SMU Lecturer Takes Heat For Blog 84
nasta writes "Houston Chronicle article For most of the past two semesters, nobody knew the identity of "The Phantom Professor."
The educator's anonymous Web log, set at an unnamed university "in the South," spun tales of spoiled-rich "Ashleys" with their $500 sandals and $1,500 handbags, eating disorders, plagiarism and drug use, legal and illegal.
"At this school it seems like every kid is on multiple medications," the professor wrote, describing her charges as "barely literate," prone to emotional problems and "terrified of displeasing Mommy and Daddy.""
Southern Methodist University (Score:4, Informative)
Amen. (Score:4, Insightful)
I can't even count how many people I know who claim they have "anxiety disorder" and "panic attacks". So they dope up on half a dozen things, instead. I mean, yeah, life sucks - but holy shit.
And then after awhile, they start trading their prescriptions with other people. A few zoloft in turn for a few valium. Or if they have some leftovers (especially stuff like valium and percoset), they hand them off to their friends so they can get off on them, too.
It's just pathetic. And I bet that half the people I know other than at work are like that. Often people I would have never guessed. They'd like you to think that they need it because their life is so terrible, but the truth is lots of peopel have a hard life. These people just have a hard time dealing with life.
And yeah, I know the girls with 400 pairs of expensive shoes who have traveled more by the age of 18 than I could ever hope to travel in four lifetimes. Their biggest concerns seem to be "panties or not?" on any given date for any given night. Oh, such dilemmas.
If I were a professor and I had to deal with people like that for a living on a daily basis, I'd probably vent, too. In fact, I'd probably climb the nearest clock tower.
Re:Amen. (Score:3, Insightful)
Ive seen people with Goth disease(Oh my parents are so nice blah blah my life sucks) shoved on zoetrope and other manageries of medications whilst people with true problems and certifiable conditions are just passed by and ignored
Ive seen it all too often and ussualy it does involve parents who are better off and pay for private Psycholigists and therapist who dont think twice up presribing a miracle
Re:Amen. (Score:1, Troll)
nobody needs these drugs. they are sold simply to line the pockets of the pharmaceuticals' executives
most 'modern mental health' problems can be solved by removing the blind faith one puts in so-called 'mental health professionals', who really are little more than shills for the biggest con ever played on a society by mass market engineers.
Re:Amen. (Score:3, Insightful)
The fact is while many meds are over prescribed in the form of designer cocktails there are many people who would not be functional without proper medication.
Re:Amen. (Score:2)
She had the whole Physician's Desk Reference memorized and could talk with amazing knowledge and erudition about every antidepressant that ever existed.
She had a psychiatrist she loved, and she would go to him and discuss prescriptions with him on a PhD level.
None of this -- I repeat, NONE of this -- ever helped her with her depression.
When there was a problem with her supply of drugs, she would get frantic but it felt almost like she was
Re:Amen. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Amen. (Score:1)
(The 'i'm not a script' thingy is damn near impossible to read!!!! WTF?!?)
Re:Amen. (Score:4, Insightful)
OK, let's assume that your assessment is correct, and that the anti-depressants did not actually help her, and the reason she was obsessed with them was that she had what an earlier generation of psychologist would describe as a neurotic and infantile fixation on them. Can you logically deduce this statement:
My conclusion from this is that antidepressants do virtually nothing real.
The logical bar for such a broad statement is very high indeed; it can only be true if there is no identifiable subset of people with depression for which the drugs are statistically better than nothing. I think what you have proven is that some people do not benefit from any of the anti-depression medications that are available.
Depression is very complex; basically it is a set of symptoms that I think any thoughtful person will conclude could come from multiple causes. It follows that depression is very difficult to treat. If the depression is secondary to some other condition other than the specific organic cause the antidepressant addresses, why would you expect the antidepressant to help in that specific case? For example, if the person has problems with his life falling apart due to substance abuse, the related depression cannot be treated with Prozac, but Prozac might be helpful if the underlying problem is an abnormality in the way his brain uses serotonin.
I only mention this because I happen to know some people who your friend reminds me of. You say she was frantic, but actually seemed better when she was having problems getting medication. It may not have been that the medication was harming her, so much as that the problems were helping her. I am not a psychiatrist, but the people I have in mind also have a tendency to do better when things are going worse. Some of them,after watching them in action, clearly actively seek out chaos, generate emergencies, and incite interpersonal conflicts, particularly when things seem to be going fine. When the emergencies hit, they actually seem to be serene and in control, provided the level of chaos doesn't get too high (which is inevitably does sooner or later). These people seem to need an extra "oomph" that emergencies bring. They also tend to have a pattern of dependency on others for stability and long term direction. But, if you lead the kind of lives these people lead, depression is almost a normal response. You can't expect to treat that kind of depression by monkeying with the mood mechanisms of the brain.
In any case, I don't offer this as advice or diagnosis, which I'm not qualified to give, but to point out how difficult it is to reason from specific to general cases.
Moving on from the specific issue of antidepressants to psychiatric medications in general, even if you grant that antidepressants are useless in every case, it doesn't follow that all psychiatric medications are useless. I know personally, because I have a familiy member with schizophrenia. If you've never seen the difference between a person with this condition on medication and off, all I can say is that it is not something subtle.
Re:Amen. (Score:2)
And you are right that logically, a single instance cannot prove whether something works or something doesn't.
On the other hand, if I have this post on Slashdot for, say, 24 hours or so, and nobody comes up with a story of an antidepressant actually working well for them, I would say it's likely to be pretty rare that antidepressants do work.
So we'll see. I'm trying to keep an open mind.
D
Re:Amen. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Amen. (Score:2)
Since taking the drugs, she has been able to control the obsessive thoughts, meet me (we met through an online dating site), start her PhD (just the dissertation to go), get engaged to me, buy a motorcycle, enjoy rid
Re:Amen. (Score:2)
I picked up this book at an airport the other day:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/006 0 988479/ref=dp_nav_0/103-5692295-5136626 [amazon.com]
"The Mind and the Brain", by Jeffrey M. Schwartz and Sharon Begley
It discusses the successes that several groups have had developing sel
Re:Amen. (Score:2)
I think that she w
Re:Amen. (Score:1)
4 generations of crack-heads in charge, yo!
there are many people who would not be functional without proper medication.
Re:You need a new keyboard. (Score:1)
This is Slashdot. Did you mean 'atrophy key'?
Re:Amen. (Score:2)
Re:Amen. (Score:3, Interesting)
One thing ive heard alot is docters going "well your ok now though so perhaps you worked through it" or the likes...And as you most likely know with certain types of Bipolar people can seem totaly fine at times , but try telling that to a GP.
I have often helped folks get things together for taking to the GP and
Re:Amen. (Score:2)
Was there ever a time where doctors were any more or less competant than right now? What has changed during the course of human history that makes you think that doctors are espescially poor right now?
Re:Amen. (Score:2)
Perhaps I'm old school but I feel that the brain is far too complicated and too little is known to be messing around with in these minor cases.. the best prescription for 90% of today's problems is something we've been taking for a long, long time.. 300 mgs of Suck It the Hell Up.
Re:Amen. (Score:2, Insightful)
They're people who are nervous or panic if they go outside or have to be around a group of people. Especially new people. Or whatever. I mean, who ISN'T at least a little on-edge in certain situations? And how can so much of the population have such a hard time with it, that they need to be prescribed drugs just to step outside their door
Re:Amen. (Score:2, Interesting)
Because over the past few decades we've created a seriously dysfunctional society.
High population density, a highly moblile society resulting in looser and less supporting family and social bonds, an economy where fewer and fewer people do any sort of meaningful work and there is deliberate pressure t
Re:Amen. (Score:1)
Interesting and I have to wonder. (Score:2)
I would love to see a study comparing the mental health of people to the number of hours spend in with their parent.
It is beginning to look as if drugs, TV, videos, and the Internet are all be used to replace parents.
I watched Nanny 911 last night. I have to wonder why it took an "expert" to tell these parents that.
1. Children should not have unlimited candy.
2. That yelling at your children is not always the best action to take.
For some people those
Re:Amen. (Score:1)
You'll be surprised to find out about some of those co-workers years down the line.
In the past few months I found out that, in the time since I worked with them, one former co-worker had a breakdown and checked himself into a mental hospital for several weeks; another is apparently dealing with an addiction to pain meds; and a third, after losing health insurance and not being able to get
ADHD (Score:2)
Re:Oh great, now movies made from blogs (Score:1)
Come on - it's a cliche. We've all been there, been around it, known people like that or
Re:Oh great, now movies made from blogs (Score:3, Insightful)
And, that'll stop Hollywood how?
Re:Oh great, now movies made from blogs (Score:1)
Of course, she won't call the brats to the floor for anything. Her movie would sympathize with the plight of spoiled little rich girls indulged by their mommies and daddies and older guys. Oh, so tragic being a rich pretty young female! You have to, like, look pretty and keep your mouth shut and stuff! Ohmigod!
Amusing quotes. (Score:1)
Re:Amusing quotes. (Score:1)
I know that SMU said she was let go for reasons not related to her blog, but that seems fishy.
It reminds my of the flight attendant who lost her job for her blog. http://queenofsky.journalspace.com/ [journalspace.com]
Re:Amusing quotes. (Score:1)
The First Amendment is trumped by Rich Alumni who send their Rich Spoiled Brats to the university, paying (I mean wasting) tons of money on tuition, housing, and, eventually, big alumni donations.
Re:Amusing quotes. (Score:2)
And then there was the Washingtonienne [blogspot.com] debacle...
Whose rights? (Score:1, Insightful)
Who's? You mean "who is"? Or "who has"? "Who was"?
Pertinent question, though. Surely the lecturer's blogging activities, although possibly unprofessional, were completely within the realm of acceptibility -- as long as she wasn't giving away enough specific personal information so as to convey the identities of the people she was writing about.
Hmm. Newsflash: Kids these days are fucked up. Film at 11.
Re:Whose rights? (Score:2, Redundant)
Zero sympathy (Score:4, Interesting)
Sorry, zero sympathy from me. Beyond the fact that she blatantly despises half her students and sucks up to the other half by badmouthing the "rich girls" (which is unprofessional enough), violating confidentiality the way she did is way over the line. A tenure-track professor should have been bounced for doing what she did, never mind an adjunct.
Points off to SMU for weaseling about it, though.
Re:Zero sympathy (Score:2)
(Emphasis is mine)
I think they couldn't have picked a worse person to teach that kind of class. This is just so surreal.
Re:Zero sympathy (Score:1)
i dunno, how could you say someone is an 'expert' on ethics if they haven't run the full spectrum on it?
Re:Zero sympathy (Score:2)
I hope this was sarcasm.
In the case it wasn't, by the same logic a judge would need to commit all possible crimes to be able to judge them.
Re:Zero sympathy (Score:1)
sheesh. black, white, or chartreuse? pick -only- one for your argument.
Re:Zero sympathy (Score:2)
Re:Zero sympathy (Score:4, Interesting)
Did you RTFB? She claims and after reading through some of the blog I would agree that she was very careful to protect students' privacy. As a teacher myself, and former adjunct, her stories sound like the typical mix of frustration and admiration that teachers everywhere have for their students. She certainly makes a better attempt at protecting student anonymity than most faculty lounge conversations. She is not writing vitriolic diatribes, but is simply laughing and crying over human foibles.
Re:Zero sympathy (Score:3, Insightful)
Bad mouthing students is sufficient in my mind for canning her. If you are in a business and you run around publically bad mouthing your clients, don't be shocked when you get the pink slip and your colleagues shun you. That's the real world.
Repeating stories told in confidence is immoral. I imagine that psy
Re:Zero sympathy (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Zero sympathy (Score:1)
She's like, I'm fired? Why?
She thinks it's because of her blog? She was probably just bad at her job.
Re:Zero sympathy (Score:2)
She struck me as someone who really cares about teaching and her students, and she certainly didn't name names.
I don't think it's bad for students to know what teachers really think of them. It might even create some empathy in the minds of the students.
I now work for a Chemistry professor at a major university, and I know that I would have felt differently about my college experience if I knew about the hard work, long nights and love that goes into teaching a class.
D
URL (for the google challanged) (Score:4, Informative)
http://phantomprof.blogspot.com/ [blogspot.com]
It is entertaining actually.
Pics (for those still living in the basement) (Score:2)
Her name is Elaine Liner: More here:
From her blog... (Score:2)
Hmmm....
1. Write a blog about your job and the idiots you work with/teach
2. Get fired for it
3. Get an agent
4. ???
5. Profit!
Spoiled college students (Score:1)
Re:Spoiled college students (Score:1)
Re:Looking forward to when she resent herself... (Score:2)
Well said. I actually once worked with Elaine, when she was writing TV and movie reviews for the Corpus Christi Caller-Times. "Full of herself," as another poster here put it, doesn't even begin to describe her. Just read her last column [caller2.com] for a taste.
She left the Caller-Times to take a job as media critic for the Toledo Blade. She was gone from there
Wait... (Score:1)
Liner, listed on a campus directory as a lecturer, is still working toward a master's degree.
Re:Wait... (Score:2)
The most important statement of them all: (Score:4, Insightful)
What they don't realize is that it's just college. These are just little assignments that teachers give so we can figure out what grades to type in next to your name at the end of the semester. They're not life and death, these grades, these papers, these group projects. They're very often little more than glorified busywork. Truth? They're to prepare you for a career of TPS Reports and annual "employee self-evaluations."
Re:The most important statement of them all: (Score:2)
Most of the good schools that teach you skills, coming all from my limited scope and experience visiting many campuses across the US of A over the past 10 years and reading the curriculum are in fact, a hard search to boot. The old days of a name from an ivy league college are at an
Re:The most important statement of them all: (Score:1, Troll)
First, you decry the fact that colleges produce mindless drones. Then you say you want a drone. And then you say you don't. And, in the end, you still think the ideal employee has a degree.
What is it? Do you want employees that "actually work and be efficient", or do you want people who "do what their told"?
Just another crappy blog, move along. (Score:2)
Of course, my idea of entertainment is slashdot, so I really shouldn't point fingers... oh, yes, I'm a student at SMU, too. But at the geek campus
There's farked and there's farked (Score:2, Interesting)
I probably should be on meds but practice willful almost psychotic disassociation from myself and my cares and instead go right past all the stages, right past acceptance, to someplace riding the wave ahead of everything. This place