Learning is easy when you're younger. In elementary, middle, and high school the subjects taught require very few inserted opinions: there's scientific proof, historical facts, and mathematical evidence. In these instances, there is rarely a common "popular" opinion on the content, or even a dissenting one, because facts are facts.

Yet, in college this all changes. Sure, you can still learn history, however, history is viewed from different perspectives and discussed within different contexts. When you add this varied discussion to the current political environment, and factor in professor and student opinions, it gets really messy.

So how do we draw the line between what is acceptable in a college classroom and what is not? How do we mitigate this increasing number of conflicting opinions on factual information?

This distinction between teachers who teach and teachers who "preach" is becoming increasingly harder to navigate. There are professors who can teach a subject, discuss the facts, throw in their own opinion on the topic, then return to teaching... and then there are professors who teach and plan their lessons around their own opinion, and even worse, expect their students to adopt these beliefs without questioning them.

Yet, is this the way college professors should teach? Is it now acceptable for professors to put students through a molding process so that they leave the course spewing the same thoughts as their teacher? Or, should students be given the facts from multiple perspectives and then form their own opinions without fear of being penalized?

It is becoming increasingly prominent for professors at primarily liberal universities to become perpetrators of "preach-y" teaching. Some students even point out that this is much more common in humanities studies, where it is easier to place historical facts within the professors' preferred context.

Even worse, some professors even punish their students with poor grades when the student's opinions do not line up with their own. It's one thing for a professor to teach historical fact and then state their own opinion on it.

However, when professors decide that their opinion is the only valid one and then purposefully leave out information that would mitigate their beliefs and what they're teaching, there is a MAJOR issue that needs to be addressed. College students should be able to explore course content with an open mind - they shouldn't be forced into a certain mindset just so they can please their professor.

I believe that this is the problem with our world today. People form beliefs on certain topics without being fully educated on the subject. Until professors provide the well-rounded education that students deserve, there will always be ignorant comments at the forefront of important discussions.

Students have the right to learn facts in their classes, and they should be afforded the opportunity to form their own educated opinions without the fear of being penalized.