Teaching college is no longer a middle-class job, and everyone should care • Hacker News Board

Re: Teaching college is no longer a middle-class job, and everyone should care

#181

Post by alexeisadeski3 » Sat, Jun 21, 2014, 9:48 AM UTC

majika wrote: post #158

waps wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> negative externalities like pollution, over-harvesting, misinformation, or antibiotics misuse. Not disagreeing, because the point is true. However solutions for most of these have been found a) over-harvesting : only a problem in a non-fully-privatized situation (in other words, the more government involvement, the more you have this problem). This one is actually an argument FOR capitalism. b) pollution is also a…

Can you please explain how markets address overharvesting and pollution, and examples of that happening? If your point is that states can overharvest and pollute too, sure - of course they can. They probably will if they're corrupt. My point was that only states can stop it: see the legislation on whaling, fishing, poaching, emissions regulations and taxation, ... On misinformation, you made the (unrelated) point tha…

Pollution: Expand private property rights (air, ocean, etc).

Re: Teaching college is no longer a middle-class job, and everyone should care

#182

Post by eli_gottlieb » Sat, Jun 21, 2014, 9:49 AM UTC

jerf wrote: post #80

goldfeld wrote: post #2

These basal, fundamental flaws in the educational system give me pause to awe, and a gut feeling the US is gonna get trampled many times over by the likes of China within some decades. So little regulation and such harsh capitalism is eating its heart out bit by bit. I guess what keeps America bright at this point is a legacy from the past century, that's slowly eroding, and the brain drain sucked chiefly out of Asia…

Are you sure this is the defense you want to muster? Universities are basically where liberalism/progressivism comes from. It is where it is in its strongest power. Government money everywhere; tuition, research grants, special projects, tax breaks. Administrative staff benevolently administrating massive diversity programs of every kind. 90%+ of the staff are progressives/liberals. Not being progressive/liberal can…

>It is the very beating heart of the anti-"capitalist" regime, the blueprint by which they would remake the rest of the world.

I have never heard any self-proclaimed socialist ever utter these words. Do you get your entire concept of the Left from right-wing strawmen?

Re: Teaching college is no longer a middle-class job, and everyone should care

#183

Post by eli_gottlieb » Sat, Jun 21, 2014, 9:53 AM UTC

dasil003 wrote: post #45

r00fus wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just amazing that you and goldfeld are both right - the US education system is at once inadequately designed, and also being sieged by corporate interests as well. Doesn't hurt that some school administrators don't reasonably respond/engage with parents except those who have lawyers, which parents unfortunately engage without trying to engage the school first. Ultimately though, I think the sad state of schools in th…

On one side we have wealth consolidating much faster than the economy is growing, and on the other side we have the military industrial complex sucking up any increase in taxation to bloat its own oppressive bureaucracy, to say nothing of the resolving door between them. I can't help but get the feeling that a dystopia is congealing around us with no way out politically. A lot of intellectuals have foreseen the ills…

Well, I think if we want to start thinking about these, it needs to become publicly acceptable to say that capitalism is an evil vampire squid trying to suck your blood rather than a cuddly huggable teddy-bear that solves all your problems.

See: this entire thread, in which the solution to corporatization of the university is almost automatically assumed to be adding more capitalism.

Re: Teaching college is no longer a middle-class job, and everyone should care

#184

Post by eli_gottlieb » Sat, Jun 21, 2014, 9:56 AM UTC

dnautics wrote: post #104

rdtsc wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You know, like you might have found in the 19th - first half of the 20th century. 19th century? So it is easier to imagine going back to 19th century than a system with an accessible public university system without student loans.

No, 'going back to the 19th century (-first half of the 20th century)' is equivalent to imagining a higher education system without student loans. Don't see what the big deal is.

In the 19th century and the pre-social-democratic 20th century, most universities had no student loans because they charged steep fees in cold cash. If you want to eliminate student debt without eliminating students, you need to look at the social-democratic universities of the post-WW2 era.

Re: Teaching college is no longer a middle-class job, and everyone should care

#185

Post by bsder » Sat, Jun 21, 2014, 9:59 AM UTC

clintonc wrote: post #128

bsder wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Define "hour". Hour in the classroom? Possibly. Assume a 12 week semester and 6 hours per week. Last time I taught a semester, I got about $5,000, so that is nominally $70 per hour. However, that doesn't count time answering student questions. That doesn't count office hours. That doesn't count making up homework or tests and grading them. For me, each class I teach is about 40 hours of work per week. If that is your…

40 hours of work per week!? Eight hours a day, five days a week, for every class?

Yes.

I have to prep 2 3 hour lectures per week. Each lecture easily takes 8 hours to prep. 6 assignments--have to make them up, set up automated tests, get things set up in source code control, and help students when things come back wrong if they can't figure it out. A midterm and a final--have to make it up and correct it. Add in office hours as well as replying to students via email and I'm easily at 40 hours per week.

This is why so many teachers just prep once and regurgitate each class (including assignments and tests). It's just sooooo much less time consuming.

Don't feel bad. My poor TA (who was a student in a previous class I taught) was stunned too--"It takes this much time?!?!?! And you did this by yourself for our class?"

Re: Teaching college is no longer a middle-class job, and everyone should care

#186

Post by keithpeter » Sat, Jun 21, 2014, 10:02 AM UTC

dccoolgai wrote: post #43

DennisP wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meanwhile, Coursera has 677 courses available for free, many of them excellent. You don't get the diploma, but if the diploma is backed by lower-quality classes and grade inflation, that's going to matter less and less.

Thatks where I see huge potential for disruption to higher ed; I think some trusted or recognized source will make a lot of money by offering credentialing... I saw something about 'nanodegrees' from Udacity (or one of those). When the situation reaches the tipping point where it's a signal of mental paucity that you decided to take on 200k of debt for something you could have gotten for a lot less, I wonder what wil…

Wrap a tutor contact service - sort of Uber for teaching - so that when candidates need a bit of one to one or to have a small group seminar about an especially tricky part of a given online course they can.

You then have something close to the original Universities around 1100 ad or so!

Re: Teaching college is no longer a middle-class job, and everyone should care

#187

Post by keithpeter » Sat, Jun 21, 2014, 10:10 AM UTC

crpatino wrote: post #38

pattisapu wrote: post #16

Good point on how the pay problem for adjunct faculty is intertwined with the "everyone gets a trophy" problem for students: > “I knew the instructor was an adjunct, and that she taught at several places to cobble together a living. I told the students that she was an adjunct, and that the class was easy because she was afraid of losing her job.” Adjuncts are often evaluated solely based on student evaluations. As Re…

I'd up-vote you twice if I could. Students may pay for the privilege to receive a higher education, but the real customer is society. The product is competent graduates that will keep society moving forwards. Once you start asking the opinion of the raw materials in your assembly line, everything goes downhill.

Your third paragraph implies a model of education and preparation for leadership that will actively work against the goal articulated in the last sentence of your second paragraph.

PS: what meaning are you attaching to the word 'society' here?

Re: Teaching college is no longer a middle-class job, and everyone should care

#188

Post by colanderman » Sat, Jun 21, 2014, 10:44 AM UTC

alexeisadeski3 wrote: post #181

majika wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you please explain how markets address overharvesting and pollution, and examples of that happening? If your point is that states can overharvest and pollute too, sure - of course they can. They probably will if they're corrupt. My point was that only states can stop it: see the legislation on whaling, fishing, poaching, emissions regulations and taxation, ... On misinformation, you made the (unrelated) point tha…

Pollution: Expand private property rights (air, ocean, etc).

Here's how this goes:

1. Person X buys land because they need to live.

2. X asks real estate broker, "Don't I need air rights too?" Broker says "nah, the air's clean around here". (It is.)

3. Industry Y decides to move into town. Buys up all the unsold air rights from the broker (maybe with a little kickback). (Industry Y sells widgets, of which everyone needs an endless supply.)

4. Industry Y does what industries do and pollutes the air. Person X is out of luck, gets cancer and dies. (Person Z, who was smart and kept his air rights, is out of luck too, because everyone else sold out and it turns out particulate matter doesn't respect property law.)

Don't believe me? This is exactly what's happened with fracking. Affected homeowners are told they can't sue because they don't own the water/mineral rights around their land.

Anyway the end of this story in anarcho-capitalist-libertarian land is:

5. Person X gangs up with other townsfolk to pay their private police force to strongarm industry Y into selling their air rights to a collective trust.

6. Townsfolk look at their combined police-and-regulatory trust, see that it is good, and decide to name it "government".

Re: Teaching college is no longer a middle-class job, and everyone should care

#189

Post by DennisP » Sat, Jun 21, 2014, 11:42 AM UTC

Avshalom wrote: post #172

QuantumChaos wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should paying teachers be considered good in itself? Are you familiar with the First and Second Welfare Theorem in economics?

One the one hand it shouldn't. On their other hand it is bizarre to come into a thread about how teachers aren't getting paid despite school costs rising and present as an alternative paying teachers even less. On the gripping hand I'm not entirely sure what you think the welfare theorems have to do with this but its worth remember that they do not and quite likely cannot actually describe reality.

The article wasn't just about the poor teachers. It also complained that students aren't getting value for their money.

But my main point is this: given that good competition exists, if colleges don't fix this quality issue, enrollment will drop and the situation for their teachers will keep getting worse.

(But professors at Coursera could get paid well for their efforts, if Coursera ends up with an effective business model.)

Re: Teaching college is no longer a middle-class job, and everyone should care

#190

Post by webhat » Sat, Jun 21, 2014, 11:43 AM UTC

I'm often sad and happy when reading this problem. Sad because it's the state of things, which sucks! And happy because the more that it's said the more chance there is that instructors will actually be paid well, and students can learn in an environment that doesn't treat their faculty as cheap throw away labor.

This addresses many of the issues that we are solving with our startup Oplerno.