Professor fired for being too tough (private schools, costs, courses, teachers)

[DXBtoFL]

Originally Posted by Ruth4Truth

He'd always gotten good reviews from his students before though, and even won a teaching award. And quite a few students sent letters of support after they heard there had been complaints. It doesn't sound like his issue was an inability to teach. Unfortunately, the article didn't mention what his colleagues' experience was in their Organic Chem classes, and if they were encountering similar problems.
Whatever happened to just avoiding the people you have "personal differences" with? Start swinging, just because of missing 2 years of in-person schooling? Were these kids raised by wolves?! That makes no sense. And the way you learn how to work on a group project is by doing it. No one knows how to work on a group project until one is assigned. You figure it out as you go along.

I'd like to see some psychologists' comments on these issues. I find it hard to believe that students can go through 10 years of schooling, and suddenly in 2 years forget how to read and answer questions. Especially when they were being given assignments to read and questions to answer on those assignments throughout those 2 years. But even without that, how do you forget how to read and understand questions? If it were so easy to lost those skills, students who took a gap year after high school would arrive at college completely lost, but that doesn't happen.

I have several friends who are professors at reputable and elite colleges. All have commented on a significant decline in the quality of student capabilities in the last few years. A big part is surely COVID related, it's what happens when you have sudden transition to unmonitored remote learning for more than a year and major disruptions to the college years. On the high school levels, in many school districts, particularly urban districts, students were just promoted to the next year regardless of abysmal performances. There's been plenty of recent studies and articles talking about this.

When you're an adult in your 40s and 50s, a handful of years mean nothing, you're just as competent at 45 as at 42. But for youths, there's a huge difference from 15 to 18, or 17 to 20, including in developmental learning. When high school and college kids miss a year of learning or have 2-3 years of learning seriously disrupted by COVID policies, it has a much greater effect on the building of knowledge and capabilities to study than it does for a working adult who simply switched to remote working for a few years.

However, the overall decline that my teaching friends see is also related to a greater mollycoddling of students and the preference of educational systems to allow students to fail upwards without challenging them, which in turn means these students never really learn how to responsibly address their natural limitations in demanding subjects, such as in this organic chemistry course. Even in my college days 20 years ago, a high percentage of students at my elite university's organic chem courses were weeded out, but no one complained. But today we have political and cultural pressure to continue rewarding and promoting certain demographics and you'll notice that in this example of the NYU organic chemistry professor, most people failed by him and seeking his dismissal are from those certain demographics. This is also another unavoidable elephant in the room. And this, I suspect, is the real reason for his firing.

[sheerbliss]

Originally Posted by Ruth4Truth

He'd always gotten good reviews from his students before though, and even won a teaching award. And quite a few students sent letters of support after they heard there had been complaints. It doesn't sound like his issue was an inability to teach. Unfortunately, the article didn't mention what his colleagues' experience was in their Organic Chem classes, and if they were encountering similar problems.

Even pre-pandemic, his reviews at Rate My Professor were mostly average and awful.

https://www.ratemyprofessors.com/professor?tid=1052652

[phetaroi]

Originally Posted by tnff

Afraid I disagree with you here. At what we pay for college today, yes, we are a customer. And as a customer I expect the professor to know the subject and to put effort into teaching that subject. Not half ass it or worse skip out. I expect class to be organized, structured in a logical manner such that the material builds on what was done before. I expect tests to be of a reasonable length for the amount of time allotted to the test and of a reasonable difficulty for the expected level of the class. I expect the test to reflect the material covered and grading to be done in a way that I can figure out what I did wrong and how to fix it.

I expect assignments to be do able and reasonable in scope for the level of the class. I don't expect to be spoon fed, nor do I expect the class to be easy. I expect to do my job, but also expect the professor to do hers.

I've been in way too many classes were none of those expectations were met. Professors late or missing. Ignoring questions. Disorganized to the extent they don't know what material they covered from one day to the next. Grading scales that were, bizarre and undecipherable. Tests composed of silly trick questions. (Example from a class "On page XX the author said "nnnnn." With four possible choices all of which the author said, but which page. Seriously, who asks questions like that.)

No, you're not a customer. You're a client.

[phetaroi]

Originally Posted by DXBtoFL

I have several friends who are professors at reputable and elite colleges. All have commented on a significant decline in the quality of student capabilities in the last few years. A big part is surely COVID related, it's what happens when you have sudden transition to unmonitored remote learning for more than a year and major disruptions to the college years. On the high school levels, in many school districts, particularly urban districts, students were just promoted to the next year regardless of abysmal performances. There's been plenty of recent studies and articles talking about this.

When you're an adult in your 40s and 50s, a handful of years mean nothing, you're just as competent at 45 as at 42. But for youths, there's a huge difference from 15 to 18, or 17 to 20, including in developmental learning. When high school and college kids miss a year of learning or have 2-3 years of learning seriously disrupted by COVID policies, it has a much greater effect on the building of knowledge and capabilities to study than it does for a working adult who simply switched to remote working for a few years.

However, the overall decline that my teaching friends see is also related to a greater mollycoddling of students and the preference of educational systems to allow students to fail upwards without challenging them, which in turn means these students never really learn how to responsibly address their natural limitations in demanding subjects, such as in this organic chemistry course. Even in my college days 20 years ago, a high percentage of students at my elite university's organic chem courses were weeded out, but no one complained. But today we have political and cultural pressure to continue rewarding and promoting certain demographics and you'll notice that in this example of the NYU organic chemistry professor, most people failed by him and seeking his dismissal are from those certain demographics. This is also another unavoidable elephant in the room. And this, I suspect, is the real reason for his firing.

well stated

[mitsguy2001]

Originally Posted by phetaroi

No, you're not a customer. You're a client.

What is the difference? The point is that for the amount of tuition students pay, they deserve a quality education.

[RamenAddict]

Originally Posted by DXBtoFL

I have several friends who are professors at reputable and elite colleges. All have commented on a significant decline in the quality of student capabilities in the last few years. A big part is surely COVID related, it's what happens when you have sudden transition to unmonitored remote learning for more than a year and major disruptions to the college years. On the high school levels, in many school districts, particularly urban districts, students were just promoted to the next year regardless of abysmal performances. There's been plenty of recent studies and articles talking about this.

When you're an adult in your 40s and 50s, a handful of years mean nothing, you're just as competent at 45 as at 42. But for youths, there's a huge difference from 15 to 18, or 17 to 20, including in developmental learning. When high school and college kids miss a year of learning or have 2-3 years of learning seriously disrupted by COVID policies, it has a much greater effect on the building of knowledge and capabilities to study than it does for a working adult who simply switched to remote working for a few years.

However, the overall decline that my teaching friends see is also related to a greater mollycoddling of students and the preference of educational systems to allow students to fail upwards without challenging them, which in turn means these students never really learn how to responsibly address their natural limitations in demanding subjects, such as in this organic chemistry course. Even in my college days 20 years ago, a high percentage of students at my elite university's organic chem courses were weeded out, but no one complained. But today we have political and cultural pressure to continue rewarding and promoting certain demographics and you'll notice that in this example of the NYU organic chemistry professor, most people failed by him and seeking his dismissal are from those certain demographics. This is also another unavoidable elephant in the room. And this, I suspect, is the real reason for his firing.

I also have to wonder if there is also a slowing of the maturation process that has come in recent years generally. I’m not talking just about COVID policies, but since it’s become common for kids as early as late elementary to have their own cell phones. There is something to not relying on having a device on you ALL the time to answer your questions, and kids who start in elementary school with that device may lack the self reliance. I know adults who now live places years and still use GPS to get everywhere. It is one thing to do it I a huge city where you may not drive much and want the GPS to help direct you to the best route, but if it is just your run of the mill city, you should be able to get around on your own after taking a route a few times.

[Dwatted Wabbit]

Originally Posted by Ruth4Truth

I could tell you stories, OP. When I was working at a university, I decided to use my free tuition credits to improve my foreign language skills. At different points, I took 3rd year courses in two languages. Both were excellent courses, great instructors, very dedicated to doing a good job. One was some level of professor (tenure track), the other one, I'm not sure, as she was a native speaker of the language, and may have been in a special category for people without advanced degrees, but who were skilled instructors of their native language.

Both got canned after I took their fall trimester course. I didn't even know anything was going on, but I heard later, that in each case the students had complained the courses were too hard. In the Spanish class, I remember a new prof taking over, who taught at highschool level, handing out sentences to translate from English and in class, students took turns writing out their translations on the board. I remember them saying they liked that method better, than being given writing assignments, essays to write in the target language, based on the literature readings we were doing.

IMO translating a list of 10 sentences is not 3rd-year university-level work. And since when do students call the shots, and set the standards for instruction?! The other class was similar; we were reading literary essays, and the homework was to write short stories on themes similar to each reading. Great teacher, but no, the students thought she was asking too much.


It's a good thing none of us had to take organic chemistry!

Since the inmates started running the asylums. We are devolving. By design.

[tnff]

Originally Posted by phetaroi

No, you're not a customer. You're a client.

A minor difference in terminology that doesn't change the point. Ultimately any professional in a client relationship has to provide good services or lose that client. And if they continue to provide poor services, they will go out of business.

Where is that ultimate recourse in the education industry? How many educators are in actual fear of losing their jobs due to poor performance? Very, very few. How many school systems, if their "clients" had an actual choice to go elsewhere (vouchers?) would remain in business as a "professional" service? How many teachers would be willing to work under an actual client/professional relationship?

[RamenAddict]

Originally Posted by tnff

A minor difference in terminology that doesn't change the point. Ultimately any professional in a client relationship has to provide good services or lose that client. And if they continue to provide poor services, they will go out of business.

Where is that ultimate recourse in the education industry? How many educators are in actual fear of losing their jobs due to poor performance? Very, very few. How many school systems, if their "clients" had an actual choice to go elsewhere (vouchers?) would remain in business as a "professional" service? How many teachers would be willing to work under an actual client/professional relationship?

This is often an argument within any sector for privatization. However, privatization rarely results in the gains that were touted. The thing with public schools, particularly in the US, is that they must take every student within the district and the vast majority must take the standardized tests. Other countries test smaller portions of the population and may not provide free tuition at all grade levels.

Imagine you’re a doctor. You get a group of patients who regularly miss their appointments, are totally non compliant with their medications, make none of the lifestyle changes, and guess what? You are not allowed to discharge them from the practice. That’s what you have in a public school system. To make things worse, you’re still assessed on those patients’ outcomes. In contrast, you have a private doctor who promises great results but discharges patients almost immediately if they don’t comply with treatment recommendations and miss more than one appointment. Who is going to do better in this situation? Obviously the latter, because the non compliant patients are kicked out. You can see some of this type of grading with hospitals, as you have the “general” hospitals that tend to be the indigent hospitals. While they are also the teaching hospitals that provide great care, you may see on USNEws that outcomes are poor because they have a) the frequent flyers who just swing by because they have nowhere else to stay or get medical care, b) have other indigent patients who can’t afford to do follow up, and c) the costs are high because they have to figure out how to pay for Mr. Smith- who comes in for a variety of issues on a weekly basis, and Ms. Jones, an indigent patient with no insurance who had multiple heart surgeries. The message is “the outcomes are bad and treatment is expensive”- of course it is!

Teachers can and do work for private schools. There are usually trade offs. While you may get fewer problem students, you get far more problem parents and the pay is often significantly less than it is a public school. In many areas, the vast majority may also be parochial. I subbed at my K-8 school on occasion and the teachers there also said that they were required to do a lot more training/in-service hours than their public school counterparts. However, the main benefit is that you can typically have your own children go to the school for free.

[phetaroi]

Originally Posted by tnff

A minor difference in terminology that doesn't change the point. Ultimately any professional in a client relationship has to provide good services or lose that client. And if they continue to provide poor services, they will go out of business.

Where is that ultimate recourse in the education industry? How many educators are in actual fear of losing their jobs due to poor performance? Very, very few. How many school systems, if their "clients" had an actual choice to go elsewhere (vouchers?) would remain in business as a "professional" service? How many teachers would be willing to work under an actual client/professional relationship?

I'm sorry, but I think there's a heck of a lot of difference between a customer and a client.

The voucher system sounds good. I'm not so sure it is. Oh, perhaps in some cases. But it must be nice to not have to accept the 'low' kids, the discipline problems, the ESOL students, the SPED students, or in some cases, even the students of color.