Joe Rogan is obviously not a fan of my job. Top conservative influencers famously insist that universities are “cult camps” and that professors like me instill students’ leftist ideas. Usually, I don’t have to worry about my own haters, but more and more things seem to be that if I want to create meaningful learning experiences I need.
I teach for the first year of undergraduate elective courses. Like most universities, our universities provide a large lecture of 200 students for training in academic writing and critical theory. When I introduce students to normative thinkers from Karl Marx to Sylvia Whitett, it will be “indoctrination”. These electives are degree requirements that stimulate students who may intentionally avoid avoiding liberal arts on their original major degrees.
In the current political climate, many of my students make up for the classroom with their thoughts, which directly undermines my scholarship and career. Rogan is just one of many conservative anti-knowledge people who regularly attack liberals, feminism, social justice, bias towards college education. The result is an atmosphere of polarization opposite to learning: a tangible, sometimes resentful classroom.
Although only a few students usually adhere to the anti-intelligence doctrine, their group undermined my authority in class with risky jokes and strong criticism (reported by the students concerned). This leads to uncertain students being able to trust my authority, while those with untense views will nervously review their contributions.
Ironically, my opposition students often don’t recognize me as interested in their views. I firmly believe that getting rid of this explosive historical moment is through rigorous discussions on educational forums. Like any scholar, that’s why I teach: I like sincere inquiries, debates, and critical participation, and I am a student myself. However, there are fewer emotions in the classroom, more debates, and more deadlocks.
So, I brainstormed with students this year to build creative assignments, no matter how unique my own self-guided research is, and encourage people to engage in in-depth reading. I offer any of these tasks to bring back a dissatisfied, anxious student to a love of learning and democratizing participation. This is an ongoing work and I welcome suggestions.
Turn tensions into data: This introductory exercise puts students in an open atmosphere of university discussion. A survey or anonymous poll quantifies the disagreement and we then analyze the results into a category.
Example: Class Belief Stock – Anonymous survey of students on popular questions (e.g., “Is systemic racism a major issue?”). The purpose here is to compare the class’s response to national survey data. Potential topic of discussion: Why can there be differences? What shapes our perspective?
Hostile influencers as the main source: This classroom activity treats characters like Rogan or Jordan Peterson as an opponent, but rather as the author of the text to be analyzed, undefensive and positioning students as important researchers.
Example: “Compare/Contrast [X podcast] Peer reviewed articles on the same topic. How are their arguments different in terms of structure, evidence and rhetoric? Who do you find more convincing and why? ”
Game Ideological Tense: Such activities turn assigned readings into structured, rule-combining games where students must defend positions they do not hold in person.
Example: Role Playing Summit – Students are assigned roles (e.g., Jordan Peterson, Bell Hook, climate scientist, Tiktok influencer) and must work together to solve fictional problems (e.g., redesigning the course). They have to cite course readings to justify their choices.
Treatment of argument: This interesting early activity teaches students to use logical principles to diagnose weak arguments (whether feminist theorist or you).
Example: Argument of autopsy – Students dissect viral social media posts, podcast clips or course readings. Determine logical fallacies, evidence of cherry picking or unspeakable assumptions. Reward students to criticize all parties.
Intellectual killing: This is the mid-term writing assignment for scaffolding until the last post. Ask students to track the origins of their favorite influencer ideas. Many anti-establishment numbers borrow from (or distorted) academic theory – show students how to connect points.
Example: A family tree of ideas – extracting claims from podcasts (e.g., “College indoctrination students”). Study its history: When is this idea on mainstream news or social media? Are there institutions, think tanks, influencers or politicians related to this idea? What are the established tasks and goals of these sources? Where do they get the funds? Which scholars agree or disagree, and why?
Using “prohibited topics” as a case study: If students are dissatisfied with “liberal bias”, they tend to: make prejudice itself the subject of analysis. This may be a discussion tip for discussion tutorials or ideas on the work of the stock group.
Example: “Is this reading biased?” – Assigning a short text might be called “awakening” (e.g., feminist theory) and antitext (e.g., Peterson’s criticism of postmodernism). Do students use slogans to evaluate both: What is bias? Is objectivity possible? How do they define the “truth”?
Choose your own adventure assignment: The last essay assignment allows student agents to explore topics they care about even if they criticize my field. Clear guardrails are very important here to ensure strictness.
Example: Passion Project: Students design a research question related to the course, even if it challenges the assumptions of the course. They must use three or more course texts and two or more external resources, such as in favorite influencers or authorities, or even people who oppose the course topic.
Red and Blue Team: For the paper, students submit two versions: one to argue their personal views and the other to argue the opposite. Ratings are based on their ability to participate in evidence rather than position.
