"My Name Is Michael Vocino and I like Dick" Controversy
Yes. The "controversy" continues and it has given more positive attention to me, my academic career, gay rights, and my continued struggle to educate students against homophobia than all the work I have previously tried to accomplish to this good end:
Teaching Diversity and the Attack from the Right
Still under attack here from those on the VERY fast dying fundamentalist right. Time to repeat the reality.....I NEVER harrassed Nathaniel Nelson, now a graduate student at UConn--Storrs, as he has claimed repeatedly and falsely. And in his fundamentalist-Christian heart, Nathaniel knows that....
Nathaniel Nelson (former President of the URI College Republicans, and follower of David Horowitz) was a student of mine when he was in his junior year at the University of Rhode Island--years ago.
Nathaniel was an articulate student who opposed at every turn my attempts to present a gay-positive perspective on one the most pressing political and social issues facing the nation and covered heavily in the national and local media: gay rights.
Nathaniel was a joy to have in class because he was more than willing to oppose my perspectives on gay rights.
When I teach, I don't punish students who disagree with me as Nathaniel certainly did. What is important to me is that a student's arguments, counter to my own as a professor, are stated with clarity, intelligence and conviction. In fact, Nelson asked if he could connect Machiavelli to Christianity in his term paper topic and his class presentation.
Of course, I was thrilled to have a student interested in connecting the subject of the course, Machiavelli, to those issues of importance to him in his everyday life. EXACTLY what I hoped the course would achieve.
Although Nathaniel opposed my positions, especially on Marxist interpretations of Machiavelli and gay rights (an issue his Republican party has made central to America's political discussions), he did so articulately when stated and with concise and precise clarity when written. It was for this reason that Nathaniel earned a grade of A in my classroom.
Nathaniel was, though misguided and certainly wrong in his perspective on gay rights from my position as a gay man, one of my better students.
I am sorry to read and hear again and again and again that Nathaniel, years after receiving an A in my highly competitive course, is still claiming that our educational interaction as such a negative.
I hope in graduate school and through the guidance of his Lord, Nathaniel is learning that challenging a student's presuppositions, by the student himself as well as the professor, is what education is all about.
I personally think his experiences in my classroom and his need to face opposing political viewpoints were a positive for him, and I certainly know that our conflicting opinions in my classroom and how they were expressed were certainly a positive for me and the other students in the class and in the final analysis a real positive for Nathaniel Nelson as he will understand as he matures in his academic life.
michael vocino
my name is
uri college republicans
nn
front page
homophobia
gay rights
Teaching Diversity and the Attack from the Right
Still under attack here from those on the VERY fast dying fundamentalist right. Time to repeat the reality.....I NEVER harrassed Nathaniel Nelson, now a graduate student at UConn--Storrs, as he has claimed repeatedly and falsely. And in his fundamentalist-Christian heart, Nathaniel knows that....
Nathaniel Nelson (former President of the URI College Republicans, and follower of David Horowitz) was a student of mine when he was in his junior year at the University of Rhode Island--years ago.
Nathaniel was an articulate student who opposed at every turn my attempts to present a gay-positive perspective on one the most pressing political and social issues facing the nation and covered heavily in the national and local media: gay rights.
Nathaniel was a joy to have in class because he was more than willing to oppose my perspectives on gay rights.
When I teach, I don't punish students who disagree with me as Nathaniel certainly did. What is important to me is that a student's arguments, counter to my own as a professor, are stated with clarity, intelligence and conviction. In fact, Nelson asked if he could connect Machiavelli to Christianity in his term paper topic and his class presentation.
Of course, I was thrilled to have a student interested in connecting the subject of the course, Machiavelli, to those issues of importance to him in his everyday life. EXACTLY what I hoped the course would achieve.
Although Nathaniel opposed my positions, especially on Marxist interpretations of Machiavelli and gay rights (an issue his Republican party has made central to America's political discussions), he did so articulately when stated and with concise and precise clarity when written. It was for this reason that Nathaniel earned a grade of A in my classroom.
Nathaniel was, though misguided and certainly wrong in his perspective on gay rights from my position as a gay man, one of my better students.
I am sorry to read and hear again and again and again that Nathaniel, years after receiving an A in my highly competitive course, is still claiming that our educational interaction as such a negative.
I hope in graduate school and through the guidance of his Lord, Nathaniel is learning that challenging a student's presuppositions, by the student himself as well as the professor, is what education is all about.
I personally think his experiences in my classroom and his need to face opposing political viewpoints were a positive for him, and I certainly know that our conflicting opinions in my classroom and how they were expressed were certainly a positive for me and the other students in the class and in the final analysis a real positive for Nathaniel Nelson as he will understand as he matures in his academic life.
michael vocino
my name is
uri college republicans
nn
front page
homophobia
gay rights
1 comments:
He is still riding your celebrity coat tails....
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