My students have paid £9,000 and now they think they own me • Hacker News Board

Re: My students have paid £9,000 and now they think they own me

#51

Post by relkor » Fri, Dec 18, 2015, 2:35 PM UTC

gjm11 wrote: post #40

relkor wrote: post #10

I am not paying for a "chance to learn". I am paying for a self-professed expert in pedagogy, whose has spend devoted their proffesional life to the art of shoving information into arbitrary people's heads. I go to the doctor because I want a professional with knowledge of diseases to fix my cold, not the crystal homeopathic healer that lurks on the street outside my apartment. Teachers are supposed to be experts at…

If you go to your doctor and say "I have a cold, fix it" then you are going to be disappointed no matter how good your doctor is. ("With proper treatment, a cold will clear up in a week. Without, it may take as much as seven days.") If you go to your teacher (at whatever level) and say "I want to become expert in your field without either working very hard or having a great deal of natural talent" then you are again…

> A student who does nothing beyond turning up to most of the lectures

Then adjust the cost of the course to reflect that reality. If the teacher is admittely doing zero work to help this student, then why does it cost so much. Teachers in this case are QQing all the way to the bank. This is just a smoke screen thrown up to distract from the fact that these students that don't work hard are being defrauded left and right.

Lecturing 30 students for 18 weeks at $9,000 per student would make me fanatically motivated to give them the knowledge that they requested. Give half to overhead, and that is almost half a million per year. That buys a lot of work from a single human.

Re: My students have paid £9,000 and now they think they own me

#52

Post by kayfox » Fri, Dec 18, 2015, 2:38 PM UTC

relkor wrote: post #45

_Wintermute wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I am paying for a self-professed expert in pedagogy, whose has spend devoted their proffesional [sic] life to the art of shoving information into arbitrary people's heads That's not what you're paying for. They're not experts in pedagogy, they're experts in their field of research. If you don't understand the course materials it's your job as a student to rectify that, either through self-study or seeking help. Cle…

I am not only talking about university here. This attitude pervades the entire structure of education all the way down to primary school. What I am advocating here for is different system that actually allows students to purchase the level of education that they want. Ideally the cost would be based on how much work the teacher has to do to shove the knowledge into your head. If a student is struggling, then they can…

You can always hire a tutor if your having trouble self-driving your own education.

Re: My students have paid £9,000 and now they think they own me

#53

Post by emp_zealoth » Fri, Dec 18, 2015, 2:38 PM UTC

arbitrage wrote: post #49

yakult wrote: post #8

tl;dr: professor has a few bad experiences with students and, combining them with a choice anecdote from an unnamed colleague, proceeds to generalize to not only the (presumably) hundreds of students he has taught, but students, everywhere, in general. Having been a student myself, I could recount the time when a professor chose to replace her all twelve of her lectures with student presentations, then tested us on e…

Personally, I tend to downvote people who whine about karma. I can get enough of that crap on reddit. Someone can disagree with you without having to get into an extended debate. That's why the voting buttons exist.

No, that is exactly and perfectly wrong. Downvoting because you disagree is against the rules. As a student I wholeheartedly agree - I have classes now where a tutor comes in, tosses a two page pdf with an assigment in Labview (which we were never taught or even got to use before) to do during class and ITS GRADED right after that class. He also throws a hissing fit every time anyone dares to ask him for help.

Re: My students have paid £9,000 and now they think they own me

#54

Post by sreenadh » Fri, Dec 18, 2015, 2:41 PM UTC

Its a sad state of this world where there is a price for everything but no value for anything.

I have had my share of teachers who proved that "those who cannot do, teach". I read that in Sweden, you have to be in the top 5 percentile if you want to qualify as a teacher. Plus a lot of teachers are so disconnected from the professional world that the student are confused when I come to work which I have experienced myself and seem over again as an "intern-trainer" at my work as a Software Developer.

Education has been so commercialized that some universities look more like a mall than a university. Cannot blame the students for expecting a degree after all the money they have paid. In a lot of collages, the entrance exam is just a scam.

This state is specially true in India where we are taught to respect in the order of "Mother, Father, Teacher, God". Even God deserves less respect than teacher. But there also, if you cannot find any job. Then the next option is teaching.

Re: My students have paid £9,000 and now they think they own me

#55

Post by relkor » Fri, Dec 18, 2015, 2:42 PM UTC

jonathansizz wrote: post #50

My lectures are designed to supplement learning that my students are expected to have done prior to class. The lectures are a summary of the material, with worked examples, a chance to ask questions to clear up misunderstandings, and for discussion of key concepts. Lectures are attended by dozens of students, so they cannot be a personalized tutorial service. That's what office hours are for. My best students don't u…

Then change the fee schedule to reflect this.

The problem I have is that your system does not serve 2/3rds of the customers. Your best students are pretty much self-taught, so why do you charge them for all of the your time. The poor students do not show up either, so why are you charging them for your time as well?

I am not critizing your specific method of teaching, just your fee schedule. You admit that your services are basically useless to 2/3rds of the sutdents, yet you charge twice that of a personal tutor service for each and every one of your students. That is where the anger is coming from.

Re: My students have paid £9,000 and now they think they own me

#56

Post by ryaniscool » Fri, Dec 18, 2015, 2:43 PM UTC

relkor wrote: post #10

I am not paying for a "chance to learn". I am paying for a self-professed expert in pedagogy, whose has spend devoted their proffesional life to the art of shoving information into arbitrary people's heads. I go to the doctor because I want a professional with knowledge of diseases to fix my cold, not the crystal homeopathic healer that lurks on the street outside my apartment. Teachers are supposed to be experts at…

As other commenters have mentioned, you aren't acknowledging the student's responsibility. This is especially true in a university setting. You aren't going to leave university with everything you need to know to jump right into a professional job. The entire point of university is to give you the foundation for teaching yourself what you need to know to do your job in your chosen field.

Re: My students have paid £9,000 and now they think they own me

#57

Post by davidjgraph » Fri, Dec 18, 2015, 2:45 PM UTC

relkor wrote: post #51

gjm11 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you go to your doctor and say "I have a cold, fix it" then you are going to be disappointed no matter how good your doctor is. ("With proper treatment, a cold will clear up in a week. Without, it may take as much as seven days.") If you go to your teacher (at whatever level) and say "I want to become expert in your field without either working very hard or having a great deal of natural talent" then you are again…

> A student who does nothing beyond turning up to most of the lectures Then adjust the cost of the course to reflect that reality. If the teacher is admittely doing zero work to help this student, then why does it cost so much. Teachers in this case are QQing all the way to the bank. This is just a smoke screen thrown up to distract from the fact that these students that don't work hard are being defrauded left and r…

9,000GBP, this article related specifically to English and Welsh universities. A lecture earns around 40k GBP annually, a senior lecturer might get up to about 60k GBP.

Re: My students have paid £9,000 and now they think they own me

#58

Post by cardamomo » Fri, Dec 18, 2015, 2:46 PM UTC

relkor wrote: post #45

_Wintermute wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I am paying for a self-professed expert in pedagogy, whose has spend devoted their proffesional [sic] life to the art of shoving information into arbitrary people's heads That's not what you're paying for. They're not experts in pedagogy, they're experts in their field of research. If you don't understand the course materials it's your job as a student to rectify that, either through self-study or seeking help. Cle…

I am not only talking about university here. This attitude pervades the entire structure of education all the way down to primary school. What I am advocating here for is different system that actually allows students to purchase the level of education that they want. Ideally the cost would be based on how much work the teacher has to do to shove the knowledge into your head. If a student is struggling, then they can…

In fact, this already happens for most primary and secondary education in the United States. Given the level of segregation in our cities and suburbs, massive inequalities in school funding, teacher training, and facilities essentially amount to an apartheid system of education. Families who can afford to move to better school districts or send their children to private schools often do.

Re: My students have paid £9,000 and now they think they own me

#59

Post by kayfox » Fri, Dec 18, 2015, 2:46 PM UTC

Thriptic wrote: post #18

sklogic wrote: post #3

The idiots do not realise they're paying for a chance to learn, not for a product to be delivered to them no matter what.

A lot of (and I would actually argue most) people are solely there to get a piece of paper which lets them have access to a decent job, and they're paying enormous amounts of money (and many times taking on dangerous levels of debt) to get that piece of paper. For all intents and purposes, they ARE paying for a product, and that's how they view it. College has become a barrier to entry to the job market, and when a s…

I have always thought that at least part of that degree implies that you have the initiative and self-guidance to achieve things with little outside direction. I have noted a few employers who ask for a four year degree, but not in any specific field and this certainly indicates that employers are looking for people who know how to go out and achieve things without having to be told all the details of getting it done. Students expecting constant supervision really sets them up for failure in the real world as management typically does not have the time to supervise every aspect of their reports work.

Also, the high achievers know how to go out and figure out and do things on their own.

Re: My students have paid £9,000 and now they think they own me

#60

Post by davidjgraph » Fri, Dec 18, 2015, 2:49 PM UTC

relkor wrote: post #28

davidjgraph wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the article "teaching still only equates to 33% of my workload". Teaching at universities is virtually never their sole function, and rarely the majority of their function. At UK universities most such staff take the job for research and have to teach as a condition of that job. It's true that university staff vary in their commitment to teaching and I can remember many who felt that teaching was beneath them an…

Valid point for university, but I have seen this same attitude all the way down the chain to primary school and secondary school. Maybe teachers in primary school are apeing the attitudes of college professors in an attempt to capture the greater social prestige associtated with being a researcher, however this motivation buys no forgiveness in the hearts of all the students that then pay directly for this ego trip.

Paying directly for primarily or secondary schools is very rare in UK, the vast majority of teachers are paid indirectly via taxation. With my own children I've found the quality of primary school teaching to be excellent given they start on around 20k GBP here and work very long hours.