OK, now this p***es me off!

[Guest PFCRon]

You guys will never believe this, and as if this whole Columbine lawsuit mishap didn't piss me off enough! My public speaking class just had the unit on persuasive speeches, and mine was on persuading people that violence in video games should NOT be outlawed/banned, and guess what I just got back? My grade for it. I got a C-! My reasons were convincing enough! A comment my teacher put on there was:

"How can you support a claim like that???? Violence in video games is the number one cause of school shootings these days, and you're just as bad as all those kids! You're lucky you're getting a passing grade! One MENTION of that gore death game DOOM and it's off to the principal's office for you!"

You know what, when my teacher shows me some REAL scientific evidience (not just something out of a magazine), then I'll believe her. Until then, all I can say is that she is really close-minded and thick-headed. Keep DOOMing!

[SaGa]

the teachers just being biases about her beliefe. well youd have to be very stupid to shoot some one coze of a GAME

[Shaviro]

What?

You're kidding, right?

[Arioch]

If that's the only reason your teacher gave you a bad grade then you should file some sort of formal complaint.

Such a course isn't supposed to be graded based on the instructor's beliefs but on your own persuasiveness and ability to back up claims with facts and a clear cogent argument, and what your teacher did is simply unacceptable.

[Linguica]

Are you serious? Did she really write that? If she did, scan it in. I'd like to see it.

[Ralphis]

SaGa said:

the teachers just being biases about her beliefe. well youd have to be very stupid to shoot some one coze of a GAME

I got a 100 on a report about violent games and DooM especially (thanks to Kat, Jarrieto, and Captain Skippy). Thanks for the A guys(and kat) :)

[Guest DIRE]

Arioch said:

If that's the only reason your teacher gave you a bad grade then you should file some sort of formal complaint.

Such a course isn't supposed to be graded based on the instructor's beliefs but on your own persuasiveness and ability to back up claims with facts and a clear cogent argument, and what your teacher did is simply unacceptable.

PFCron, I agree with Arioch totally. I think you should march yourself down to the principals office monday mourning and show him the paper. and tell him the reason your teacher gave you that grade was not because you did a bad job, but because she personally did not agree with you. That teacher should be fired, or at least suspended.

[Guest fraggle`]

This is seriously wrong. Teachers are not there to question your beliefs. Complain to the headmaster or principle or whatever, this is simply unprofessional and unfair.

[GavinJCD]

Now that's just silly, gimme her E-mail address I'll point her in the right direction :)

[Jonathan]

fraggle` said:

This is seriously wrong. Teachers are not there to question your beliefs. Complain to the headmaster or principle or whatever, this is simply unprofessional and unfair.

Hmm, well, complaining to the principal might seem an appropriate course of action, but given the strength of the hysteria over this issue its quite possible he would agree with the teacher. Even if he didn't its unlikely he'd take any serious action over it for fear of looking too soft on the whole school violence "issue". All you'd do is risk antagnising your teacher and possibly you principal and being marked out as a potential troublemaker.

Remember, most people are morons, you just have to live with it.

[Speshul Eddy]

/me stares silently at screen in utter disgust......

Man, what a bitch. I mean, the fact that she uses terms like "gore-death-game", or perhaps "new-fangled-computer-thingie" goes to show that she's just spewing whatever crap she and everyone else is being spoon-fed by the media (who are themselves quite shamefully ignorant).

And by the the way, your English teacher has some of the most un-l33t wr1t1n9 $killz i've yet seen; you ought to walk right up to that biatch and tell her to rethink her damn hypotheses^__^

Here's an idea, though, for anyone who reads this.
Next time you have an English assignment which suits this subject, try writing a paper similar to PFCRon's, and post the results here in the forum. That way, we can get a good picture of how many teachers and adults in general have which views on this. Be sure to mention whether you're in high school or college, because I've found that there can be some interesting diferences between the two. I'll try putting something together this coming semester, when I'll likely be taking another English course.

For now, though, let's just try not to let the general ignorance overwhelm us.

[SteelPH]

Ralphis said:

I got a 100 on a report about violent games and DooM especially (thanks to Kat, Jarrieto, and Captain Skippy). Thanks for the A guys(and kat) :)

if the reason she gave you a c- was because of your beliefs, you might as well take up a federal case against her... what a bitch!

[Sephiroth]

Speshul Eddy said:

take it up with her, call her a bitch i would. i respect other opionions but when they do shit like that i come right back at them. man that is fucking ignorant to think games are the number one cause. hey u know she has violated your rights, she has to grade on content not the message, that happened to a friend of mine and he got the teacher fired for it

[Guest Liam the Bard]

Take it up with the principal or something duder. She can't give you a bad grade because of her opinion. If you wrote the paper well and your reasons were convincing, then you deserve an A, or at least a B. Grades should come from a students skill, not a students character.

[Guest kickmeplz]

Tell her the Nazis used censorship to kill the Jews.

[Guest kickmeplz]

Oh, did I mention that John Asscroft, an anti-videogame asshole is a white supremacist?

[elbryan42]

that's terrible dude. print off my post from earlier and show it to her. if that doesn't convince her, nothing will. oh, and tell her i'm 23, and not like "all of those kids". she needs a rude awakening. if my teachers weren't that blind in the early 80s, and stopped everything from day one, i would be totally different now.

[geekmarine]

WHAT!?? She gave you a bad grade because of her OPINION? OK, back to reality, what is her opinion worth? Absolutely nothing. Unless she can back it up with real scientific evidence (which I am almost certain she can't), she could just as well be running around saying space aliens caused the school shootings. The only possible explanation for as to how she could get away with it is that it's a popular opinion, and it sounds plausible. However, that alone is not enough to prove that something is true. Just look at Einstein. Previously, Newton's laws of physics had worked just fine, and there was really nothing outrageous enough about them to make people question them, but Einstein discovered that they were wrong. The only reason no one had ever noticed before was that the differences are only apparent at speeds near the speed of light. Even though Newton's laws sounded plausible and were popular opinion, they were wrong. Sorry, that's not exactly the best analogy, but I recently had to write a research paper and do a presentation on Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity, and I'm still in relativity mode.

[Toke]

You should print this thread and give it to her.

The main reason people atack video games and music for teenage violence is because it has the easiest solution.

[danarchist]

Wow. I cannot begin to say who wrong that is. Basically I'm thinking what everyone else is saying. If she's saying that you are as bad as the Colombine psychos, thats just an insult to your person. Heh. Just for the hell of it you should just yell out 'Doom' in the middle of class.

[Guest kickmeplz]

Toke said:

You should print this thread and give it to her.

The main reason people atack video games and music for teenage violence is because it has the easiest solution.

easiest solution = one that makes most problems

[fodders]

footman said:

if the reason she gave you a c- was because of your beliefs, you might as well take up a federal case against her... what a bitch!

More to the point, is she a babe? Got a nice ass? Tits?
How on Earth can we be expected to judge this without that info?

[Peter Heinemann]

Especially successfully defending of positions different from the mayor opinion deserves a good grade. Teachers often uses not to allow other opinions but their own. She neither understands the meaning of free speech (it would be a different thing if you would have taken the position of - for example - racists) nor her job, since she has only to judge your arguments/your technique and not your opinion. Here where I am living in (Germany) even wearing Doom t-shirts is forbidden. Once when I had to pick up some Doom stuff (a game box) I bought on US-ebay from the customs office, the custom guys treated me like a criminal - and I am 34 years old. They felt free to say: "We would also not allow you to import child porno videos ".

[Guest Cacodemon Leade]

It's your teacher's fault. She should have seen the principle about it before jumping to fucking conclusions like what happened to PFCRon already.

[KinkaJoy]

(*whew* damn, I just came within 1 second of hitting "new topic" instead of "post reply.")

Personally, I definitely think that video games are not responsible for any actual violence (or if they are, it is only a little bit, in rare cases where the person committing the action isn't sane to begin with.)

But regardless of my opinion, the fact is, the teacher cannot change your grade based on his or her opinions. Take it to the principal. Take it to the district office. Hell, take it to the supreme court if you have to. Judging from the teachers' comments, the C- had nothing to do with the actual persuasiveness of the speech, but her personal opinion. That is against the code of pretty much every school district in America. And even if it isn't, you could start some kind of petition/campaign. What the teacher did was inexcusable. I can't even begin to describe the many things wrong with what she wrote.

Oh, and BTW...Doom t-shirts? Where the hell do you get Doom t-shirts!?

[Jon]

fraggle` said:

This is seriously wrong. Teachers are not there to question your beliefs. Complain to the headmaster or principle or whatever, this is simply unprofessional and unfair.

I presume he's american, from what I've read on these forums over the years, thats how the american education system works.

[Guest kickmeplz]

fodders said:

More to the point, is she a babe? Got a nice ass? Tits?
How on Earth can we be expected to judge this without that info?

My guess is that she's an old hag with saggy tits and a long beard.

[Guest Employee 2-4601]

I did write a bit about game violence(especially Doom) in a essay in the 8:th grade, about how I have played it for about 10-11 years without going berzerk or anything oppose to what media says. For some years ago there was this school shooting in Colorado(it may be the one you guys are reffering to), the first thing one of our puplich channels(TV4 to exact) did was to show some clips from doom and telling how often kids go berzerk from playing these games. Got a VG on that(B in the American system) essay.

[Guest Nuno Correia]

As Esco would put it, "I feelz ya man!"

Really sorry.

[Davidoom]

There there...it's ok...one day everything will slot into place.