I, Anonymous

1. Why do college students always think they know everything? And then use the teacher’s supposed ignorance to justify their own lack of progress? Who needs to grow up? Wah Wah Wah …

2. best I, anon in a while. I’ve certainly had teachers like this.

3. sounds like a student at UAA

4. Maybe if you went to a real school that had actual PROFESSORS teaching, instead of just TA’s trying to pay their bills, you’d get the education you think you deserve.
   Why do you expect a TA to give a damn about you? Ever stop to wonder what the TA’s say about YOU after class?

5. ahem… YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO LEARN HOW TO TEACH YOURSELF. Of course you would concede and whine to an anonymous public forum about this tragic injustice rather than escalating the issue above the TA’s head. I’m sure the Professor would instantly give you an A and make you the TA once he/she realized your superlative academic prowess. Hell, you might win the nobel peace prize and get knighted while you’re there, because you “deserve” it all, right?

6. I don’t even want to hear it. I had a Psyc professor in his late 70’s who obviously was there on the basis of tenure and research that he did back in the 60’s (when it was still relevant). He didn’t use a book and the 3 exams (upon which our entire grade was calculated) were based entirely on material from his illegible, cryptic, chicken-scratches that he barely managed to scrawl across the board. The sun was glaring most mornings, which meant it was next to impossible to take notes. Taking notes from his lecture was also a challenge- he rambled and warbled and rarely got to his point.

   Additionally, his grading system was old-school- he didn’t grade on a curve or by the total amount of points/percentage. Instead, he based his grades on a rankings competition. The top 20% of students would be given A’s, the next 20% would have B’s, the middle 20% would have C’s, and so on. I know in theory it sounds about as fair as if he graded on a curve, but that isn’t really how it worked. In his system, only the top 10/50 students would be given A’s, regardless of percentage or points earned. Likewise, the bottom 10/50 received F’s, no matter what their actual percentage grade was. My personal ranking was somewhere in the middle. I got a C and graduated on time, but it was one of the most miserable classes I ever had to take. I couldn’t drop it because it was my final semester in school and I needed it to graduate. I’m actually just glad no one went all lord of the flies on me, trying to make the grade/get a better ranking.

   So I don’t want to hear anything from you about your TA. So what? Do you want some cheese with your whine? Tough it out and take whatever you learn to the next class. Whatever you think is hard in school will seem like a cake walk when your candy ass gets into the real world. That’s when you really have to deal with actual incompetency and bs. Right now you live in a protective bubble called college. Enjoy it while it lasts.

7. Dear anon: Is this at the UW? which department/subject?

8. I like how people are blaming the student – the one who is paying the university to teach them. The next time you go to a doctor or need a plumber and the person you get doesn’t give a shit or doesn’t know what they are doing, I hope you feel the same way.

9. I wanted to sympathize with you, I really did – I’ve certainly encountered a couple of genuinely awful teachers over the course of my educational career, and sure, I bitched bitterly and copiously behind their backs. Was it a mature, constructive response? No. Did it make me feel better? Yes.

   But then I came across this little gem of a sentence — I deserve a teaching salary for all the effort I’ve put into fixing your mistakes and for helping your students make progress even in the shadow of your ignorance and obliviousness — and all I could think was seriously? You weren’t just one of many students saddled with a subpar teacher, but the single brave martyr who stepped forward to pick up the pedagogical slack? And even though you supposedly know the material well enough to teach it, you still didn’t have anything to show for yourself at the end of the semester? I can’t help but suspect that the problem here has more to do with your own ego than with any actual shortcomings on the part of the teacher.

10. To Sir Vic:
    Have you recently had a frontal lobotomy? ‘Cause you sure sound like it.

    All universities employ TAs, especially the expensive private schools. And what are they being paid for? They are being paid for TEACHING. And that is the job they’re supposed to do.

    You’re kinda saying “if you picked an ACTUAL restaurant instead of this shitty one, then you’ll get a waiter who gives you good service. So don’t complain about bad service, because it’s your fault for choosing a bad restaurant”.

    You’re retarded, dude.

11. Why’n’t you go talk to some faculty or other grads in the department?

12. @9 I had this person’s back up until a point. I went through college, I know that you can have some less than desirable teachers and especially TAs … but you will notice that this person says that they stuck up for the TA, or at least tried to say that he was a “nice guy” when other students talked shit and what not … and then he tells us how the incident that set his anger into motion was that the TA had the audacity to ask him about his progress. Really, so you were okay with this guy until he asked you if had done your fucking homework? So, when you were getting away with not showing any progress the TA was at least a nice guy, but then when he tries to hold you accountable for your responsibilities as a student he is suddenly a worthless piece of shit that is so beneath you he should be paying you to be as awesome and helpful as you have been?

    Suddenly the kid seems a lot less credible.

    And learning how to cope with shitheads in a position of power is what life is all about. This is surely not that the last time this person will think that someone “above them” in the food chain is a dumbass.

13. QUOTE:
    “Additionally, his grading system was old-school- he didn’t grade on a curve or by the total amount of points/percentage. Instead, he based his grades on a rankings competition. The top 20% of students would be given A’s, the next 20% would have B’s, the middle 20% would have C’s, and so on. I know in theory it sounds about as fair as if he graded on a curve, but that isn’t really how it worked. In his system, only the top 10/50 students would be given A’s, regardless of percentage or points earned. Likewise, the bottom 10/50 received F’s, no matter what their actual percentage grade was. My personal ranking was somewhere in the middle.”

    ———

    Actually, that IS the classic bell curve. I remember when I was in college someone asked one of my science profs if he graded on a curve. He outlined that exact system that you did, and then asked us if we really wanted to be graded on a curve. Nobody did 😉

14. Lizza –
    Four years in private schools, and had exactly one TA. He was OK, but it was one of those special situations where the teacher was quite elderly and it was more of a seminar course. Even my 100+ student physics course had full profs running the lab sessions. TA’s set up the labs, but did not give lessons. (lest anyone think I’m a rich kid, I was there on scholarship because I actually took high school somewhat seriously)

    Private schools are very explicit in their literature about their low faculty to student ratios. This is because they know people want to be taught by actual PhD’s, not fellow students. It’s why private schools are expensive: they have to pay PhD salaries, rather than just TA stipends.

    Your restaurant example is kinda odd, as it actually proves my point. Do you expect better service from Denny’s than Canlis? That would be retarded.

    A lobotomy would still leave me smarter than you.

15. I had a similar problem in calculus class in college. The “professor” (he was actually a grad student) couldn’t conceive of how to teach math to undergrads. He’d allude to concepts that were way beyond our grasp and acted puzzled when we asked him what the fuck he was talking about. After I got a D on the first exam, I stopped going to lecture and just studied the book and checked my homework with the TA. I got As on all the other exams.

16. That would be retarded.

    You may be intelligent, but you’re certainly immature.

17. Yep . me too this semester. This is totally hitting the nail on the head. Although I DID do my assignments, managed to teach myself, got an A in the class AND put in the most cruel evaluation of my life, all the while encouraging the other students to do the same with the eval. Hopefully I/we will never see this instructor again.

18. Normal Distribution of the “curve” is NOT the slate system of equal percentages (20/20/20/20/20). Nope. Look up “bell curve” to see the illustration (I’m old. I know my statistics but not so much my computers).

    The Curve is “50% are average, these are the C students”. Those below them (14%) are D and (2%) F. Those above (14%) are B and (2%) A students. The true curve system has been the subject of lawsuits (see Jenkins v. Indiana Board of Education, 2002 – presently in the appelate Court there, I am sorry that I don’t have the citation better noted). That was a “D” student with great work, forced into poor grade by other students with very slightly better work. The “curve” should be statistically better, which is not a question of a few points (given measuring error). The “curve” is flawed, as is the slate. The reason most colleges now use point systems is due to cases like Jenkins. Yes, some teachers SUCK, some sleep with children (Marylou? Maryjoe? That freak) and some simply are not fit for their job or are a bad mix with certain students. Just like life, we do the best we can. And if it is unfair to the point of being illegal, we consult administration, document our attempts at peaceful resoluation, and as a VERY LAST RESORT, we become “Jenkins”. While there are no guarantees, one certainly can try for fair play.

19. @9: Sounds like that moment was the straw that broke the camel’s back maybe?

    He does sound like a martyr, but that is mostly what i anon is all about

    (I feel like I need to stand up for this guy cause I finally actually relate to the passive aggression of an i anonymous column. At the same time… what, no smelly room mates for us this week?)

20. #15:
    So-o-o….does that you’re Vic-tarded?

21. #15:
    So-o-o….does that mean you’re Vic-tarded?

22. as a former TA, I have to say that while I was being paid to teach the crap that the professor couldn’t get the students to understand, I also had my own research to do in order to get my my phd. undergrads seem to simply not understand that TAs are not all-knowing, emotionless, objective robots. we work our asses off for that piddly paycheck and we put up with the bitching, the snarkiness, the whining, the pitiful excuses, the lies, etc. and after the phd is done, we’re so jaded we go on to do postdocs where we’re treated more like shit than in grad school. (generally, that is.) and i totally agree with the previous poster, that you’re purpose in college is to learn the material, and some times that requires you to teach yourself. it isn’t a hand-holding tutoring session you’re getting. and, your tuition goes to pay for those nice fields you play frisbee on, the student union you eat in, the dean’s salary, the road you park your car on on campus. it’s pathetic how ignorant some u-grads are but how loud they complain. this kid in particular does seem to have a bit of a temper tantrum issue with his TA; maybe his TA does suck, maybe the student sucks. but in the end, it is the student’s responsibility to get his work done, ensure it’s correctly graded and get good grades. that way, when he’s in the real world with that 4.0 GPA from Ubergood University, he won’t be at the mercy of the miserable ignorami that rule this world. instead, he’ll likely become one of them. that is, if he can overcome his self-righteous ego problems and focus on his studies.

23. I think you should turn all this negative energy into a positive one by becoming a great teacher yourself. Then again, you could just rant about your silly problems on I, Anon. They are both highly beneficial to humanity when you think on it.

24. Who anointed you the savior of the other students? If you can help others and still show progress to your TA, good for you. If you can’t, then you need to focus on your own work. It might not make you feel as important to focus on your work rather than others, but tough shit.

25. Who anointed you the savior of the other students? If you can help others and still show progress to your TA, good for you. If you can’t, then you need to focus on your own work. It might not make you feel as important to focus on your work rather than others, but tough shit.

26. It does suck being in a course with an inept teacher. Regardless of whether this TA had his own studies to worry about, he is doing a huge disservice to every single kid in that room by not preparing the material and teaching it to the best of his ability.

    I’m a teacher at the high school level, and it kills me to see what some of the fellow teachers in the school are expecting (or not expecting) the students to do, and the way they interact with kids. It really can mess with someone’s future.

27. Man, I feel your pain. I’m in a shitty college myself, and most of the time I can’t help cringing at what comes out of my “professor’s” mouth.

28. The title+cartoon made me laugh, because I had a philosophy prof at UW who teaches a class on Kant, and is a total nightmare. Tenured, respected in his field, and a pompous arrogant asshole who clearly despised undergraduates, and was one of those guys who seemed to enjoy taking a smart female down a notch or two whenever possible. I would have been grateful for a TA.

29. I’m a TA and I would give a fuck about undergrads if I made more than than 17k per year…which I don’t. So, teaching a stand alone course plus two discussions sections, writing my dissertation, grading 200 papers per semesters, going to conferences, participating in others research, and blah, blah, blah, I could give a FUCK about some over-privileged undergraduates who expect As as the norm and don’t bother to read for class or study for exams or even turn in anything other than 1st drafts for papers. I could give a FUCK about their whiny-ass emails about how their grandma died, about how their computer crashed, about how there are no research articles on their topic (usually climate change), about how five to seven pages is SOOOO long, about how eight sources for a final papers is SOOOO unfair, about thinking up a topic and thesis is SOOOO hard. I could give a FUCK that they are too scared to come and complain during office hours face-to-face but instead send passive aggressive emails. Ironically, I still get high teaching evals…I just know what worthless sacks of unthinking shit undergraduates are. Fuck undergraduates. They don’t care, they just want your degree the easiest way they can get it. Have fun being a cog in capitalism!

30. Ugh, I had a class that was just awful. The University had a Professor that was a very good teacher listed as the instructor, but the class was so popular a couple of hundred students applied for it. Did they cut off the number of students enrolled in the class to the room size? No, they decided to rake in the money. They got a TA (or four) to take the overflow. The one we got had never taught before and was very shy. Painfully shy. He mumbled in fright and wrote in tiny letters on the front of the board in a huge auditorium. No one could hear or see what was going on. We asked him repeatedly “What? What was that?” and he’d get even more nervous. His mumbling became total gibberish. His assignments were so confusing we had no idea what he wanted. The work was not hard: we weren’t first year students and this was, for us, an “easy grade” class. If you don’t know what someone is asking for, you can’t give them what they want! A simple 15 minute coding assignment took four to five hours because we just had no idea what he was talking about…and that was unfinished! In a single week the class enrollment went from 165 to 5.

31. Wow, I enjoyed that, “fuck_undergrads” (message 30). Seriously, not sarcastically. It is like getting TWO “I, Anonymous”-es for the price of one. I have taught high school, been a TA, earned a PhD, taught university and now teache college, so I found this week’s column rivetting. I wish I had Anonymous’s TA’s side of the story, too, as a special treat, but your rant stands in pretty well.

32. @30:
    Dear fuck_undergrads:

    You have my empathy as a TA (I’ve TA’d before, too). You don’t make enough, that’s for sure. Who, besides the tenured university professor of 40 years, actually does? The current state educational cuts are absolutely shameful–especially when over $4 billion is allotted to tear down the Alaskan Way Viaduct for a new tunnel! You must also really hate undergrads who take your subject just to meet GUR requirements!

    Wouldn’t it be nice if college students everywhere were free to focus solely upon their declared majors and not have to worry excessively about making sure they had enough credits in certain academic categories in order to graduate?

33. @30:
    Dear fuck_undergrads:

    You have my empathy as a TA (I’ve TA’d before, too). You don’t make enough, that’s for sure. Who, besides the tenured university professor of 40 years, actually does? The current state educational cuts are absolutely shameful–especially when over $4 billion is allotted to tear down the Alaskan Way Viaduct for a new tunnel! You must also really hate undergrads who take your subject just to meet GUR requirements!

    Wouldn’t it be nice if college students everywhere were free to focus solely upon their declared majors and not have to worry excessively about making sure they had enough credits in certain academic categories in order to graduate?

34. @30 At University of Michigan, TAs not only made a salary, but they also got free tuition and books, making their salary well into the 30-50k mark. I’m not sure if they got free housing as well.

    Bitching about your salary does not really get my sympathy as many undergrads make about that AND have to pay their tuition.

    Bad TAs suck. There are many TAs that actually care about the students, but are still strict about grading. On the other hand, there are TAs that are awful at answering questions, AND conducting class in such a way to make the students think for themselves.

    So, fuck you fuck_undergrads. You were probably one of the awful ones.

35. @30 “I just know what worthless sacks of unthinking shit undergraduates are. Fuck undergraduates. They don’t care, they just want your degree the easiest way they can get it.”

    You had me right with you until these three sentences. Your crappy attitude virtually guarantees that — should you end up as a professor at a teaching institution instead of a fancy research university like the UW — you will spend the rest of your days ATTRACTING horrid students like these. My undergrads run the gamut from the kind you describe (about 10% of my classes) to people easily capable of (and ready to!) handle graduate-level work (also about 10%). Most of the rest of them are driven, passionate, and committed to doing their very best. I love them all, hold them to a high standard, and push them to succeed. They talk to their friends, and students know what to expect from my classes. What kind of undergrads do YOU hope to attract, now and in the future, with your attitude?

36. @35 Misanthrope are you sure you have a degree??? Because you sure aren’t very bright! I just looked up University of Michigan and they make no where near what you suggest. According to the easily searchable website TA’s make $13,570 (variable by department I’m sure but not by very much), and tuition is somewhere between $8,000-$10,000 depending on school. So even if you count that they are making around $24,000. And housing is not free if you agree to a roommate rent could be as low as $500 a month. This leaves you with $18,000 less than $3,000 above a full time minimum wage job in Michigan. Oh and books are never free except for the class that you are TA’ing…all grad students everywhere pay for their own text books.

37. Hmm. I’m a TA and it turns out that teaching is kinda hard. You really have to have a lot of experience in your field to know the right types of questions to focus on as well as a lot of practice asking questions in a way that is coherent to most people. Novice TA’s can be barely acceptable if they have enough support and time, but that is usually unlikely. Plus, many TA’s only have the experience of taking class they’re teaching ONCE. I do honestly try to teach my students well, but I can only reliably explain the basic concepts to them, not the often off-topic questions that require a professional with years of experience in the field. And my very carefully-worded questions can get the most confused answers you’d imagine, probably because I do care and overthink things. Just face it — TA’s are not teachers; we’re teaching ASSISTANTS. We have slightly more knowledge than you of the subject and very little experience or training. It’s like asking for help from the straight-A student in your high school class. Sorry; check back with us in a few more years when we have some experience. Or go to a school that has few TA-run classes — they DO exist (I went to a very good PUBLIC school like that). Oh, and pray you don’t have to TA one day and eat your words.

38. I’ve had teachers like this. One time I had a particularly bad philosophy teacher. He was so bad that some of the students went to the other faculty members and complained. Within a week, there was another professor in the class evaluating his teaching, and the next class he was gone, replaced by the prof who had done the evaluating and was MUCH better at teaching and engaging the class intelligently. You might be being a little arrogant by saying you deserve a teaching salary, but it’s true that some teachers – not even just TAs, but profs – just don’t know how to teach, are not “people persons” who know how to associate with students, or otherwise not good at what they’re supposed to be doing.

Comments are closed.