Beda April 16: Thinking in Reverse

I’m not sure what I should talk about today. I think I fried my brain a little yesterday writing that stupid paper. Did I talk about why I hated that paper yet? If I did I’m sorry but I’m going to do it again.
The paper is for my Mass Media class and the assignment was to rewrite the first amendment to include the different forms of media that we’ve studied saying whether we would regulate them or not and if so how. Then the rest of the paper we were supposed to explain why we chose to limit them they way we did. So for my paper I decided not to have the government regulate anything because I’m not a fan of censorship because it could easily get out of control and make us live in a bland grey drone world. So the whole thins was about censorship and why it is a bad thing. This makes sense right? We’ll I got my paper back and the teacher had put giant x’s through the entire thing and left a little note saying that it was irrelevant, and at the end said that the assignment was to discuss media not censorship. This just doesn’t make sense to me. I did discuss media, I discussed why it would be bad for us to censor media as a whole, would have preferred I turn in something saying “we should not censor television because it would be bad for the government to have that kind of control. We should not censor books because how would kids do their learning?” I really doubt that. So I had to rewrite the entire paper, you can see why I didn’t really feel like trying. I gave him my best effort and he didn’t even bother to look at my side of the argument or I suspect read anything past the first paragraph.
He was talking today in class with one of the girls who sits a couple rows in front of me and is slightly older then most people in the class (she is old enough to have a teenage son.) Renee was saying that she appreciates that the younger people in the class were taught to think critically and that we were also taught that it is good to have our own opinions. Then the teacher complained that while we were taught to have our own opinions, we weren’t taught to back up those opinions. He also said that some idiot (he didn’t say idiot I did) student came up to him after getting back his original paper and said that he appreciated the notes because Carlespie was teaching us how to think and write critically. I have an issue with that. First of all this dude is not teaching me anything (seriously not a damn thing for the first six weeks he tested us and then “taught” the chapter) I know how to think critically and while I am not the best writer I can certainly write critically. Secondly I did back up my opinions in my paper I had eight for a two page thing so don’t tell me I didn’t back it up. Secondly part B Sometimes an opinion is just an opinion otherwise you are just parroting someone else’s opinion, sometimes you have to be able to think for yourself otherwise who are you? You are just a shell waiting for someone to come along and tell you what to think and how to act and who to be. I don’t want to be that I want to have my own opinions based on my own thoughts, if they happen to coincide with someone else’s great but I do not want to base my thoughts solely on the thoughts of someone else.
I know I should look on the bright side for this paper but I can’t. I know I am going to fail it for three reasons. First is that I didn’t try that hard the second time around. Second I still wrote about censorship I just tried to make it sound less like I was doing that. Third for a good chunk of my paper (like half) I just copied out giant quotes from other people. He wants my opinions back up he can have the one sentence that is my opinion and then get three paragraphs about fascism from Mussolini.
Thank you very much Mr. supposed teacher but I will take the F, retake the class with someone else, and keep my opinions my own.