important to be able to shape wording
of the problem being presented so that the solution you eventually suggest
correlates with the individual specified problems that are highlighted. You
must be able to not skip out any material that may strengthen the articles
argument. This posed the problem for me of not rambling on ever little
detailed that I saw as important and instead just propose the overall concept
that could be in the same general understanding of the small details. This is
also where summarizing can become very misleading because anytime
details are left out of an argument then that argument has the tendency to
become over generalized which means it is in trouble of losing the tone the
writer is trying to use and the stand point that he is trying to take with his
audience weather he is trying to makes demands or even propose selfreflection. The hardest part in my opinion was being able to get the reader of
the summary to be able to understand exactly where the writer was coming
from with the condense information that I was providing.

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