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jpskewedthroneIf you've noticed, I've been somewhat quiet around here for the last few days. This is mostly because classes for the Fall semester have started up and I've been busy getting used to the new schedule. In particular, getting used to waking up at 6am so I can hit the road for the hour one-way commute at 7am. I'm not complaining about this--I get to chose my own times for my classes, so early classes are entirely my fault--but going from not waking up until I feel like it to 6am isn't exactly easy. So that's why I've been quiet. I haven't been doing anything in the way of writing. I'll start that up again once the semester settles down a little bit. Also, I don't know what I should be working on yet. I'll be talking to my editor this coming Wednesday, hopefully, and then I'll know if she's interested in any of my projects and that should give me some guidance on what to work on next. (I could be working on a short story that's been bouncing around in my head, but . . .)
In any case, that's what's up with me. However, something else has happened recently that's bothered me quite a bit. Before people start jumping to conclusions, I want to say that this story is NOT about me. I'm not trying to disguise this as one of my problems by saying "my colleague" and such. Similarly, this is not something that happened at my current college, SUNY Oneonta. This happened to someone I know at a different university. BUT, I know that this is happening at many universities and colleges across the country, because I've worked at more than one university or college in my lifetime and I've seen it in action. This particular story only highlights the issue.
I don't normally talk about things like this on my blog, and I don't want this to come across as a rant. Rather, I just want to point out that things like this are going on and that I strongly believe that this is one of the reasons that our education system isn't up to par. Note that I said ONE of the reaons. There are multiple factors that are all contributing to this problem, and if people are open to hearing my thoughts on what these are, then I'll continue posting these types of things.
Here's the situation: A colleague of mine taught a summer course this past summer for the Continuing Education department of a university. It was a statistics course, and this is NOT a small university. In fact, this is a major university with a well-respected name that generally will get you a job just by mentioning that you went there. Summer courses usually run for about 6-8 weeks, meet everyday, and generally pack a full semester's worth of subject material into that time period. It's rough, but most students know that ahead of time and if they don't, they find out quick.
So the instructor taught the course. Some issues came up, in particular with two students. One of the students came to the instructor a few weeks into the semester and proclaimed that they were going on vacation for the next two weeks and that they'd miss the first exam and a few homework assignments and wanted to know when they could make them up. This meant they'd be missing 2 weeks of a 6-8 week course. That's a third to a quarter of the entire course. The instructor was flabbergasted that the student assumed that taking 2 weeks off in the middle of such a course would be considered "OK" and that it wasn't an issue. However, the instructor told them that they could take the exam immediately after they got back and also allowed them to make up one of the missed assignments if they handed it in immediately after they got back. (Note: If this had been my class, I would have told them they had to decide whether they were taking the course or taking a vacation. If they took the vacation and stayed in the course, they'd get a 0 on the exam and all assignments missed and they'd have to hope and pray they could make up all those lost points with the rest of the course materials . . . which wouldn't be mathematically possible the way my classes are structured. You don't schedule a vacation for 2 weeks in the middle of a 6-8 week course and expect the instructor to allow you to make the missed material up.)
Needless to say, this student was not happy with the situation or its resolution (even though I felt the instructor was being very considerate and generous; too considerate and generous in fact). At this point, the student and a friend of the student in the class, began to protest whenever an assignment was given. They'd claim that the assignment was too difficult, that the expectations from them were too high, that they couldn't possibly complete the assignment in the time given, that the instructor wasn't teaching them the material well enough to do the assignments, etc. There were three other students in the class and none of them felt the protests were valid, to the point that they even approached the instructor outside of class to tell them they thought everything in the course was fine, they were doing a good job teaching, and everyone else handed the assignments in on time with no problems. They also informed the instructor that the two students were attempting to recruit the rest of the class to their cause outside of class.
In any case, the course ended. The instructor gave the two students who were causing problems a C because that's what their grades warranted, and the rest of the students got B's and A's, because that's what their grades warranted. Mostly this was because the 2 students causing problems refused to complete a significant portion of the assignments, complaining about their difficulty, etc. The others handed in everything. As usual at most universities and colleges, the students get to fill out course evaluations at the end of the semester to let the administration know what they thought of the course and the instructor.
A few weeks later, the instructor got a call from the department to come in for a meeting. The instructor knew what it was going to be about, of course: the administration wanted to discuss the course evaluations. The instructor had gotten an average of high 3's on everything out of 7. But in particular they wanted to discuss the written evaluations. In fact, they only wanted to talk about 2 of the written evaluations.
So the instructor arrived for the meeting and this is how the meeting played out: The administration had the instructor read the 2 evaluations from the 2 students, which were of course inflammatory, derogatory, and in the end downright cruel. Some of the claims in the evaluations were blatantly false. After the instructor was forced to read these evaluations in their entirety, the administration informed them that in order to continue working for them in the Fall, they would have to improve their evaluation scores to something above a 6 average, and that they would have to take on a "mentor" instructor who would give them lectures and a class structure to use in order to insure that they got a 6 average or better. This "mentor" would help them design the exams and quizzes and such, becaue this "mentor" had always gotten a 6 average or better on their own evaluations.
The administration did not ask the instructor to explain the situation that gave rise to the 2 evaluations. They did not ask the instructor to provide examples of lectures, quizzes, and exams, so that they could determine whether or not the course had been taught effectively or fairly. And they did not bring up the other 3 evaluations, which must, mathematically (I'll explain later), have had good things to say. They did not allow the instructor to defend themselves in any way, shape, or form.
In effect, the administration condemned the instructor based on 2 evaluations, without knowing the situation behind those evaluations.
The instructor decided, in the end, that their integrity as a teacher was more important than keeping their job, and so a few days before the semester began they informed the department that, because of the unfair restrictions imposed on them by the administration (the "mentor") and the lack of any attempt to allow them to defend themselves, they would no longer be working for the university. And so now an instructor who is more than capable of teaching these courses effectively no longer has a job. Because of two students.
There are multiple things wrong with this situation and the administration's reaction to it. The first and foremost to my mind is that the administration listened to 2 out of 5 evaluations, completely ignoring the other 3 (which statistically had to be excellent), and never gave the instructor a chance to defend themselves. They assumed that the instructor was at fault based on 2 student opinions. That's it. Now, if the administration had said, "Hmm, we have a few rather vicious evaluations from 2 students in this class, let's see what the instructor has to say about this," that would be different (although even this reaction based on 2 evaluations is too extreme to me). If they'd said they wanted to see the instructor's lectures, some quizzes, the exams, the final, and when they perused all of this and how the course was graded and found that the expectations of the instructor were unfair to the student . . . fine. But they didn't do that. They sided with the students without considering the instructor's side, and that's where I think the universities and colleges are going completely wrong. The situation has become, "Please the students, at the cost of their education." In essence, the administration of a significant portion of the universities and colleges are catering to the students, allowing the students to run the university.
Consider this instructor's numerical evaluations. In order to get a high 3 average out of a possibly 7 using 5 evaluations, and assuming that the 2 students gave the instructor all 0s or 1s, the other three evaluations must have contained nearly all 6s and 7s. There's no way to avereage 2 scores with 3 scores and get above a 3.5 average otherwise. So why did the administration ignore the other 3 evaluations? They didn't even take into account the written evaluations, which were good and said the class was taught well and graded fairly. Why did they ignore them?
They ignored them because they want their instructors to get an average of 6 or higher. Why? So that their department "looks good" to the rest of the university. I've taught math for a long time. I believe I'm a fairly good instructor. But this is math. Students in math--and in particular, students taking math at the level of an introductory course like this one--generally hate the subject before they even step into the classroom, and that hatred transfers to the instructor before THEY even step into the classroom, so expecting an average evaluation in a math class to be at least 6 out of 7 is . . . insane. In order to achieve that average, the instructor is either a GENIUS teacher of the highest magnitude, seen only once in a millenium . . . or they've rigged the way the students are graded so that the students do not have to actually learn anything in the class in order to get an A. A student who gets an A without learning anything in the course and without doing any work is, of course, going to give such an instructor the highest praise, in general.
But that student hasn't learned anything.
If I were teaching an introductory course of this nature, I would expect to receive an average evaluation at the end of the semester of maybe 3.5. I'd consider that good. Because of the level of the class, the general mathematical level of the student, and the fact that I expect my students to know how to do that math by the end of the course. If they can't, then they don't pass.
The administration's expectations of the instructor in this department are unreasonable in my opinion. I think they'd be unreasonable to any math instructor out there who's had any experience teaching at this level and has any self-respect about their teaching ability and ensuring that the students know the math required by the end of the semester.
I find the suggestion by the administration in this case to be insulting. In effect, they were telling the instructor that they could not teach and that in order to keep their job they would have to use someone else's technique, approach, and teaching philosophy in their classroom. The fact that they were supposed to achieve such an unreasonable average on their evaluations boiled down to telling the instructor that it didn't matter how much the student knew at the end of the semester, they were to pass with flying colors. In effect, they were telling the instructor that their job was not to teach math, but to babysit the students for 6-8 weeks. As an instructor of math, I completely agree with this instructor's decision to not accept those conditions and to quit. I'm certain that the administration did not expect this reaction, considering today's job market. They expected the instructor to forego their integrity, grit their teeth, and bow down before this "mentor." I'm glad that this did not happen, although I'm pissed that a good instructor will no longer have a job.
As I said, there are other things wrong with this situation: the assumption by the students that they are entitled to a specific grade simply by paying for the course; the assumption by the students that they would not have to work for their grade; the assumption by the one student in particular that it would "OK" for them to miss a minimum of a quarter of the class and still pass; the underlining fact that the administration doesn't seem to be interested in education, but rather student happiness; etc. I'd like to talk about those issues as well, but this post is getting quite long so I'll leave those discussions for another day. But I find the most disturbing element of this situation, the element that I want to highlight in this post, is the fact that the administration no longer seems to support the instructor--the person they have hired to teach, after a lengthy hiring process--over the student. I'm not advocating that departments and universities and colleges simply support their instructors blindly, but there should be an unwritten contract of faith between them and their instructors. They should believe their instructors first and foremost when such a situation arises, until they have significant evidence that, in fact, the instructor is indeed being unfair to the students or is not teaching to the best of their abilities.
In this situation, there was blind faith in the student, and no displayed faith in the instructor, who has spent their entire life up to this point attempting to become the best teacher they could possibly be. They (the administration) should have given the instructor a chance to explain the situation. They should have looked at the instructor's materials and had another statistics instructor determine whether or not the instructor was in fact teaching the subject material appropriately and whether the exams and quizzes given were fair. They should have allowed the instructor a say before they decided upon an action, and certainly before suggesting the instructor accept a "mentor." (And before people go ballistic thinking I don't agree with the idea of mentoring, stop. I believe mentors can be invaluable. But what the administration wanted in this case was not a "mentor." They wanted the instructor to teach EXACTLY like the mentor, as if the instructor were simply a voicebox, not an individual. That's not mentoring, which is why I have "mentor" in quotes for most of this post.) In essence, the administration should have supported the instructor over the voice of 2 students who obviously had a score to settle.
I'm sorry to say that the students won in this case: they created a situation in which the instructor was forced to quit or sacrifice their integrity as a teacher. That was their goal, simply because this instructor was going to make them work for their grades. I'd like to say that this was an isolated case, an aberation in the system, but I've worked at enough universities and colleges to see the shift in the administration's attitude from support of the instructor to support of the student. And it's not isolated to a specific region of the U.S. or even a specific level of college education. I've seen it at the university level, the college level, and at the community college level. I'm happy to say that I have not seen this happening at SUNY Oneonta, where I currently work. It's one of the reasons that I'm working hard to STAY at SUNY Oneonta.
Again, I'm not saying that the administration needs to blindly support its faculty at all times: they shouldn't. But they should consider the instructor's side and give that instructor a fair chance to defend themselves if such a situation arises. A bad evaluation by 2 students should not be considered enough to create such a situation, especially in the presence of contrary opinions by a majority of other students.
In any case, that's what's up with me. However, something else has happened recently that's bothered me quite a bit. Before people start jumping to conclusions, I want to say that this story is NOT about me. I'm not trying to disguise this as one of my problems by saying "my colleague" and such. Similarly, this is not something that happened at my current college, SUNY Oneonta. This happened to someone I know at a different university. BUT, I know that this is happening at many universities and colleges across the country, because I've worked at more than one university or college in my lifetime and I've seen it in action. This particular story only highlights the issue.
I don't normally talk about things like this on my blog, and I don't want this to come across as a rant. Rather, I just want to point out that things like this are going on and that I strongly believe that this is one of the reasons that our education system isn't up to par. Note that I said ONE of the reaons. There are multiple factors that are all contributing to this problem, and if people are open to hearing my thoughts on what these are, then I'll continue posting these types of things.
Here's the situation: A colleague of mine taught a summer course this past summer for the Continuing Education department of a university. It was a statistics course, and this is NOT a small university. In fact, this is a major university with a well-respected name that generally will get you a job just by mentioning that you went there. Summer courses usually run for about 6-8 weeks, meet everyday, and generally pack a full semester's worth of subject material into that time period. It's rough, but most students know that ahead of time and if they don't, they find out quick.
So the instructor taught the course. Some issues came up, in particular with two students. One of the students came to the instructor a few weeks into the semester and proclaimed that they were going on vacation for the next two weeks and that they'd miss the first exam and a few homework assignments and wanted to know when they could make them up. This meant they'd be missing 2 weeks of a 6-8 week course. That's a third to a quarter of the entire course. The instructor was flabbergasted that the student assumed that taking 2 weeks off in the middle of such a course would be considered "OK" and that it wasn't an issue. However, the instructor told them that they could take the exam immediately after they got back and also allowed them to make up one of the missed assignments if they handed it in immediately after they got back. (Note: If this had been my class, I would have told them they had to decide whether they were taking the course or taking a vacation. If they took the vacation and stayed in the course, they'd get a 0 on the exam and all assignments missed and they'd have to hope and pray they could make up all those lost points with the rest of the course materials . . . which wouldn't be mathematically possible the way my classes are structured. You don't schedule a vacation for 2 weeks in the middle of a 6-8 week course and expect the instructor to allow you to make the missed material up.)
Needless to say, this student was not happy with the situation or its resolution (even though I felt the instructor was being very considerate and generous; too considerate and generous in fact). At this point, the student and a friend of the student in the class, began to protest whenever an assignment was given. They'd claim that the assignment was too difficult, that the expectations from them were too high, that they couldn't possibly complete the assignment in the time given, that the instructor wasn't teaching them the material well enough to do the assignments, etc. There were three other students in the class and none of them felt the protests were valid, to the point that they even approached the instructor outside of class to tell them they thought everything in the course was fine, they were doing a good job teaching, and everyone else handed the assignments in on time with no problems. They also informed the instructor that the two students were attempting to recruit the rest of the class to their cause outside of class.
In any case, the course ended. The instructor gave the two students who were causing problems a C because that's what their grades warranted, and the rest of the students got B's and A's, because that's what their grades warranted. Mostly this was because the 2 students causing problems refused to complete a significant portion of the assignments, complaining about their difficulty, etc. The others handed in everything. As usual at most universities and colleges, the students get to fill out course evaluations at the end of the semester to let the administration know what they thought of the course and the instructor.
A few weeks later, the instructor got a call from the department to come in for a meeting. The instructor knew what it was going to be about, of course: the administration wanted to discuss the course evaluations. The instructor had gotten an average of high 3's on everything out of 7. But in particular they wanted to discuss the written evaluations. In fact, they only wanted to talk about 2 of the written evaluations.
So the instructor arrived for the meeting and this is how the meeting played out: The administration had the instructor read the 2 evaluations from the 2 students, which were of course inflammatory, derogatory, and in the end downright cruel. Some of the claims in the evaluations were blatantly false. After the instructor was forced to read these evaluations in their entirety, the administration informed them that in order to continue working for them in the Fall, they would have to improve their evaluation scores to something above a 6 average, and that they would have to take on a "mentor" instructor who would give them lectures and a class structure to use in order to insure that they got a 6 average or better. This "mentor" would help them design the exams and quizzes and such, becaue this "mentor" had always gotten a 6 average or better on their own evaluations.
The administration did not ask the instructor to explain the situation that gave rise to the 2 evaluations. They did not ask the instructor to provide examples of lectures, quizzes, and exams, so that they could determine whether or not the course had been taught effectively or fairly. And they did not bring up the other 3 evaluations, which must, mathematically (I'll explain later), have had good things to say. They did not allow the instructor to defend themselves in any way, shape, or form.
In effect, the administration condemned the instructor based on 2 evaluations, without knowing the situation behind those evaluations.
The instructor decided, in the end, that their integrity as a teacher was more important than keeping their job, and so a few days before the semester began they informed the department that, because of the unfair restrictions imposed on them by the administration (the "mentor") and the lack of any attempt to allow them to defend themselves, they would no longer be working for the university. And so now an instructor who is more than capable of teaching these courses effectively no longer has a job. Because of two students.
There are multiple things wrong with this situation and the administration's reaction to it. The first and foremost to my mind is that the administration listened to 2 out of 5 evaluations, completely ignoring the other 3 (which statistically had to be excellent), and never gave the instructor a chance to defend themselves. They assumed that the instructor was at fault based on 2 student opinions. That's it. Now, if the administration had said, "Hmm, we have a few rather vicious evaluations from 2 students in this class, let's see what the instructor has to say about this," that would be different (although even this reaction based on 2 evaluations is too extreme to me). If they'd said they wanted to see the instructor's lectures, some quizzes, the exams, the final, and when they perused all of this and how the course was graded and found that the expectations of the instructor were unfair to the student . . . fine. But they didn't do that. They sided with the students without considering the instructor's side, and that's where I think the universities and colleges are going completely wrong. The situation has become, "Please the students, at the cost of their education." In essence, the administration of a significant portion of the universities and colleges are catering to the students, allowing the students to run the university.
Consider this instructor's numerical evaluations. In order to get a high 3 average out of a possibly 7 using 5 evaluations, and assuming that the 2 students gave the instructor all 0s or 1s, the other three evaluations must have contained nearly all 6s and 7s. There's no way to avereage 2 scores with 3 scores and get above a 3.5 average otherwise. So why did the administration ignore the other 3 evaluations? They didn't even take into account the written evaluations, which were good and said the class was taught well and graded fairly. Why did they ignore them?
They ignored them because they want their instructors to get an average of 6 or higher. Why? So that their department "looks good" to the rest of the university. I've taught math for a long time. I believe I'm a fairly good instructor. But this is math. Students in math--and in particular, students taking math at the level of an introductory course like this one--generally hate the subject before they even step into the classroom, and that hatred transfers to the instructor before THEY even step into the classroom, so expecting an average evaluation in a math class to be at least 6 out of 7 is . . . insane. In order to achieve that average, the instructor is either a GENIUS teacher of the highest magnitude, seen only once in a millenium . . . or they've rigged the way the students are graded so that the students do not have to actually learn anything in the class in order to get an A. A student who gets an A without learning anything in the course and without doing any work is, of course, going to give such an instructor the highest praise, in general.
But that student hasn't learned anything.
If I were teaching an introductory course of this nature, I would expect to receive an average evaluation at the end of the semester of maybe 3.5. I'd consider that good. Because of the level of the class, the general mathematical level of the student, and the fact that I expect my students to know how to do that math by the end of the course. If they can't, then they don't pass.
The administration's expectations of the instructor in this department are unreasonable in my opinion. I think they'd be unreasonable to any math instructor out there who's had any experience teaching at this level and has any self-respect about their teaching ability and ensuring that the students know the math required by the end of the semester.
I find the suggestion by the administration in this case to be insulting. In effect, they were telling the instructor that they could not teach and that in order to keep their job they would have to use someone else's technique, approach, and teaching philosophy in their classroom. The fact that they were supposed to achieve such an unreasonable average on their evaluations boiled down to telling the instructor that it didn't matter how much the student knew at the end of the semester, they were to pass with flying colors. In effect, they were telling the instructor that their job was not to teach math, but to babysit the students for 6-8 weeks. As an instructor of math, I completely agree with this instructor's decision to not accept those conditions and to quit. I'm certain that the administration did not expect this reaction, considering today's job market. They expected the instructor to forego their integrity, grit their teeth, and bow down before this "mentor." I'm glad that this did not happen, although I'm pissed that a good instructor will no longer have a job.
As I said, there are other things wrong with this situation: the assumption by the students that they are entitled to a specific grade simply by paying for the course; the assumption by the students that they would not have to work for their grade; the assumption by the one student in particular that it would "OK" for them to miss a minimum of a quarter of the class and still pass; the underlining fact that the administration doesn't seem to be interested in education, but rather student happiness; etc. I'd like to talk about those issues as well, but this post is getting quite long so I'll leave those discussions for another day. But I find the most disturbing element of this situation, the element that I want to highlight in this post, is the fact that the administration no longer seems to support the instructor--the person they have hired to teach, after a lengthy hiring process--over the student. I'm not advocating that departments and universities and colleges simply support their instructors blindly, but there should be an unwritten contract of faith between them and their instructors. They should believe their instructors first and foremost when such a situation arises, until they have significant evidence that, in fact, the instructor is indeed being unfair to the students or is not teaching to the best of their abilities.
In this situation, there was blind faith in the student, and no displayed faith in the instructor, who has spent their entire life up to this point attempting to become the best teacher they could possibly be. They (the administration) should have given the instructor a chance to explain the situation. They should have looked at the instructor's materials and had another statistics instructor determine whether or not the instructor was in fact teaching the subject material appropriately and whether the exams and quizzes given were fair. They should have allowed the instructor a say before they decided upon an action, and certainly before suggesting the instructor accept a "mentor." (And before people go ballistic thinking I don't agree with the idea of mentoring, stop. I believe mentors can be invaluable. But what the administration wanted in this case was not a "mentor." They wanted the instructor to teach EXACTLY like the mentor, as if the instructor were simply a voicebox, not an individual. That's not mentoring, which is why I have "mentor" in quotes for most of this post.) In essence, the administration should have supported the instructor over the voice of 2 students who obviously had a score to settle.
I'm sorry to say that the students won in this case: they created a situation in which the instructor was forced to quit or sacrifice their integrity as a teacher. That was their goal, simply because this instructor was going to make them work for their grades. I'd like to say that this was an isolated case, an aberation in the system, but I've worked at enough universities and colleges to see the shift in the administration's attitude from support of the instructor to support of the student. And it's not isolated to a specific region of the U.S. or even a specific level of college education. I've seen it at the university level, the college level, and at the community college level. I'm happy to say that I have not seen this happening at SUNY Oneonta, where I currently work. It's one of the reasons that I'm working hard to STAY at SUNY Oneonta.
Again, I'm not saying that the administration needs to blindly support its faculty at all times: they shouldn't. But they should consider the instructor's side and give that instructor a fair chance to defend themselves if such a situation arises. A bad evaluation by 2 students should not be considered enough to create such a situation, especially in the presence of contrary opinions by a majority of other students.
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no subject
Date: 2009-08-30 07:11 pm (UTC)At the school my sister works for, the long-time headmaster was recent fired after a trustee campaigned against her solely on the grounds that their child didn't get into their first choice school after graduating.
No matter what, your friend is better off having left that place. That their Dean wouldn't at least hear their side is telling of bad management.
I do have one problem with your argument though. You are making an assumption that the two students gave 0's and 1's. If they didn't, the other scores may have just been mediocre and positive making the situation very different. Your friend should have insisted on seeing all the evaluations and getting their hands on that data. I only mention this because I'm used to students being a bit more mercenary. They fully expected scores of 0 and 1 to be ignored as grade-based revenge, so they routinely used a mix of 1, 2, and 3 to give the appearance of honest answers.
no subject
Date: 2009-08-31 07:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-31 08:45 pm (UTC)Legally, yes, but I've worked places where they made it very difficult to get your hands on the data. In at least one instance, a lawyer was required.