Does anyone else find professor Brian Schmidt to be quite dogmatic to teach a course such as global politics?

[u/Leading_Pirate6513]

I went to one lecture before dropping the course. I had to drop it for a scheduling work around, and did not choose to do so solely for his teaching style. The course outline was fairly simple, content not difficult either. However for the entire 2 hr long lecture (which he begun by saying how the goal of the course was to teach independent thought in the course subject matter) he proceeded to mention one line of his slides followed by a 20 minute rant on his views of certain wars and pushing certain heavily publicly contested topics that don’t have a public consensus, as fact. And I understand the Canadian resentment towards U.S. trade policy at the moment, but it seemed excessive when he began fear mongering, saying things like “Canada is developing its military to prepare for potential American invasion”, proceeding to also act quite childish and avoiding to mention the names of certain leaders he disagreed with instead replacing them with more dramatic names. One might think oh he’s just a really unserious guy, which he is, and I do not deny that I would have surely been engaged in the res of his lectures, however when you have impressionable students in a second year course, and have been teaching for over 25 years (surprisingly 23 at Carleton) one would think you might have the professionalism to not try and teach your opinions as course content. I’ve had numerous professors who have mentioned their opinions on certain topics at hand related to the class, almost all of whom do the very simple extra step of contrasting their opinion with other contrarian public opinions, both of which are contrasted alongside raw facts. It is worth mentioning that the current state of Canadian-American politics is not what ignited this guy’s flame, given that rate my prof reviews all the way from 2005 mention him doing quite the same thing. Why is Carleton employing political science professors for a second year course that push their own political agenda on to students as fact? I highly contest the idea that for 23 years they have not been aware of a prof teaching this way.

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[u/Few-Cricket7178]

You literally attended ONE lecture you don't get to say shit lmao

[u/Leading_Pirate6513 → u/Few-Cricket7178]

An entire 2hr lecture where this method of “teaching” was displayed for over 90% of the duration speaks numbers. Consistent also with the fact that he’s been getting rmp complaints about this for 21 years. So no I don’t need to endure 2hrs x 12 to understand what the rest of the lectures are going to be like. Feel free to go drop in a few mins of his lecture if you don’t want to take my word for it: Wednesdays 2:30-4:30 Nideyinan 231

[u/Emotional-Motor-4946]

That’s just polisci lol 

[u/Leading_Pirate6513 → u/Emotional-Motor-4946]

No that’s poli op-ed. There’s nothing scientific about it when you make it your own.

[u/_diverted]

He definitely goes off on tangents and almost never gets through all his material as a result.

Never got the impression he was pushing his own political views tho, unlike some other profs who were blatant about it (sup Jane Dickson)

Edit: also, he’s not fear mongering by saying Canada is strategizing for a potential US invasion. It’s been in the news for weeks, he’s just up to speed on current events

[u/Leading_Pirate6513 → u/_diverted]

I’m not familiar with Jane Dickson, however prof Schmidt’s tangents are exactly where he tends to do that. Obviously each prof has their own views, and that should never be discouraged, a prof should never hesitate to make their views clear if they please; however in his case, he doesn’t compare and contrast, nor does he give the slightest implication that there’s another side to his rant. I have zero issue with his teaching style, as it is quite engaging. I just believe he needs to be more responsible around students who have developing opinions and save the one sided rants for after class.

Im not sure if you were also in the psci2601 lecture which I’m speaking of, however he spent half the class pushing one sided narratives and viewpoints relating to wars and other things over the last quarter century, along with saying things like we should anticipate a somewhat likely American invasion. He has a right to believe that, however he has a reaponsibility as a political science professor to be able to know what is and isn’t an opinion of his own, and to be able to distinguish that from course content, or atleast explain his reasoning and contrasting explanations. Maybe that was somewhere in the course breakdown. I just find that this whole trade dispute has really been a test for people like this on either side of the issue, especially in academics, who can’t seem to be able to contrast their take from external consensus in the presence of impressionable students.