Confrontations That Have Taught Me

Senior year is probably a pretty hectic year normally, however, when you top it off with taking thirteen dual credit hours at the local community college it steps up to a whole new level of hectic.  I have to say I am enjoying it though, despite it sometimes being a bit of a culture shock.  My whole time at BCC has been very interesting.  I have met people I will never forget, some because of how much they annoyed me but other because of how good of friends they were.  As a Christian, I was for about the first time confronted with people who disagreed with my religous views.  Thankfully, I had parents and a church that had well prepared me for confrontation.  

My first confontation was with my lab partner in my basic chemistry class.  I found out he was homeschooled also and, as most homeschoolers are, I asked him if he was a Christian.  I was surprised to hear a negative response.  Well I asked him what he did belive then.  His answers were very wide and distorted.  However, his main points were, he belived there was a "god" but he didn't belive we could know anything about him (kind of like a deist), and he belived that this "god" had set off evolution.  However, he did say that he didn't believe evolution was logical, but it was cooler then creation, so he chose to believe it.  I realized about then that he was really illogical.  In fact, he told me he was really logical.  I figured that was about he only logical thought he'd ever had.  My lab partner and I had many discussion about religion and evolution and I found it very difficult to engage in these conversations mostly for the reason that he was extremly illogica and couldn't follow my reasoning.  I will admit, I am not great logician, but I do know the basics, which was more then I could say for him.  However, despite our many arguments, my lab partner and I still remained friendly towards each other.  If I had felt like it was really aggravating him, I probably would have stopped.  

My second confrontation was with my Comp 1 teacher.  You may have read my blog post "Is Language Sexist."  That was him.  He seemed like a pretty nice guy when I first started taking his class.  A warning signal went up in my mind though even the first day, though I tried to disregard it.  The whole class was introducing themselves and we shared our favorite book/movie.  Well my favorite book has always been Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen.  My teacher said (something like this), "Oh yes, Jane Austen writes really good books about young women moving past the rules of society to get what the truly want."  I about gagged.  If Jane Austen's novels had been about that I never would have read them.  This rather feminist remark though was just a taster of what was to come.  I am not going to restate what was in "Is Language Sexist," you can check it out for yourself but that was a whole big "issue" we talked about.  Anyways, I had the whole "Is Language Sexist," his talks about homosexuality being okay, and his thoughts on decriminalizing prostitution.  Sometimes the class's discussions on the decriminalizing of prostitution turned disgusting and/or disturbing, which really aggravated and shocked me.  I really was wondering sometimes if I was in the right class. It sure didn't seem like a Comp 1 class to me. The worst part of the whole discussions was that my Comp 1 teacher would always bring up the subject, pretend he wasn't sharing his opinions, ask our opinions, bash our opinions, and then say he wasn't bashing our opinions.

These two confrontations were very frustrating at times but as I look back I think they also taught me.  If I could go back in time I would get a different Comp 1 teacher, but I would stay with my basic chem class plus lab partner.  Yes those two experiences taught me a lot, but while one of them was more on a friendly level, the other was just ridiculous and oftentimes disgusting and disturbing.  Did they teach me?  Yes they did.  Would I repeat them?  Maybe one, but not the other.

Lois Johnson, avid writer, tea drinker, and reader but first and foremost, avid Christian.