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bsenftner 2 hours ago

We do not teach people, students, how to explore ideas as a group in a collective exploratory discussion. Students get impressed, meaning their peers with social status use the opportunity of a group conversation to impress social hierarchy: they ridicule ideas they think are "outsider concepts", and this behavior is not suppressed by the student's instructors, they often condone and participate. This is at the foundation level, of learning not to offer ideas that might be outside of the mainstream. The ideas and concepts are there, but they are held private because their environment includes bullies that suppress non-mainstream perceptions.

This in itself is negative, but the ramifications are profound: the landscape of ideas is never realized by a material percentage of the students. And those who could have contributed worthwhile insights have been taught to not contribute.