From Straight Man by Richard Russo:
I haven’t persuaded my freshmen that the ability to persuade is an important skill. …[P]ersuasion — reasoned argument — no longer holds a favored position in university life. If [students'] professors — feminists, Marxists, historicists, assorted other theorists — belong to suspicious, gated intellectual communities that are less interested in talking to each other than in staking out territory and furthering agendas, then why learn to debate? Despite having endured endless faculty meetings, I can’t remember the last time anyone changed his (or her!) mind as a result of reasoned discourse. Anyone who observed us would conclude the purpose of all academic discussion was to provide the grounds for becoming further entrenched in our original positions.
Although I publicly espouse the tenets of argumentation — because it worked on me and for me — I privately agree with Russo here, at least as regarding the majority of people.
10. If I can’t read their writing, I don’t have to read their papers.
9. Relatedly, I get a refresher on what cursive looks like. Some of my students quit school in fifth grade and think that cursive is how everyone writes. (Seriously, cursive still exists?)
8. I don’t have the problem of Blogger marking my students’ blogs as spam. Yay?
7. When my students lose interest, it’s because I’ve genuinely bored them — not because they got distracted by texting under the desk. (BTW, traditional students: it is so totally obvious when you’re doing this. That’s why I call on you when I do.)
6. I save my back the pressure of trudging around with a laptop.
5. My students can’t instantly fact-check me with their BlackBerrys and iPhones.
4. There aren’t any hard-drive-ate-my-homework stories.
3. I don’t catch them turning Safe Search off and “accidentally” “running across” porn while doing “Internet research.”
2. Three words: No fucking ringtones.
1. I don’t have to worry about what they say on RateMyProfessor.com.