Congratulations!! Viva La Luz!!
Reader comment on item: Five Years of Campus Watch

Submitted by Sofa Sogood (United States), Sep 21, 2007 at 09:12

Congratulations!! And thank you. Your work is vital -- vital.

It's a pity that you weren't able to create Campus Watch prior to 9-11, but the backlash you would have gotten at an earlier time might have been insurmountable. At the very least, we can now hope for some changes in the future -- which would have been a near impossibility without your work.

The gall and nerve of the professors attacks on you astounds me. Characterizing students' note-taking as "spying!" It's so totally absurd a charge to make! Aren't they embarrassed to make such silly "charges?"

If they so believe their methods and the content of their teaching are good, they should welcome exposure of it. Are they implying by the "spying" charges that their teaching is "private" or "secret" or "personal"? They are teaching to the public and public is what their teaching is and should be -- and therefore open to criticism. Or are they really attempting to imply that what and how they teach is entitled to be considered "privileged" and "secret?"

Rather than defend what and how they teach, they attempt to shut down and demonize critique -- all the while crying that they are being shut down -- which, in fact, they're not. If they're rejected -- well -- rejected is not the same as being shut down. Shut down would mean they haven't had a chance to be heard, and that certainly isn't the case.

Critique is the opposite of "shutting down." Critique is "opening up" to ... debate ... to scrutiny.

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