I’m not a fisherman, but I know when something smells fishy.

One’s position as a professor has never made that person an expert, just as an abundance of experience has never been a prerequisite for knowing everything.

In the time I have spent in school, I have always believed the job of a teacher was one of the most underpaid and underappreciated ones in the world.

I have always had the utmost respect for any and every instructor I have ever had.

Whether they be a teacher, parent or even a coach, my respect for those that have the ability, and even more importantly, the heart to teach anyone has never wavered.

Yet, in what is nearly the end of my undergraduate experience I have gained a new outlook on those I have had so much respect for.

In maturity we learn different things: what love is all about (although some never learn), what life is all about and where we really want to be in the next five years.

However, it also seems that in maturity some of us have learned impatience, chastisement and disrespect.

It hurts me when I think there might be a few people who I am supposed to respect who have no idea what the word means.

With a heavy heart, many students, like myself, have realized at times sincerity with oneself is not rewarded as it should be. Many of us have realized that by believing in our abilities to do our jobs and attempting to do these jobs to the best of those abilities we will not be met with simple respect but instead we will be attacked by the axe of a professor’s inability to understand.

College is a world of change, a world of ideas and surely a world of different opinions. It is the place where ideas, inventions and positions have and always will be formed.

Life in college IS life on the edge; IT IS life to the extreme, as extreme as each and every student can make it. Life as an entity is the extreme, and life in college is helped by the many extremes professors help us discover.

My job as a student editor of the Daily is to put out the best paper I can five days a week. My job involves learning and making mistakes — mistakes many editors before me also have made.

As an editor of this paper, I must insure the paper against any libel suits or any other problems that may arise from what is printed in it. This includes letters to the editor.

We make it a point to try to print every letter we receive, no matter who it is from. However, the line is drawn on any material we deem inappropriate or any material we feel may result in any trouble for our newspaper.

People have disagreements all the time, but the Daily is not the place for anyone — students, professors or otherwise — to bicker back and forth like a bunch of cackling geese.

In this world we always will encounter and experience something someone else can relate to or something someone will disagree with. We cannot even agree with our instructors all the time, but these discussions are what we call learning.

In any student’s quest to become his or her own person or in the quest to do their jobs, they must be allowed to form their own opinions and be allowed to do the jobs they have been entrusted to do. These opinions and positions must be those of the student — not those of their parents, friends, lovers or professors.

I hurt whenever I hear of or see an instructor who, despite having the respect of much of the campus, feels as though they can treat a student like a theatre audience. As if they are supposed to be captivated by the performance.

It is a shame when an educated, well-versed and very interesting professor insinuates the truth of a rumor circulating the campus instead of asking the subject of rumor if it is true or not.

It makes we wonder how some people might treat their children. It makes me wonder how they really feel about being a teacher.

There is nothing wrong with having an opinion of your own, formulated on your own and even explained by you and no one else.

We are students, not children, as we tend to be treated. We are students, not the kids we are at times made out to be.

Does the fact you have more than 30 years chronological seniority on me make you my superior?

No, it makes you my elder, and I respect my elders. But my mamma always told me respect is (forgive the clich‚) a two-way street. Respect me and I’ll respect ya’ back, slap me and … well, you get the picture.

So, for an instructor to decide he or she has a problem with how we do our jobs is a bit unfair. And for that professor to challenge a student and attempt to invoke some misconstrued authority, simply because “we should have more respect for them,” only makes the teacher appear intolerant.

In such cases the student should be given an apology.

Trying to go over the head of a student editor is sophomoric, disrespectful and may I say very, very unbecoming of a professor.

In such cases the student should be owed an apolog. I have been there and I have seen it happen. It brings about a loss of respect from student to teacher.

We are the final say in the paper and we are the professionals you professionals must deal with. So just face the music.

We are professionals whether you like it or not. We are student-professional journalists learning to do a job the right way, much like a recent college graduate in a first job experience.

It hurts to see instructors of our future who still have lessons to learn. The act is getting old and all the drama has to stop.

But then that’s just my opinion.

Later y’all!

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Rhaason Mitchell is a senior in journalism and mass communication from Chicago. He is managing editor of the Daily.