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New York University professor fired after students say his class was too hard

87 points by throwaway743 4y ago

enviclash 4y ago
I see two extremes: one represented by this professor who IMHO cares too little about students --- still he deserves to keep his job. The other extreme is more dangerous and is about University professors actively accepting and facilitating immature behaviour by students. Where could a sweet spot be drawn along this gradient?
- sonotathrowaway 4y ago
  > The student petition protested that Jones’s class was too hard and that students lacked resources and help. It did not say the professor should be fired. > “We urge you to realize that a class with such a high percentage of withdrawals and low grades has failed to make students’ learning and wellbeing a priority and reflects poorly on the chemistry department as well as the institution as a whole,” the petition read. That doesn’t sound immature to me.
- bastawhiz 4y ago
  I doubt either of those extremes actually exist. News stories paint a sensational picture for clicks to try to get social media ablaze with "entitled gen z students want their grades handed to them" without actually digging into any details until a few thousand pixels below the fold. It would seem, from reading the story, that this was a professor who did not actually do the leg work to be a professor. Namely, providing students with more than just written resources and giving exams. Why pay a prestigious do-nothing professor a salary when you can just offer an online course that has the same level of engagement?
  - ghaff 4y ago
    It can simultaneously be true that: - College students can be entitled and whiny - Organic chemistry is especially difficult for a lot of people - Semi-retired researcher may not be a great lecturer/teacher for a big hall full of freshmen
    - bastawhiz 4y ago
      None of those things are especially newsworthy. They sound like Onion headlines on their own. But when one or more of them happen which could be framed in a way that incenses the public, it becomes a news story because that's how you make money in journalism in 2022.
  - enviclash 4y ago
    I am a professor and have seen both extremes. I am worrying about how to keep high scholarly standards all the time --- also on teaching, and especially when supervising theses.
pipeline_peak 4y ago
If there’s on average “ high percentage of withdrawals and low grades” compared to the course taught by other instructors, yeah I think that’s fair. We all had that one professor who everyone was afraid to take. School is still a business, a lot of those guys are better off in research or writing textbooks.
kwertyoowiyop 4y ago
Was there any serious discussion between the prof and the university management about students’ feedback? One hopes the dismissal letter didn’t come out of the blue.
swearwolf 4y ago
I happened to read about this case while I was in the middle of Barbara Erinreich’s book “Fear of Falling”, which is all about the American professional middle class. Part of one chapter talks about how the professions organized to create credentialing systems that kept anyone who couldn’t afford the expensive and time consuming education out. Organic Chemistry is specifically mentioned for its role in weeding out potential medical students who might very well turn out to be good doctors, while simultaneously being irrelevant to the day-to-day practice of medicine. All of this serves the purpose of making sure the supply of doctors is low, and that their wages are therefore kept high. Since the 80s, American society has shifted towards a ruthless form of capitalism that leaves fewer and fewer occupations capable of providing their practitioners with a middle class lifestyle every year. To me, it’s no wonder that students have become ruthlessly mercenary in response. They’ll do what it takes to make a good living, and they won’t tolerate gatekeepers getting in their way without a fight. This is exactly the behavior we (as a society) have incentivized in them.
- allturtles 4y ago
  > Part of one chapter talks about how the professions organized to create credentialing systems that kept anyone who couldn’t afford the expensive and time consuming education out. Organic Chemistry is specifically mentioned for its role in weeding out potential medical students who might very well turn out to be good doctors, while simultaneously being irrelevant to the day-to-day practice of medicine. Medical schools already have an easy way to affect the supply of doctors that's under their own direct control: their own admissions policies. Is the author hypothesizing that they are somehow controlling undergraduate chemistry classes in private and public institutions across the country, which seems very implausible?
  - michaelt 4y ago
    > Is the author hypothesizing that they are somehow controlling undergraduate chemistry classes in private and public institutions across the country, which seems very implausible? Isn't precisely what accreditation allows professional organisations to do? It sounds plausible to me that the AMA could impose education requirements like organic chemistry as a requirement to joining their ranks. And indeed that keeping the supply of doctors limited would be in the interests of their members.
avgDev 4y ago
I had a professor from hell while doing my BS in CS. I was generally a straight A student. I really tried to do my best and cared about my grades. It was the first and last time when I went and talked about a professor to a department head. Said professor came to class often unprepared. Deviated from the syllabus. He talked to some students that he wants to build games and not teach. This was an AI class. Throughout the course he kept telling us to keep our quizzes as they will be helpful for the midterm and final. He hasn't graded or returned any quizzes by midterm, and returned quizzes like a class before the final. His teaching style was pathetic. All our curses were in Java, on first day he told us to install Visual Studio and write this program just to warm up. Then he gave us a problem to solve. 90% of class was installing the IDE and figuring out how to write programs in C# and VS during the duration said class. Literally one guy was doing alright who was a professional game dev using c#. He would read straight from a book, sometimes using visual aids. Then would give a problem to apply said algorithm to and say "GO, if you have problems ask for help". 30 people were asking for help and he could barely help one by end of class. Handful of times we got an email that he won't make it to class. One time 15 minutes into the class. That game dev scored below passing grade on midterm and final. Same as rest of the class. The curve was so high my total 60% got me to an A. Still majority of the class failed. I wish never to have a professor like him again and from what I heard he moved to a private sector.
- Calavar 4y ago
  Most of my CS faculty in undergrad were great, but there were a couple like the guy you describe. And I wonder why in the world they took jobs as lecturers. If you don't have a passion for teaching, why take a job that pays substantially less than what you get in industry? CS isn't like, say, English where there aren't enough nonacademic jobs to go around. In contrast, most of my faculty in medical school were terrible teachers. But there it made sense why. They were either there because they wanted to work at a large quartenary referral hospital or because they wanted to teach residents (not students).
  - bena 4y ago
    You take a job that pays substantially less than what you can get in the industry because it either pays more than other industry-adjacent jobs you can get. Or, you take a job that pays substantially less because you are required to teach as part of your post-baccalaureate degree requirements. Some people teach because they want to. They have a strong desire to instruct and mentor people. To help others get better. Some people teach because they have to. Primary education has different requirements than secondary (at least in the US). Typically, in primary education, you need a degree in education specifically and to be certified to teach in the state you wish to teach. To teach in secondary education, you need whatever requirements are set forth by the institution. Typically, you'll need a post-baccalaureate degree or be working towards one. But as far as being "good" at the thing you're teaching. That's not necessarily required.
sixothree 4y ago
I had one professor I thought was unfairly difficult. I remember him lecturing a girl about how she was failing his class because she spends too much time talking on the telephone. Note - I never once saw her use her phone during class. The tests didn't seem to be related to what was covered, or what was in the exercises, or even the test questions at the back of the chapter. I think he left a few semesters after my class. If he was fired, it would say it was justly so.
miles 4y ago
From the earlier Reason article[0]: "In one of his organic chemistry classes in the spring 2022 there were, among other troubling indicators, a very high rate of student withdrawals, a student petition signed by 82 students, course evaluations scores that were by far the worst not only among members of the Chemistry Department but among all the University's undergraduate science courses, and multiple student complaints about his dismissiveness, unresponsiveness, condescension, and opacity about grading." [0] https://reason.com/2022/10/03/maitland-jones-jr-organic-chemistry-nyu-fired/ https://reason.com/2022/10/03/maitland-jones-jr-organic-chem...
- ghaff 4y ago
  It's hard to tell the real story from the various articles. Organic chemistry does tend to be a difficult class for various reasons--and not just because of weeding out pre-meds. And it's easy to see that layered with a semi-retired professor who is very set in his ways who, just because he has been a well-respected researcher doesn't mean he's the best person to teach a large lecture course in a difficult subject.
  - conductr 4y ago
    It weeded me out of pre-med and I never even spoke to the professor. It was like a 500 student class, there was no time. I didn't think it was taught very well. But I also thought it was taught in a normal fashion for the class/topic. It just required much more self-driven appetite for the material and self-study than I had ever experienced and more than I cared to give at the time. I suspect that's the case here as well and the "kids these days" felt the need to protest it instead of roll up their sleeves and do the work, or accept that they don't really have what is required to make it in med school level of rigor and commitment.
- tablespoon 4y ago
  I'm not sure if that quote really captures the issue. I read NYT article about this a few days ago (https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/03/us/nyu-organic-chemistry-petition.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/03/us/nyu-organic-chemistry-...), and its seems one major aspect is a culture clash between expectations of "gen Z" students and expectations of students/professors in prior generations. The gist I got is that the "gen z" students expect the "system" to adapt to address their struggles, and when they fail they tend to blame that "system" or other factors outside their control. Focusing on the student evaluation results presumes the students' attitude is the correct one, when it may very well be unreasonable.
gamechangr 4y ago
I'm glad. There really are problem teachers. I'm not informed enough to know if he/she was one of them, but the whole system needs to be more flexible and responsive to real feedback.
- allturtles 4y ago
  If you're not informed enough to know if this person was a problem teacher, why are you glad that he was fired?
  - gamechangr 4y ago
    I am glad that when enough students complain....something is done about it.
SSJPython 4y ago
When you have a school that charges astronomical prices, it is beholden to its customers: parents and students. Typically, the parents that pay these prices expect their children that want to do pre-med and become doctors to not be "weeded out" by the courses. So NYU, as a a profit-making business, listens to economic logic above all else. It's a shame. Merit must take precedence above all else. In fact, merit should be the only criterion.
- hvs 4y ago
  That can cut both ways, though. Some professors simply aren't good at teaching.
  - enviclash 4y ago
    The simply is like the husband that "simply" does not know how to clean the kitchen. Those professors never attended a pedagogy course.
adra 4y ago
I was in an introduction to c course with a prof who had a midterm where something like 7 of the ~120 students of the exam passed. The other cohort from a different instructor was pretty standard bell curve. It was a royal mess. Each prof. wrote their own exams but the 7/120 teacher was brand new and wasn't afraid of throwing in odd-balls. At least in his defence, he wasn't being malicious or callous but just wasn't supported enough to pick the right level of challenge.
hoppyhoppy2 4y ago
See also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33108206 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33108206 5 hours ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33100836 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33100836 22 hours ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33093467 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33093467 1 day ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33083095 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33083095 2 days ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33070843 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33070843 3 days ago
alecfreudenberg 4y ago
Good thing the students aren't in charge of hiring/firing the professors. And if they are — enjoy your degree, I guess.
onemoresoop 4y ago
I had a professor from hell too and while I got good in his class it was a really bad and unnecessary experience. He was the kind of person that you'd need to ask a clarifying question and he wouldn't want to listen, he'd send you back to reread syllabus and other course documentation without wanting to listen to the full question. Whenever people were stressed out and confused he'd slightly smirk, the only time he'd show any expression on his face. This professor was tough, wasn't teaching too well at all and often would route you to the materials without giving any further explanation. This was undergrad and as an experience it was really unnecessary in my opinion other than to show you that in life you'd run into arseholes and you'll have to deal with it. I don't know the professor in this case but my understanding was that students didn't want him fired, they just wanted to clarify exam questions and/or the exam questions style, clarify materials for exams and all which seems quite reasoning to me. I read some vulgar spins in newspapers that students don't want to do their work, they're lazy and entitled and so on. That is most likely oversimplification
- dogleash 4y ago
  >I read some vulgar spins in newspapers that students don't want to do their work, they're lazy and entitled and so on. That is most likely oversimplification Does nobody remember their schooling? Those students exist and are exactly what the wash out classes are for. The graduating class of my major was 1/6th the size of the freshman intro courses.
  - kalupa 4y ago
    My wash-out classes weren't hard because the instructor/professor wasn't teaching the material. They were hard because the material was challenging. The prof and TAs were always there to help, not hinder ...
- misterprime 4y ago
  The headline generates that "students are lazy and entitled" response. It's similar to the headline "some lady sued McDonald's because her coffee was too hot." We really should stop and think: "There are two sides to this story. Let's hear them out."
kleiba 4y ago
Is anyone able to pull the NYT article south of the wall by any chance?
- misterprime 4y ago
  1. Copy link address 2. load archive.is 3. search for snapshot -> paste Here you go: https://archive.ph/uVvn1 https://archive.ph/uVvn1
jkingsbery 4y ago
I'd very much be in favor of having more separation between teachers and those who assess students. Is this teacher intellectually hazing students? I don't know, maybe. Are these students whining that a traditionally hard class is hard? I don't know, maybe. If some 3rd party is doing the evaluation, it makes it easier to understand if the professor is being too hard or not.
- f1shy 4y ago
  Yes, and after that, if the scores are too low, then you know the problem is the teacher. I have heard professors glorifying themselves saying "I'm a good professor, I give a lot of material, and expect the students to learn a lot... and at the end, only a few pass the exam, because they do not study enough". I suspect those sucked at pedagogy. >Are these students whining that a traditionally hard class is hard? probably no: An NYU spokesperson defended the firing, emphasizing high student withdrawals and bad course evaluations. The statement said the decision was also based on complaints about dismissiveness, unresponsiveness, condescension and lack of transparency about grading.
- wrp 4y ago
  I taught at an academy where evaluators were different from the teachers and were anonymous. The system worked very well. It was originally implemented to get away from students trying to bribe teachers for grades, but it also made evaluation more objective, and gave better feedback to both students and teachers.
  - enviclash 4y ago
    Never heard of this system. Please can you post a link/source?
    - wrp 4y ago
      There was no prepackaged system to follow. It was a pretty large academy, with I think close to 100 teachers. Teachers were grouped by the sections they taught. One group of teachers would be assigned test creation and grading for the classes of another group, that is, same subject but different section.
thinkingemote 4y ago
Today's students are consumers and they demand value for money, a safe environment and a good product. These aims might sometimes have conflict with what education actually is, although in this case there seems to be alignment.
trasz 4y ago
It’s a common pattern in teaching - if your students find the subject too hard, it’s almost always because you’re shit at teaching. Previous generations were more inclined to tolerate this, younger people tend to have a more productive attitude - they understand that shitty sources of information can be easily replaced with better ones.
Eddy_Viscosity2 4y ago
Sometimes students are lazy, and sometimes the teachers are shit. I've been the former at times and certainly had a few of the latter. In this case though from what I read the teach was bad at his job. Maybe didn't need to be fired, but some action was warranted.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
haihaibye 4y ago
It's worth noting that this class was admitting with NYUs test optional admissions. (No SAT during COVID)
jjk166 4y ago
Looking at this guy's Rate My Professor reviews, seems like people have been complaining about his teaching style for years. This was one of the more neutral reviews, coming from 2013: > Professor Jones is often incomprehensible during lecture. The only time he is truly audible is when he yells at students for something that sparked his temper, which can be anything. Tests on material often outside the level of difficulty presented in the homework and class. I did well because of the hours I put in, not because of him. [0] https://www.ratemyprofessors.com/professor?tid=1052652 https://www.ratemyprofessors.com/professor?tid=1052652
chatterhead 4y ago
Isn't every 70s/80s/90s movie about a group of ragtag underdogs successful because of the "if they hate me they won't have time to hate each other" heel-by-design coach? Sounds like this teacher was just applying the Hollywood model. He's probably sitting at home right now like, "Well shit, that didn't work."
WalterBright 4y ago
At Caltech organic chemistry had a reputation for being particularly difficult. Those that took it knew the situation, and accepted the challenge.
beej71 4y ago
I struggle with this as an instructor. There was a study that showed that students of low-rated instructors had better 10-year outcomes. Clearly that doesn't mean you should be a crap instructor, but there's something to be said for a measure of student unhappiness. And it makes sense; students who had to work harder with minimal support built up better mental models along the way as they struggled through it. At the same time, sometimes being there to say a magic word or make an non-obvious connection is also really beneficial even if the student didn't have to work hard for it. Part of me also feels that CS (my subject) doesn't _need_ to be impossibly hard, that a good instructor tunes the material like a spinning instructor so that it's a challenging uphill climb when it should be, and easy when it should be. A student still has to work, but not so impossibly hard that they're destroyed. To get to the top of the mountain, the three options are hike straight up, take the switchbacks, or take the gondola. Straight up weeds out folks for sure. Only the best ones make it. The gondola, well, they learn nothing. I'm a fan of the guided switchbacks. I can make it steep when I want, and chill when I want. And hopefully tune that in a way that gets more people jobs at the end of the day. Difficult is important when it comes to learning. But there can be too much of a good thing.

87 points by throwaway743 4y ago

I see two extremes: one represented by this professor who IMHO cares too little about students --- still he deserves to keep his job. The other extreme is more dangerous and is about University professors actively accepting and facilitating immature behaviour by students. Where could a sweet spot be drawn along this gradient?

sonotathrowaway 4y ago
> The student petition protested that Jones’s class was too hard and that students lacked resources and help. It did not say the professor should be fired. > “We urge you to realize that a class with such a high percentage of withdrawals and low grades has failed to make students’ learning and wellbeing a priority and reflects poorly on the chemistry department as well as the institution as a whole,” the petition read. That doesn’t sound immature to me.
bastawhiz 4y ago
I doubt either of those extremes actually exist. News stories paint a sensational picture for clicks to try to get social media ablaze with "entitled gen z students want their grades handed to them" without actually digging into any details until a few thousand pixels below the fold. It would seem, from reading the story, that this was a professor who did not actually do the leg work to be a professor. Namely, providing students with more than just written resources and giving exams. Why pay a prestigious do-nothing professor a salary when you can just offer an online course that has the same level of engagement?
- ghaff 4y ago
  It can simultaneously be true that: - College students can be entitled and whiny - Organic chemistry is especially difficult for a lot of people - Semi-retired researcher may not be a great lecturer/teacher for a big hall full of freshmen
  - bastawhiz 4y ago
    None of those things are especially newsworthy. They sound like Onion headlines on their own. But when one or more of them happen which could be framed in a way that incenses the public, it becomes a news story because that's how you make money in journalism in 2022.
- enviclash 4y ago
  I am a professor and have seen both extremes. I am worrying about how to keep high scholarly standards all the time --- also on teaching, and especially when supervising theses.

pipeline_peak 4y ago

If there’s on average “ high percentage of withdrawals and low grades” compared to the course taught by other instructors, yeah I think that’s fair. We all had that one professor who everyone was afraid to take. School is still a business, a lot of those guys are better off in research or writing textbooks.

kwertyoowiyop 4y ago

Was there any serious discussion between the prof and the university management about students’ feedback? One hopes the dismissal letter didn’t come out of the blue.

swearwolf 4y ago

I happened to read about this case while I was in the middle of Barbara Erinreich’s book “Fear of Falling”, which is all about the American professional middle class. Part of one chapter talks about how the professions organized to create credentialing systems that kept anyone who couldn’t afford the expensive and time consuming education out. Organic Chemistry is specifically mentioned for its role in weeding out potential medical students who might very well turn out to be good doctors, while simultaneously being irrelevant to the day-to-day practice of medicine. All of this serves the purpose of making sure the supply of doctors is low, and that their wages are therefore kept high. Since the 80s, American society has shifted towards a ruthless form of capitalism that leaves fewer and fewer occupations capable of providing their practitioners with a middle class lifestyle every year. To me, it’s no wonder that students have become ruthlessly mercenary in response. They’ll do what it takes to make a good living, and they won’t tolerate gatekeepers getting in their way without a fight. This is exactly the behavior we (as a society) have incentivized in them.

allturtles 4y ago
> Part of one chapter talks about how the professions organized to create credentialing systems that kept anyone who couldn’t afford the expensive and time consuming education out. Organic Chemistry is specifically mentioned for its role in weeding out potential medical students who might very well turn out to be good doctors, while simultaneously being irrelevant to the day-to-day practice of medicine. Medical schools already have an easy way to affect the supply of doctors that's under their own direct control: their own admissions policies. Is the author hypothesizing that they are somehow controlling undergraduate chemistry classes in private and public institutions across the country, which seems very implausible?
- michaelt 4y ago
  > Is the author hypothesizing that they are somehow controlling undergraduate chemistry classes in private and public institutions across the country, which seems very implausible? Isn't precisely what accreditation allows professional organisations to do? It sounds plausible to me that the AMA could impose education requirements like organic chemistry as a requirement to joining their ranks. And indeed that keeping the supply of doctors limited would be in the interests of their members.

avgDev 4y ago

I had a professor from hell while doing my BS in CS. I was generally a straight A student. I really tried to do my best and cared about my grades. It was the first and last time when I went and talked about a professor to a department head. Said professor came to class often unprepared. Deviated from the syllabus. He talked to some students that he wants to build games and not teach. This was an AI class. Throughout the course he kept telling us to keep our quizzes as they will be helpful for the midterm and final. He hasn't graded or returned any quizzes by midterm, and returned quizzes like a class before the final. His teaching style was pathetic. All our curses were in Java, on first day he told us to install Visual Studio and write this program just to warm up. Then he gave us a problem to solve. 90% of class was installing the IDE and figuring out how to write programs in C# and VS during the duration said class. Literally one guy was doing alright who was a professional game dev using c#. He would read straight from a book, sometimes using visual aids. Then would give a problem to apply said algorithm to and say "GO, if you have problems ask for help". 30 people were asking for help and he could barely help one by end of class. Handful of times we got an email that he won't make it to class. One time 15 minutes into the class. That game dev scored below passing grade on midterm and final. Same as rest of the class. The curve was so high my total 60% got me to an A. Still majority of the class failed. I wish never to have a professor like him again and from what I heard he moved to a private sector.

Calavar 4y ago
Most of my CS faculty in undergrad were great, but there were a couple like the guy you describe. And I wonder why in the world they took jobs as lecturers. If you don't have a passion for teaching, why take a job that pays substantially less than what you get in industry? CS isn't like, say, English where there aren't enough nonacademic jobs to go around. In contrast, most of my faculty in medical school were terrible teachers. But there it made sense why. They were either there because they wanted to work at a large quartenary referral hospital or because they wanted to teach residents (not students).
- bena 4y ago
  You take a job that pays substantially less than what you can get in the industry because it either pays more than other industry-adjacent jobs you can get. Or, you take a job that pays substantially less because you are required to teach as part of your post-baccalaureate degree requirements. Some people teach because they want to. They have a strong desire to instruct and mentor people. To help others get better. Some people teach because they have to. Primary education has different requirements than secondary (at least in the US). Typically, in primary education, you need a degree in education specifically and to be certified to teach in the state you wish to teach. To teach in secondary education, you need whatever requirements are set forth by the institution. Typically, you'll need a post-baccalaureate degree or be working towards one. But as far as being "good" at the thing you're teaching. That's not necessarily required.

sixothree 4y ago

I had one professor I thought was unfairly difficult. I remember him lecturing a girl about how she was failing his class because she spends too much time talking on the telephone. Note - I never once saw her use her phone during class. The tests didn't seem to be related to what was covered, or what was in the exercises, or even the test questions at the back of the chapter. I think he left a few semesters after my class. If he was fired, it would say it was justly so.

miles 4y ago

From the earlier Reason article[0]: "In one of his organic chemistry classes in the spring 2022 there were, among other troubling indicators, a very high rate of student withdrawals, a student petition signed by 82 students, course evaluations scores that were by far the worst not only among members of the Chemistry Department but among all the University's undergraduate science courses, and multiple student complaints about his dismissiveness, unresponsiveness, condescension, and opacity about grading." [0] https://reason.com/2022/10/03/maitland-jones-jr-organic-chemistry-nyu-fired/ https://reason.com/2022/10/03/maitland-jones-jr-organic-chem...

ghaff 4y ago
It's hard to tell the real story from the various articles. Organic chemistry does tend to be a difficult class for various reasons--and not just because of weeding out pre-meds. And it's easy to see that layered with a semi-retired professor who is very set in his ways who, just because he has been a well-respected researcher doesn't mean he's the best person to teach a large lecture course in a difficult subject.
- conductr 4y ago
  It weeded me out of pre-med and I never even spoke to the professor. It was like a 500 student class, there was no time. I didn't think it was taught very well. But I also thought it was taught in a normal fashion for the class/topic. It just required much more self-driven appetite for the material and self-study than I had ever experienced and more than I cared to give at the time. I suspect that's the case here as well and the "kids these days" felt the need to protest it instead of roll up their sleeves and do the work, or accept that they don't really have what is required to make it in med school level of rigor and commitment.
tablespoon 4y ago
I'm not sure if that quote really captures the issue. I read NYT article about this a few days ago (https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/03/us/nyu-organic-chemistry-petition.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/03/us/nyu-organic-chemistry-...), and its seems one major aspect is a culture clash between expectations of "gen Z" students and expectations of students/professors in prior generations. The gist I got is that the "gen z" students expect the "system" to adapt to address their struggles, and when they fail they tend to blame that "system" or other factors outside their control. Focusing on the student evaluation results presumes the students' attitude is the correct one, when it may very well be unreasonable.

gamechangr 4y ago

I'm glad. There really are problem teachers. I'm not informed enough to know if he/she was one of them, but the whole system needs to be more flexible and responsive to real feedback.

allturtles 4y ago
If you're not informed enough to know if this person was a problem teacher, why are you glad that he was fired?
- gamechangr 4y ago
  I am glad that when enough students complain....something is done about it.

SSJPython 4y ago

When you have a school that charges astronomical prices, it is beholden to its customers: parents and students. Typically, the parents that pay these prices expect their children that want to do pre-med and become doctors to not be "weeded out" by the courses. So NYU, as a a profit-making business, listens to economic logic above all else. It's a shame. Merit must take precedence above all else. In fact, merit should be the only criterion.

hvs 4y ago
That can cut both ways, though. Some professors simply aren't good at teaching.
- enviclash 4y ago
  The simply is like the husband that "simply" does not know how to clean the kitchen. Those professors never attended a pedagogy course.

adra 4y ago

I was in an introduction to c course with a prof who had a midterm where something like 7 of the ~120 students of the exam passed. The other cohort from a different instructor was pretty standard bell curve. It was a royal mess. Each prof. wrote their own exams but the 7/120 teacher was brand new and wasn't afraid of throwing in odd-balls. At least in his defence, he wasn't being malicious or callous but just wasn't supported enough to pick the right level of challenge.

hoppyhoppy2 4y ago

See also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33108206 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33108206 5 hours ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33100836 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33100836 22 hours ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33093467 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33093467 1 day ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33083095 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33083095 2 days ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33070843 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33070843 3 days ago

alecfreudenberg 4y ago

Good thing the students aren't in charge of hiring/firing the professors. And if they are — enjoy your degree, I guess.

onemoresoop 4y ago

I had a professor from hell too and while I got good in his class it was a really bad and unnecessary experience. He was the kind of person that you'd need to ask a clarifying question and he wouldn't want to listen, he'd send you back to reread syllabus and other course documentation without wanting to listen to the full question. Whenever people were stressed out and confused he'd slightly smirk, the only time he'd show any expression on his face. This professor was tough, wasn't teaching too well at all and often would route you to the materials without giving any further explanation. This was undergrad and as an experience it was really unnecessary in my opinion other than to show you that in life you'd run into arseholes and you'll have to deal with it. I don't know the professor in this case but my understanding was that students didn't want him fired, they just wanted to clarify exam questions and/or the exam questions style, clarify materials for exams and all which seems quite reasoning to me. I read some vulgar spins in newspapers that students don't want to do their work, they're lazy and entitled and so on. That is most likely oversimplification

dogleash 4y ago
>I read some vulgar spins in newspapers that students don't want to do their work, they're lazy and entitled and so on. That is most likely oversimplification Does nobody remember their schooling? Those students exist and are exactly what the wash out classes are for. The graduating class of my major was 1/6th the size of the freshman intro courses.
- kalupa 4y ago
  My wash-out classes weren't hard because the instructor/professor wasn't teaching the material. They were hard because the material was challenging. The prof and TAs were always there to help, not hinder ...
misterprime 4y ago
The headline generates that "students are lazy and entitled" response. It's similar to the headline "some lady sued McDonald's because her coffee was too hot." We really should stop and think: "There are two sides to this story. Let's hear them out."

kleiba 4y ago

Is anyone able to pull the NYT article south of the wall by any chance?

misterprime 4y ago
1. Copy link address 2. load archive.is 3. search for snapshot -> paste Here you go: https://archive.ph/uVvn1 https://archive.ph/uVvn1

jkingsbery 4y ago

I'd very much be in favor of having more separation between teachers and those who assess students. Is this teacher intellectually hazing students? I don't know, maybe. Are these students whining that a traditionally hard class is hard? I don't know, maybe. If some 3rd party is doing the evaluation, it makes it easier to understand if the professor is being too hard or not.

f1shy 4y ago
Yes, and after that, if the scores are too low, then you know the problem is the teacher. I have heard professors glorifying themselves saying "I'm a good professor, I give a lot of material, and expect the students to learn a lot... and at the end, only a few pass the exam, because they do not study enough". I suspect those sucked at pedagogy. >Are these students whining that a traditionally hard class is hard? probably no: An NYU spokesperson defended the firing, emphasizing high student withdrawals and bad course evaluations. The statement said the decision was also based on complaints about dismissiveness, unresponsiveness, condescension and lack of transparency about grading.
wrp 4y ago
I taught at an academy where evaluators were different from the teachers and were anonymous. The system worked very well. It was originally implemented to get away from students trying to bribe teachers for grades, but it also made evaluation more objective, and gave better feedback to both students and teachers.
- enviclash 4y ago
  Never heard of this system. Please can you post a link/source?
  - wrp 4y ago
    There was no prepackaged system to follow. It was a pretty large academy, with I think close to 100 teachers. Teachers were grouped by the sections they taught. One group of teachers would be assigned test creation and grading for the classes of another group, that is, same subject but different section.

thinkingemote 4y ago

Today's students are consumers and they demand value for money, a safe environment and a good product. These aims might sometimes have conflict with what education actually is, although in this case there seems to be alignment.

trasz 4y ago

It’s a common pattern in teaching - if your students find the subject too hard, it’s almost always because you’re shit at teaching. Previous generations were more inclined to tolerate this, younger people tend to have a more productive attitude - they understand that shitty sources of information can be easily replaced with better ones.

Eddy_Viscosity2 4y ago

Sometimes students are lazy, and sometimes the teachers are shit. I've been the former at times and certainly had a few of the latter. In this case though from what I read the teach was bad at his job. Maybe didn't need to be fired, but some action was warranted.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

haihaibye 4y ago

It's worth noting that this class was admitting with NYUs test optional admissions. (No SAT during COVID)

jjk166 4y ago

Looking at this guy's Rate My Professor reviews, seems like people have been complaining about his teaching style for years. This was one of the more neutral reviews, coming from 2013: > Professor Jones is often incomprehensible during lecture. The only time he is truly audible is when he yells at students for something that sparked his temper, which can be anything. Tests on material often outside the level of difficulty presented in the homework and class. I did well because of the hours I put in, not because of him. [0] https://www.ratemyprofessors.com/professor?tid=1052652 https://www.ratemyprofessors.com/professor?tid=1052652

chatterhead 4y ago

Isn't every 70s/80s/90s movie about a group of ragtag underdogs successful because of the "if they hate me they won't have time to hate each other" heel-by-design coach? Sounds like this teacher was just applying the Hollywood model. He's probably sitting at home right now like, "Well shit, that didn't work."

WalterBright 4y ago

At Caltech organic chemistry had a reputation for being particularly difficult. Those that took it knew the situation, and accepted the challenge.

beej71 4y ago

I struggle with this as an instructor. There was a study that showed that students of low-rated instructors had better 10-year outcomes. Clearly that doesn't mean you should be a crap instructor, but there's something to be said for a measure of student unhappiness. And it makes sense; students who had to work harder with minimal support built up better mental models along the way as they struggled through it. At the same time, sometimes being there to say a magic word or make an non-obvious connection is also really beneficial even if the student didn't have to work hard for it. Part of me also feels that CS (my subject) doesn't _need_ to be impossibly hard, that a good instructor tunes the material like a spinning instructor so that it's a challenging uphill climb when it should be, and easy when it should be. A student still has to work, but not so impossibly hard that they're destroyed. To get to the top of the mountain, the three options are hike straight up, take the switchbacks, or take the gondola. Straight up weeds out folks for sure. Only the best ones make it. The gondola, well, they learn nothing. I'm a fan of the guided switchbacks. I can make it steep when I want, and chill when I want. And hopefully tune that in a way that gets more people jobs at the end of the day. Difficult is important when it comes to learning. But there can be too much of a good thing.