They go by various names. “The IHUM kid.” “That guy.” “The girl in the front row.” But none of those terms really captures the idea.

After all, IHUM kids can, and do, exist in classes other than IHUM. “That guy” doesn’t necessarily mean anything negative, and someone who is sitting in the front row may very well have had nowhere else to sit.

Therefore, I propose a new term: Olmecs. The Olmec people were a Pre-Columbian tribe living in tropical Mexico. Little is known about them, except that they left behind extremely large stone head statues. The same sized head is strikingly prevalent in Stanford’s population. Thus, the Olmecs.

In discussions with friends, many theories have been put forth as to the origin of these mysterious large heads. But I have realized that the problem is an institutional one. Stanford, as an institution, lacks the ability to frighten its students. More importantly, it is unable to instill in them a sense of their own insignificance.

I’ve heard quite a few people asking each other after lecture, with reference to these notorious Olmecs, “Do you think she knows that everyone finds her annoying?” But this question is phrased incorrectly. It should be, “Do you think she cares that everyone finds her annoying?” The answer is a resounding “No!”. Out of sheer arrogance, she has transcended the plane of normal, physical beings, and rests instead in the ethereal realm of the demigods. And it is worth noting, you can’t teach a demigod anything she doesn’t already know.

We need something huge, something imposing, some Gothic architecture, for God’s sake. Something to remind us how tiny and stupid we are. But where the hell are we going to find this, on a campus whose tallest building is a hilariously phallic observation tower? It takes away from some of the architectural gravitas to think that scores of Asian tourists ascend daily this monumental metaphorical shaft to reach what amounts to a reservoir tip.

We need gargoyles, we need the accumulated grime of centuries, we need a museum that showcases medieval torture exhibits. Because this whole “the sky is the limit” crap is producing too many overconfident know-it-alls.

If it were up to me, and clearly it’s not, the school would provide the most oppressive possible learning environment. Free discussion, bam, out the window. Comments in lecture? Gone. Going up to the professor after class? Verboten. Each morning, I would broadcast over a speaker system, “You are nothing. You are roughly 20 years old. Your knowledge, if it exists at all, is worthless.”

I think we need something akin to the medieval university system, where students, known as “bajans,” were subjugated into positions of inferiority, forced to undergo a degrading rite of passage known as the “jocund advent.” After a year in the university, the students lost their lowly bajan status by expounding and debating on a written text.

In medieval universities, students could expect to receive frequent smacks with a birch rod, wielded by a firm and unyielding master. It was an oppressive and humiliating atmosphere — appropriate, given its monastic foundations.

In all seriousness, it may not be necessary to go to such extremes, but I am at a loss as to how to silence the braggarts of Stanford University.

True, for every Arrogant Andy, Stanford seems to have two Modest Mandys. But it just so happens that the arrogant know-it-alls are at least twice as annoying. Andys, get out of my education system. Go live in a domed island enclosure, and power your bubble-bound colony by means of a generator that runs on hot air, your chief agricultural output.

Education is founded on an abstract notion of “free dialogue.” In talking about pressing issues, we can understand the world view of others, and inform our own. But whatever this vague term may mean, I know what it doesn’t mean: turning on the spigot of our collective vocal orifices and letting everything spew forth. I fear that instead of encouraging the free exchange of ideas, educational discussion all too often gives a free pass to the talkative under-informed.

Intelligence is not established in direct correlation to the number of words that can come out of your mouth. It is something that is earned through disgrace, through painful realization of the inadequacy of your personal world view.

Where is the Socratic method these days, the one designed to repeatedly question students into the painful admission of fault? This isn’t to say that I’m advocating some sort of “find peace with the establishment” philosophy. Quite the contrary, a system of forced humility would instill in students an even greater desire to eventually establish their own philosophies. After repeated humbling, students could perhaps become people who might legitimately be called experts.

Right now, however, they are still Olmecs. And as such, their heads are filled with nothing but worthless stone.