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Title:	Education theory
Author:	Toam	Posted: 03-03-2008
Today I had to go to a seminar run by the Academic Development Unit which was compulsory in order for me to demonstrate first year physics labs. This would have been a waste of my time even if I had nothing better to do – and I had several better things to do. The seminar today was supposed to be run for the faculty of Science, Technology and Engineering with other faculties having seminars on other days, however about half the people there were from other faculties. The idea of having different faculties in different seminars would seem to be because the way things are taught in each faculty differs quite significantly. However the woman giving the seminar seemed to have no idea about how a physics lab (for example) is run and had many, many unrealistic expectations. Also she delivered this seminar (ie: taught the class) in a manner which contradicted many of her key points. When we arrived she had a youtube clip playing. That clip is a rant in itself. Her main point seemed to be that if a student isn’t learning it is always the teacher's fault. I would go so far as to say that it is almost always not the teacher's fault (when I say teacher I mean tutor or demonstrator, as that is who the seminar was aimed at). I have been at university for 4 years (and counting) and have been in scenarios where I have ‘not learned’ and failed classes. Each time that has happened it was my own fault. Even when I had lecturers/tutors/demonstrators that weren’t good (and I have had a few of them – and I mean few in its literal sense) there was still more that I could have done for myself to prevent me from failing. This annoyed me quite a lot because I have been in many classes were all the students have complained about how they have “a shit lecturer”. No you don’t. You’re a dickhead. Most students don’t want to learn – they want to pass. And they want to do as little as possible in order to do so. This isn’t the teachers fault and I genuinely feel sorry for all the lecturers I have had that were excellent lecturers and have had students complain about them because the students were lazy morons. At the end of each unit at university we need to fill in a questionnaire about the class and the teaching staff. The lecturer will leave and someone else will come in and hand out the forms and the lecturer does not get to see them until after the exams have been marked. I recall one subject I did last year were the lecturer was excellent and as soon as he left the room most of the other students started saying things about how bad he was and what they were going to write on their forms. One section on these forms says “What needs to be improved about this unit?” I wrote, “The attitudes of most students”. Another thing that was mentioned in this seminar was the difference in high school and university education. One part of this that she mentioned was how a lot of students move out of home to attend university and now have “all this freedom they have never had before”. So? She then went on about how ‘we’ need to be aware of this and take it into account. Basically, we need to just say “it’s ok that you guys want to go out and get pissed all the time we’ll work around you!” Forget it. If a student doesn’t put in the effort why should the teaching staff go well out of their way to make a student who really doesn’t want, or deserve, to pass? So that the university’s pass rate is higher and the statistics look better? That is pretty much the only reason I can think of. Another point about the high school/university difference was the fact that in high school you have teachers (and parents, she said) telling you to get your work done where as at university it is up to you. Yes, that difference exists. However, it is a completely null point when it comes to telling a teacher at a university how to do their job. She went on about how the higher you get in high school, the harder the teachers come down on you to get your work done. Why is this? If university life (and, indeed, working life) is so much different to high school life, why do they structure high school classes in that manner? Shouldn’t it be the opposite? The higher you get in high school the more independently you should study, thus preparing you for either further study, or the real world? Again the only reason I can think of is not a genuine interest in students learning anything. If you can push students as hard as you can so that they get the highest marks they can, your school will look better and enrolments will go up, thus providing your school with more money. So: Can anyone think of any reason other than prettier statistics to force adults to learn things they don’t want to learn? And Can anyone think of any other reason than money for high schools to basically retard their student’s development of independence?
When he has the power, Toam intends to fail 373 students out of spite