UCL contempt for students -- never a good idea

I have been thinking further on the content of my last post -- and need to stress that I am not seeking to go after students here.  On the contrary, my whole point relates to the teachers who apparently show so little respect for the next generation of archaeologists that they think they cannot cope with disputes -- unless those disputes are of course "historical" and deemed worthy of distant and detached analysis.

Students may not want to bury their heads in the sand -- but if they are forced to, what is their room for manoevre?

I recently did a Facebook post in which I explained that when I was a student, I had a fantastic tutor called Ted Paget whose teaching philosophy was quite simple: "I know quite a lot, but not enough. It's my job to make sure you end up being smarter than me." I tried to carry that on into my own teaching career in Durham University.

Ted Paget, geography tutor and Fellow of Jesus College Oxford -- a man who published hardly anything, but a great teacher.......

Now, it appears, UCL students reading Archaeology are being told by certain senior academics that everything they are taught is "the truth" and that anybody who disputes the conclusions of their own research must simply be ignored. I thought that sort of thing went out over a century ago with the demise of powerful professors who looked on themselves as intellectual giants and "formers of opinion" -- but apparently that old style of thinking is still alive and kicking, in some remote backwaters......

I wonder how widespread this is?  If it is, we as a society are in serious trouble.