Odd Men Out

There was an article in Sunday's paper about a professor at my university who is (according to the headline) being fired for giving out too many F's. I don't know him personally, nor do I know the details of everything that led to his dismissal from the University. Therefore, by no means am I defending him and his classroom performance... but I do have to say that everything else that he said about my day job is probably true.

I love my university. And I cherish the opportunity to work with my students. Yet and still, as he suggests in the article, there are plenty of days at the University when integrity seems like a thing of the past, and plummeting levels of expectation for student performance seem to be embraced by faculty and administration alike.

Case in point: This semester I started with 22 students in my upper level course. Ten dropped out after midterms (mostly at my request). Another withdrew just days before the final exam. And of the remaining 11, after today's final exam I suspect that only 3 or 4 will pass the course. I should probably point out that historically my pass rates for this class have never been this low, but it is not uncommon for this course to have a pass rate of 50% or lower. Now granted, I have been much more fortunate than the guy in the article in that my low pass rates for this course have never come into question by administration (probably thanks to my track record with success rates in other courses)... but it still brings to light the following dilemma:

Grade Inflation
The students that enter my upper level course are consistently deficient in both prerequisite content knowledge and their ability to learn in general. To add insult to injury, every now and then I will get a group of students in the same semester who could not pass an exam even if I stapled the answer key to the back of the test paper. And this was the case for me this semester. So my question is, if my primary objective is to achieve a particular pass rate in order to uphold our enrollment figures... then who's objective is it to ensure that undeserving students are not allowed to (further) tarnish the reputation of our university by receiving degrees they most certainly did not earn? When I come across so many upper level students that are so dreadfully unprepared in myriad areas, it pains me to think of how many professors must have simply passed these students along in order for them to have made it this far in their academic careers. It makes me think that there was a memo that I missed that read "Please pass Johnny if he ends up in your class. He is not very smart nor does he try very hard, but he shows up every day and that should be enough for at least a B". Long story short, it makes no sense for my students to be this deficient in study habits and content knowledge in their junior or senior year at the University. It is all very reminiscent of those stories you hear about kids who somehow make it through high school before anyone figures out that they cannot read or write. Where are the teachers? And what are they teaching the students? It all makes me question the true value of the degrees that we administer to hundreds of students at the end of every semester. Exactly what are they graduating from? And how academically worthwhile was their journey to get to that point?

Consolation Prize

But if nothing else, I take solace in the fact that, despite the F's and D's... and despite my no-nonsense approach and their repeated attempts to pass my class... my student reviews remain above average and almost all of my students (from the A's to the F's) deem me as one of their favorite teachers. Because at the end of the day, they are smarter than most of my colleagues give them credit for, and can appreciate the love that might come with a failing grade far more than the nonchalance and lack of concern that often accompany a passing grade in other courses. Even though my elevated standards are often their demise, they still understand the extent to which I care about them, how much effort I put into trying to help them learn, and (even if they don't attain it) can appreciate the level of discipline, focus, and dedication that is required to pass my course. Because at the end of the day, who really cares about a trigonometric function or what the graph of tangent looks like? But those other life skills are transferable, and those are the ones that I wish my colleagues would spend just a little more time developing in our students.



As for the article, to me the best part is when the student says, "If I had it to do over again, I wouldn't have taken his course. I was still in a high-school mindset, and he's not a high school teacher." The funny (extremely sad?) implication there is that for all of her other professors there was simply no need to shed her high school mentality and perform on a collegiate level. Most notably, there were no ill feelings towards that professor in particular, but just an observation that his level of expectation was very high and simply did not jive with the rest of her collegiate experience.

In the End...
The moral of this story is that freshman year in college should not resemble the "13th grade". And likewise for grades 14 through 16. But until we get better instructors, higher admission standards, or come to grips with the fact that a 70% pass rate may not be a realistic nor fair objective, professors like myself and the plaintiff in the article will continue to be the odd men out.

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And in other news of teachers who are making a difference: As many of you know, my wife teaches the same subject as I do, but at the high school level. With that, I'm proud to report that her level of dedication, radical vision, and determination to make a difference has been embraced and acknowledged time and time again by her students, colleagues and supervisors. So much so that as a junior faculty member with just two years of experience in her current school district, she was offered (not one but) two different department chair positions in the past 3 months alone. One opportunity was at another public school in the same district, and the other was within her very own Math Department. I think it is great that her level of achievement and potential for excellence has not gone unsung. And so next time you see her, be sure to congratulate her on a job well done because she is truly an exceptional teacher. We're so very proud of the difference you make, you magnificent teacher, you!