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By "very limited basis", you mean that they were outliers, i.e., extraordinary exceptions to the rule. The dishonesty of the OP lies in part in an implication that such are so common as to be a part of the norm.
But your supposition is that your child is too incompetent to manage incompetent professors. Why is that? Why is your nearly graduated child unable to be her own advocate as an ADULT?
I didn't make that supposition at all. You and nearly everyone on this thread are simply making up things that I DID NOT SAY. Everything you just said is TOTALLY MADE UP IN YOUR OWN IMAGINATION and irrelevant to the intent of the thread.
I had hoped to have an intelligent discussion on how the cost of college may be driving changing perceptions in the roles of parents and students, but I see that is impossible.
Status:
"I don't understand. But I don't care, so it works out."
(set 4 days ago)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Katarina Witt
Oh, come on! I've heard teachers complain that their evaluations depend on this online gossip, and some of it really is off-base.
Interestingly also, my daughter just Saturday married a guy she met while he was a TA in electrical engineering at the U of CO. One time they were at a party held by one of her friends, and it turned out that her friend's date had had my SIL for a TA and hated him b/c he thought SIL was a hard-a**. Actually, this guy is very sweet, and I can't imagine him being a bad teacher or mean to his students. I can really, really imagine him expecting his students to actually do their work!
My experience is that "rate my teacher" tends to be pretty fair. My sister teaches at a community college, and she was the one who showed me this site when my kids were enrolling in college. Her ratings crack me up - several rated her "hot" and one said "I've heard he's really hard". Hahahaha. But by and large, the huge bulk of her ratings are spot on. She's hard, she expects a lot, but she's fair and she's excellent at teaching.
Like anything with online ratings, you do have to listen to the bulk of the opinions and toss out the oddball responses that don't seem to fit.
No you don't get it. Everyone seems to be reading this completely different than what I said. I didn't say any of these things. Mine's a senior, been an RA since her freshman year, a member of several student boards, and about to graduate. We never intervened on anything. Basically everything you said above is made up conjecture on your part. And a complete distraction from the topic at hand.
I'm trying to have a discussion on cost vs performance and responsibility at the college level. Why is everyone so eager to give professors a pass on performance?
No one's giving professors a pass. You seem to be reading things into some of the posts, that aren't there. I was just trying to solve a problem; you presented a problem of a student being stuck with a lousy professor. I was suggesting a potential way out of the situation, so he could salvage the semester (depending on how long the semester's been going), avoiding the whole wasted-money issue. It's a practical solution (again, depending...)
I never said you'd intervened in anything. You asked where the line is, between "legitimate intervention" and helicopter parenting, so I answered that question, and then proposed a possible easy solution to the problem, if the semester isn't too far along. If your student could transfer to a different section of the class (if there is one), or maybe drop the class and register for another one that fulfills the same requirement (depending on availability), or can make up the class the following semester, or perhaps in summer, or perhaps through an online class at the same university, you wouldn't even need to ask the "cost vs. performance & responsibility" question. The issue would be moot. Win-win, right?
Did you come here expecting we'd all rally behind your crusade to report the teacher? What would your goal be there, if you don't mind clarifying? Getting the professor fired or sanctioned in some way? Getting a portion of your tuition money refunded? These aren't realistic goals, as others have said. On a forum, you're going to get different opinions. You may not even get any that you like, or a few saying, "Right on, mom, but the deck is stacked against you".
It's not a good idea to attack people who are trying to help you, or simply to answer your questions.
This kind of came up in another thread, but really didn't get discussed there. But does pose an interesting issue/dilemma. Given the cost of college today, what is the line between helicoptering and legitimate intervention at the college level?
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And that sets the stage for the dilemma: As a parent you want your kids to deal with their own issues. But also as a parent (and taxpayer in the case of public colleges) you don't want to waste thousands/tens of thousands due to professor Dinghead.
My question is what could you do in that case anyway?
Like what would the parent be able to do that the kid couldn't?
Some kids will need more support from family navigating the system and that is evident in the dropout rates of first generation college students who don't get advice from their parents. This is not new at all and there's nothing wrong with asking advice from family who's been there. I just don't see how direct parental involvement would help unless you are giving some huge endowment to the school and then why not, do what you want to help your kid succeed, and thanks for supporting higher education.
And that sets the stage for the dilemma: As a parent you want your kids to deal with their own issues. But also as a parent (and taxpayer in the case of public colleges) you don't want to waste thousands/tens of thousands due to professor Dinghead.
There is no dilemma here. "Kids" in college are adults.
I think y'all are making the assumption that whatever happens, is always the students fault. Which is not true. I've tried to make it clear I'm not talking about lack of studying or lack of trying. I'm talking things that only the professor and college can fix. And we all know that the college will support the professor regardless. Once they get tenure, they're untouchable regardless of how poor their performance. Had one when I went through that was so bad the entire class staged a walk out and went to the dean. You know the dean's answer? "Yes, we know how bad he is, but he has tenure so there's nothing we can do about it."
If you paid $40K for a car that turned out to be a lemon, would you say "well, life's not fair, guess I'll have to accept it" or would you be raising holy heck over it? That's my point for this -- we let colleges off the hook on too many things because "students need to deal with it" or "they need to learn life's not fair" or similar platitudes that do nothing to fix the underlying problem. Poor performance isn't acceptable in other walks of life -- why is it acceptable in education?
How do you get that? Although I would say the odds support the instructor/professor and I don't know how a parent will get an unbiased view of the situation so as to be able to make any kind of fair judgement other than just blindly supporting their kid.
Sounds like you really hate the whole concept of higher ed. except to get a piece of paper the easiest way possible - maybe you shouldn't pay for something you don't believe in?
When I was in college, when we'd fill out those surveys, professors would always remind us that they had tenure, that they could not be fired no matter what, and that what scores we give them have absolutely no effect.
Not sure where you went but none of my instructors in college or grad school ever said that. Besides - there are online versions students can use to decide which instructor to take - that's been going on for 20 years so yeah...
I think y'all are making the assumption that whatever happens, is always the students fault. Which is not true. I've tried to make it clear I'm not talking about lack of studying or lack of trying. I'm talking things that only the professor and college can fix. And we all know that the college will support the professor regardless. Once they get tenure, they're untouchable regardless of how poor their performance. Had one when I went through that was so bad the entire class staged a walk out and went to the dean. You know the dean's answer? "Yes, we know how bad he is, but he has tenure so there's nothing we can do about it."
If you paid $40K for a car that turned out to be a lemon, would you say "well, life's not fair, guess I'll have to accept it" or would you be raising holy heck over it? That's my point for this -- we let colleges off the hook on too many things because "students need to deal with it" or "they need to learn life's not fair" or similar platitudes that do nothing to fix the underlying problem. Poor performance isn't acceptable in other walks of life -- why is it acceptable in education?
Of course it's not always the student's fault. But it's the student's responsibility to deal with the situation.
If my car turned out to be a lemon, I wouldn't expect my "mommy" to call the dealer and fix the situation. You're in college, you're adult enough to fix it yourself. When does it end, if the parent "fixes" college? The first job? The second job?
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