Should I challenge my professor who thinks he's always right?

Question

One of my professors has been in the IT development fields for over 40 years. He thinks he is up-to-date with all the latest research and technology. But I believe he's not.

The problem is - he hates when a student (like me) dares to point out his mistakes or flaws in reasoning. Or when a student suggests a better (modern) solution to a problem.

How to deal with such a situation - should I keep challenging him or keep quiet until the end of semester? I don't want to lose grades (he's been known to give lower grades to students who asked him too many questions he wasn't able to properly answer).

Answer 1

Short answer: Probably not.

As you pointed out, you may lose out on grades by challenging this professor. A larger problem, in my opinion, is when you (the student) approach the class with an attitude of discovering the professor's many mistakes. With this attitude, you also lose out on the opportunity to learn from his expertise. While this particular professor may not be as modern as you would like, it does not mean you cannot learn from him!

Keep quiet until the end of the semester, except when you have a valid question. And don't approach intending to prove him wrong; approach intending to find out how you can learn from what he knows. Ask questions because you want to learn, not because you want to prove the professor wrong. If you believe you know a better solution, it might be appropriate to ask "Would this solution also work? If not, why not?" Ask, don't tell. Your professor is human too, and most of us have a hard time always responding graciously to a smarty-pants student who thinks they know more than we do!

Answer 2

Have you ever seen a skit on The Chapelle Show called, "When keeping it real goes wrong"?

Trust me when I tell you that every class in every semester has a student that thinks he or she knows it all.

It can be hard to stand in front of a class and have all the answers. Sometimes when I've stood up there and say something, I've felt rushed to give an answer so I don't look stupid, and it just came out all wrong so I looked (or felt) even more stupid. Then I just walk around for two days realizing how stupid I am.

Even the best professors can be wrong, but the better ones will at least correct themselves in the next class or send out an email explaining something further.

The best way to handle the professor isn't necessarily to try and show them up in class, but to either go to office hours and ask for clarification. If you still think they are wrong, explain where you found the answer and show them.

If its worth the time to engage them at all, then that can be best way to do it. If they don't respond well in that situation, then its not worth your time and you should just keep quiet and focus on your grade.

Believe me, as an undergraduate I've battled many worthless TAs only to have the head of their department say that they have to back up the TA because that's just how its done.

When I got to graduate school, it was a different ballgame and I really put a professor through the ringer with the department when she tried to give me a bad grade because she was incompetent. But when I did that, I slowly went up the chain, documented every conversation and interaction, highlighted the syllabus, noted changes she made mid-semester to the syllabus, and then made a formal complaint. In turn, the professor was reprimanded by both the head of faculty and head of graduate studies, and my grade was fixed. But that was a serious slog to get through.

Answer 3

Here in the United States, critical thinking is one of the core values of our higher education system. This is a social and institutional value that is opposite to the values seen in many other cultures, where the professor is always right, even when s/he is wrong. A competent college professor in the US should always welcome skeptical comments from students. The word "skeptic" itself comes simply from the Greek verb "to think." If you're not being skeptical, you're not thinking.

Of course, these values are not universal. For example, the educational system in India is infamous for teaching by rote memorization and discouraging critical thinking.

As a professor, I've often made mistakes in class and been very grateful to students who corrected them. I often joke to my students that if I inadvertently wrote 2+2=5 on the board, I worry that they would come up to me after class and ask, "Professor, you wrote 2+2=5 on the board. I always thought it was 4, but is 5 the answer you want us to give on the test?"

You should not refrain from asking questions in class because of any fear that it will confuse other students or make the professor fall behind and not have time to finish the lecture. Mistakes are very confusing to other students until they're corrected, and the reason you have a textbook is so that you have a source of information for any topics that there wasn't enough time to cover in class.

Of course you should exercise normal tact, consideration, and humility. The goal is not to fight a battle with your teacher, it's to help yourself and everyone else in the class understand the subject correctly. There's the joke that at the age of 20, I knew everything, but now that I'm older I know a lot less. In computer science, there are basic principles that don't change much over time (a quick sort scales better than a bubble sort), but there's a lot of other random junk that amounts to styles and fads (choices of particular computer languages). Don't fall into the trap of thinking that there's something wrong with your professor just because he doesn't emphasize the flavor of the week.

he's been known to give lower grades to students who asked him too many questions he wasn't able to properly answer

It's hard for me to imagine how you would know this. It's not as though you have access to records of what these other students' grades were on every assignment and a side-by-side comparison with what the grades would have been if they hadn't asked questions. It seems just as likely that these students had overblown opinions of their own abilities and therefore felt their grades were unfair.

Answer 4

Never challenge a lecturer. Ask. If it's something that isn't directly related to PRECISELY the point they're currently teaching, ask during office hours rather than in front of the whole class.

Praise in public, criticize in private -- and criticize by asking "would this have been another answer, and if so why is the one you showed us better", rather than by acccusing.

Quoting Dean Inge: "There are two kinds of fool. One says 'This is old, and therefore good.' The other says 'This is new, and therefore better.'" Before demonstrating yourself to be the latter type, politely make sure you understand what was actually being taught and why. You may have completely missed the point he was making.

(Note that this is just as true when working with a boss, or even when you're the boss. Start with a discussion rather than assuming one or the other side is inherently true and that there must be a winner or loser. In the end, the boss does have the final say, because they have to consider more than just the technical merits of that one point, but you're a lot more likely to have a pleasant and productive experience if you try to work with people rather than against them.)

One more thought: "who thinks he's always right" is more of a comment about your attitude than about that of the instructor. Of COURSE he thinks what he's teaching is correct, or he wouldn't be teaching it. That doesn't mean he can't be wrong, but it does mean you need to respectfully justify your objection if you want it (and yourself) to be taken seriously. And unless the error is a simple typo/"thinko", that's likely to take more time than should be sliced out of most lectures. Talk to him afterward. He can always announce a correction at the next lecture if you convince him that one is needed. And if you can't convince him, ask yourself why not rather than assuming he's just being an ass.

Answer 5

Let me put it like this, he is the teacher and you are the student. Ask yourself if the things he is wrong about, are really worth mentioning. If not, then it is probably best you keep quiet, and don't compromise your grades. There are always going to be people like him. If you keep trying to challenge him, you may very well become a 'right' fighter yourself, like him.

Answer 6

It depends on whether this teacher is dangerously wrong or not.

If his teaching the wrong things to everyone then he needs to be challenged. Challenging him in class won't help. Talk to him in his comfort zone and find out what you can. If he is genuinely a bad teacher, you need to find your campus support network and work out how to escalate the problem.

But in this case it sounds like he is a good teacher, trying to get through a lesson as others have said, but not necessarily completely up-to-date or good at putting down smart-arses.

In this case, learn what you can, he might have old ideas that are really great! When you can teach his class, critique it.

Answer 7

Consider the situation as something like you're going to paint an abstract image - you're free to sketch whatever you can imagine but there has to be a meaning or purpose for what you're doing. The point is this: your professor is probably unaware of what you consider as "flaw" in dealing with his students, as such, serving as his "shadow" could make him realize such thing. But if he is aware, then the problem is not to think about the ways to harmoniously deal with him; rather, you should adjust with the kind of classroom atmosphere that he wants.

It's indeed "abstract" because no one else really knows the best way to have the kind of learning environment or teacher that you want other than you...

Answer 8

This depends a lot on the country and university specifics. However during my studies once happened for me to observe students replacing professor they deemed it is not competent enough for the particular course.

The student group should apply to university management asking to replace the teacher as not good enough. Of course, such application must list multiple factual errors in presented material, uncovered topics that you consider important for the subject, examples of undelivered information that you think would be highly relevant to the given lecture and the like. Significant number of students should apply so it would be difficult just to represent this as a personal conflict.

If the teaching person is not a head of laboratory / department but instead is under supervision of another competent professor, you may also talk to his supervisor. Some universities concentrate on research so deeply that teaching may be delegated to somebody more junior and less experienced.

If you cannot find enough arguments or supporters for this procedure, the professor is actually competent ...

Answer 9

It's his job to instill to his students he knows everything so they will listen and follow him. All you would be doing is damaging what he is trying to build with his students.

It won't go well for you, nor offer you anything positive in the course and most likely harm your grades. If you know more then most, then instead of using it to attack your teacher, do something that will equally give you what I believe you do want from the teacher -- "His respect, & knowing you are very knowledgeable" -- by offering assistance to other students who do need help.

This way you get to show your intelligence in the field, your teacher will love the help in class with most teachers already being spread thin, and he will most likely shine on your grades better. Even if "YOU" do make a mistake, because of the effort at assisting others, he may overlook it when grading.