Professor Flunks entire class.

[Rageaholic]

Wow

I don't know what to think about this. On one hand, it's very possible that he got a bunch of lousy students who deserved the failing grade. But he also comes across as cocky and sanctimonious. And I have a hard time believing that every single student was so bad as to deserve a failing grade.

Some in the comments of the article think that the schools decision to have his grades not stand is a cop out, but it doesn't sound like they're just passing everyone. They're just reevaluating the grades from a professor who basically said "screw this I'm out of here". It still doesn't rule out a failing grade for any or all of the students.

[the_std]

When I read the excerpt from his email, I don't see "cocky and sanctimonious". I see "angry professor who is doing his best to remain civil while expressing his disappointment in the class".

Teaching an unruly, disruptive and disrespectful class is so heinous that it is one of my personal circles of hell. There are a lot of really awful things I'd rather do again over teaching a bad class. If it was as bad as this professor is making it sound, then I commend him for not using any actual profanity in his email.

[TheHuckster]

I've been in classes where there seems to be a lot more idiot students than usual who refuse to participate, disrespectful, or are even rebellious against what seems to be otherwise a rather run-of-the-mill class.

But it was, at worst, 50% of the class who were that way. The other 50% were perfectly fine. So, I also find it hard to believe that the entire class was deserving of a failing grade. Even if there was one student who quietly refrained from participating in the shenanigans that played out, that's enough reason NOT to fail the entire class, but simply fail only the ones who were disruptive.

Plus, if he was really having such a hard time with the students, that calls for a meeting with the dean to discuss what actions are necessary, plus to put on the record what's going on rather than what appears right now to be hearsay and allegations. Perhaps the students are in other classes doing the same thing, and more broad measures should be taken.

[Rageaholic]

When I read the excerpt from his email, I don't see "cocky and sanctimonious". I see "angry professor who is doing his best to remain civil while expressing his disappointment in the class".

Maybe not cocky, but definitely sanctimonious. His talk about "honor" sounds like someone with a stick up his ass. He also seems to have a reputation for being a hard ass.

But on second reading, if he rarely flunks students, then maybe this was a particularly bad class. I can't rule that out either.

[Lindsay B.]

http://www.click2houston.com/news/pr...class/32562452

Dr. Patrick Louchouarn, the vice president of Academic affairs at the university made it very clear that although they respect Horwtiz, his failing grades won't stick.

"None of them have failed until the end of the class, meaning the only reason a student would fail because he or she has not performed the expectations for that particular class," Louchouran said.

The department head will take over the class until the end of the semester, according to school officials.

I don't quite understand this. The semester hasn't ended yet. How can he have already decided the students' final grades if the course is still in progress?


I once had a professor who said that she would always listen if any students felt that they had been graded unfairly. She said, "Injustice in grading is always a possibility. Reading thirty, forty, fifty papers can take a toll on a teacher. Sometimes a single word or phrase, or even a student's handwriting, can irritate a professor unreasonably."

Even if there was one student who quietly refrained from participating in the shenanigans that played out, that's enough reason NOT to fail the entire class, but simply fail only the ones who were disruptive.

I agree. This professor spoke of students cheating, being disrespectful, spreading rumors about him, and even said that he felt the need for police protection in the class.

If all of that is true, then something was obviously seriously wrong, and the administration should have stepped in. But if it was really that bad, then I can easily believe that the professor was driven to the point that he would no longer care if every single student was at fault. He might just condemn the entire class and walk out.

But, ironically, if he's exaggerating how bad it was, then I would also consider that a reason to doubt the fairness of his actions. If he exaggerated the class's behavior, then I would have to wonder if he's also exaggerating how many of the students were involved.

[Kheldarson]

It sounded to me like the behavior might have just been the final straw. He does indicate they weren't performing academically, at least to his standards.

[Aragarthiel]

A teacher NEVER needs to fail an entire class. I remember being in school on days when the whole class would be punished because someone threw a paper airplane or something and nobody would admit who did it. It always made me want to cry, because I was the quiet one sitting at the front of the class paying attention and getting straight As (well, a couple Bs, but that's beside the point). I loved school, but on those days I hated it. Failing because others wouldn't behave... that would be horrible.

[Kuari]

I've got friends who teach university courses, and I've heard some major horror stories about some of the classes. Bear in mind as well that these people became friends of mine after I went through their class so I've got some idea of their teaching style - more than a few have had stories about how they had no idea how an entire class even managed to either get into university or made it as far as they did in the first damn place. So I can easily see how a professor would fail an entire class, especially after helping to mark exams and papers and wondering if the entire class smoked weed before settling down to write. So yes, sometimes a prof DOES need to fail a whole class. It does nobody any favours to pass them onto the next level/course if they didn't perform at a level required for the course.

I'm going to withhold judgement on what happened with this particular teacher until I see more information.

[Rageaholic]

A teacher NEVER needs to fail an entire class. I remember being in school on days when the whole class would be punished because someone threw a paper airplane or something and nobody would admit who did it. It always made me want to cry, because I was the quiet one sitting at the front of the class paying attention and getting straight As (well, a couple Bs, but that's beside the point). I loved school, but on those days I hated it. Failing because others wouldn't behave... that would be horrible.

That's what I think might have happened. Some bad students might have been pushed the professor over the edge. If that's the case, I can't fully blame him because students can be sadistic assholes (though I still think the grades should be reevaluated for those who ).

Though it's also possible that this professor was one of those hard asses with ridiculous standards.

[Aragarthiel]

Whether he was pushed over the edge or had standards that were too high, if I had been in his class (behaving myself, of course), I'd be talking with a lawyer. I simply can't believe that there wasn't a single good student in his class. That good student would not only be set back career-wise, but they'd probably lose any scholarships or grants they had, and if they paid for the course it would have been a waste of money. And the email he sent out is a blatant insult to any good students he had in his class.

I know the article mentions that none of them were competent, but the good students are likely to be overlooked simply for being good. It's like being out grocery shopping- you don't give the kid standing quietly by his mom a second thought, but the one kicking and screaming while running around the store will always grab your attention. If there's 19 of them, you're not going to notice #20 at all.

[Shangri-laschild]

I've been in a class before where one of the other hours of that class drove the teacher to quit teaching it in the middle of a semester. I liked her too so it sucked but given how crappy my hour of that class was, I can only imagine how bad the other was and honestly, I don't know how she managed to not just walk out of the school in the middle of the day. I hated the rest of the class that she was supposed to be teaching (she was only teaching a quarter of the year for each hour) because we got subs instead and mostly only subs who didn't care whatsoever. I never blamed her for it though so I guess I can understand walking out on a class mid semester if it's bad enough. While I'll agree that I wanted to try in that class so it wasn't everyone who was horrible, I don't know about the other hour and honestly even in my hour, it was me and maybe 1 or 2 other people. I took it because I wanted to learn all the things they were going to be teaching. Sadly most of the people taking it took it as a slack off class but I have never been in such a horrible slack off class before. It was like the worst of my grade all got dumped in together except a tiny few people. There is a lot I would like to know about this before judging how he handled it really.

[NecCat]

I have a close friend who teaches at a university. She is complaining of the competence of the incoming students more every year. It is against provincial education standards to fail students at the grade and high school levels. Each year coming in is less prepared to deal with university than the year before. Almost ten years ago the university had to set limits on the percentage of students who could fail certain classes, because some of the failure marks in the first year courses were up over 70%. So each year the bottom of the class is coming in less prepared than the year before. The maximum percentage failed is also applied to graduating years. So each year we are getting professionals in their field with less training and competence than ever before. Even the students at the top of the class are getting less training and competence, because the university is basically dumbing down the classes for a hope that enough students can keep up.

I can understand an entire class being too incompetent to pass a reasonably well taught class, if they are coming in lacking the foundation to understand the subjects taught. I can understand a teacher getting frustrated by it, failing the class and rage-quitting, if the teacher has made other attempts to fix the problem and been stonewalled by school policies that only increase the problem.

[Anthony K. S.]

I remember being in school on days when the whole class would be punished because someone threw a paper airplane or something and nobody would admit who did it. It always made me want to cry, because I was the quiet one sitting at the front of the class paying attention and getting straight As (well, a couple Bs, but that's beside the point).

I know where you're coming from. In the schools I attended, it was a common practice to punish an entire class if any students misbehaved.

In high school, I had a chemistry teacher who the students quickly grew to dread having as their last class of the day. Every single time a student was disruptive or interrupted the class in any way, the teacher would delay the class's dismissal by a minute or two. It was not uncommon for the class to wind up leaving 20 minutes or more past the school's regular dismissal time.

Apparently, there were some students who would approach him at the start of his class and say things like, "I can't stay late today, I have a doctor's appointment," or some such. He told the class, "I don't keep anybody late. You keep yourselves late when you don't pay attention or you disrupt my teaching."

I remember thinking that that was such a crock. If one student mouths off during a class, what exactly are the rest of the students supposed to do about it? We had no control over what the other students did, and there was no way we could prevent it from happening.

If a student was repeatedly disruptive, were the rest of us supposed to threaten him? Beat him up? I'm pretty sure that would have made us the bad guys.

Exercise peer pressure? Sometimes, there are jerks who honestly don't care what other people think or say, or even enjoy messing things up for other people.

But there seemed to be no explaining this to a lot of teachers, who seemed convinced that their group punishment tactics were effective.

When I was in the eighth grade, some loser in our class decided to play a "prank" on a teacher, by putting an adult magazine (Playboy or some such) under his desk, to embarrass him.

Now, this was actually a very serious offense. The teacher, luckily, found the magazine himself. But if another staff member had found it under his desk, the teacher would likely have been fired.

At the end of the day, the principal came in to our classroom. She dismissed all of the girls, and then gave all of the boys a 30-minute lecture. I suppose it could have been worse. She could have given us detention, a written punishment, or something like that.

Look, I understand. This was a serious matter. They had to do something about it. They couldn't just let it go. And since they didn't know who did it, they had to address everybody. But I was still frustrated and unhappy that I was being kept for half an hour after school with the principal chewing us all out, when I hadn't done anything, and I certainly never would do anything like this.

When the principal was talking, I looked in her direction and put on a fake attentive display, but I just tuned out everything she was saying as best I could.

Later on, I told my family what happened in school. They generally said, "Tuning out the principal probably wasn't a good idea. If she caught you doing that, she'd probably have punished you, or the class, even more. But I can't really blame you."

I've never liked group punishments, especially when the group as a whole has no real control over what any individual member does.

[TheHuckster]

I think the teacher is under the impression that if a student messes up everyone else, they'll feel doubly bad about it, or possibly even humiliated.

Of course, as you say, some really don't care or even WANT to just be an asshole, so that line of thinking doesn't work.

In the specific case of extending class due to a disruption, though, if a student's disruption causes a teacher to lose a minute of class time, I can see how he feels it's only appropriate to extend the class by a minute. In that case it's not a punishment per se but a consequence of having to make up lost time. To use the Playboy example, if one student had done this and it required the teacher to take some leave of absence during the investigation, then all students are suffering the loss of class time as a result, and there's a chance all of them have to make it up via longer classes.

[Andara Bledin]

I've never liked group punishments, especially when the group as a whole has no real control over what any individual member does.

This is a remnant of the fact that most places still have curriculums and policies that are optimized for an industrial society, where if people don't act in concert and obey authority without question, it has the potential to get people killed.

It is no longer that age and hasn't been for a long, long time. But this is how the teachers were taught and this is how they're going to teach because nobody has made any particularly concerted effort to move forward with our methodology, and what moves have been made are typically pretty awful.