Thursday, December 13, 2007

Classes Which Need to be Taught

I got this from Blue Gal by way of Dr. Zaius

"Write about 5 classes you would like to take if you could make up your own curriculum. AND - and this is important, ONE of them must come from your tagger's list."

I believe that some of these were meant to be light-hearted but I seem to be in a more serious mood today. Suppose I'll roll with it rather than fight it.

GS 114. Critical Thinking (3 credits) MWF 11:00 am-12:30 pm

This mandatory class for all incoming Freshman encourages students to be able to think for themselves. This hands-on class forces students to formulate their own opinions separate from personal bias, spin, and baseless prejudice. A wealth of alternate points-of-view will be actively discussed. This course will also include a weekly series of outside speakers who will speak on a variety of diverse topics. These talks will pull from a wide cross section of different cultures, religions, and political persuasions. Prepare to have your world view expanded and your heretofore unquestioning opinions called to task.


SOC 42DD Teh Hott For Any Weight (3 credits) Tu Th 8:00 pm-9:00 pm

Learn the ways by which our culture encourages people, particularly women, to conform to unrealistic standards of physical beauty for the sake of making maximum profit for corporations. Learn how few people are capable of looking like models. Be exposed to alternate cultural expectations of body shape that do not conform to the current model proposed by looks-obsessed Western culture. The point will be hammered home when students will watch a series of mind-expanding and utterly unsettling documentaries. Final paper topics in past have included titles such as Why I'm Happy with the Way I Look Now and No Wonder I Used to Have an Eating Disorder.

Upon completion of the class, students often find their sense of satisfaction with their own bodies to be at an all-time high.


EC 200 Rudimentary Economics (3 credits) Tu Th 2:00 pm-3:00 pm

Learn how to balance a checkbook, avoid taking out credit cards, make wise decisions with their personal income, and how to avoid falling into risky lending schemes created by unbridled, unregulated greed. This information should have been dispensed by parents around the dinner table, but research has recently revealed that this information is rarely taught by parents and that most young people no longer sit around dinner tables with the rest of the family.

Students will learn the disquieting reality of where money really comes from, how it is created, and how to use that knowledge to their own benefit.

Warning. This class might make you a communist.


HE 230 Effective Sex Education MWF 12-1:30

This hour and a half course will be taught in an spirit of open-minded discussion free from scorn or doses of shame. Lies and misinformation, particularly those advanced by Fundamentalist teachings, will be education actively refuted. Slides showing diseased genitals in advanced stages of syphilis will not be shown. Abstinence-only curriculum will not be advanced. Students will learn a variety of different means of contraceptives, none of which involve the phrase You CAN pull out, right? Romanticizing one's virginity will not be allowed, since no one's first sexual encounter has any sort of aesthetic purity, unless by pure you really mean extreme awkwardness.

AS 300 Deflating the Cult of Celebrity Th 3:00 pm- 5:00 pm

Students will learn the virtues of ignoring soft news and the behavior of dysfunctional, drug-addicted stars. This course will make a point of encouraging students to create their own drama if they're really that desperate for salacious gossip. The reality of celebrity will be discussed, particularly the pitfalls of wealth. The fallacy of living a life of quiet desperation will be exposed.

This course is a fine companion with GS 114. (See above).

2 comments:

The Cunning Runt said...

Great list there, CK. I'd be happy to take any or all of them!

Mine started out seriously, but then The Little Head intervened, and I went off.

On a tangent, that is.

Dr. Zaius said...

HA! "Deflating the Cult of Celebrity" Freakin' billiant!