Hippie professor loses it

A colleague just sent me this as it’s the end of semester. It’s quite funny.

I kind of feel a bit (just a bit) sorry for the guy, because he clearly can’t teach. That’s why every student in his class has performed poorly. He’s wasted a quarter of an hour banging on about how bad his students are, then sat down behind his computer sucking on a coffee and basically saying “Now turn to Unit 8”.

A lot of academics really don’t want to teach. They want to do research and write papers. However, teaching is what he’s getting paid to do and he needs to figure out how to do it. The video was a few years back, so maybe he’s no longer working in academia.

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Jesus lol. Take some valium

I dunno man. If you’ve ever worked on a big IT project, one with a deadline problem that results in a mass inflow of consultants, you might appreciate this guy’s rant a little more.

I didn’t watch the whole thing, but the first few minutes sounded like some much-needed tough love. Wouldn’t be surprised if these students learned a whole lot more in this class than they paid for.

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I’ve just read up on him and he failed the entire class that semester, so the university fired him. He’s working at Miami Dade College now, been there since 2004.

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He may be a burnout, it happens in software development. Port in the storm, teaching is something he may think he likes (common among non-programmers, they like to explain things) until he thinks he’s broke enough to go back.

I would be interested to know the opinions of the students in the video who went on to work in software.

Edit: just saw your 2004 date. I wonder if he’s developed more patience since then.

Sorry, I meant 2014.

Hang on. His Linkedn profile says 2004, so I’m not sure what’s going on here. Maybe he was a guest lecturer at FIU in 2013? That would explain why they could fire him so easily. Miami Dade wouldn’t be able to, not easily at least.

It’s not the toughness, but his manner and approach. It might work in say, the military, but I don’t see it being an optimal approach in the classroom.

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I think six years is still too long to fit my theory.

Why is this in Fun & Games?

I didn’t know where else to put it and found it funny.

I’ve seen good project managers irl who have far less tact and who are in private industry. If these students at FIU are paying to be treated gently, then yeah. If they’re at FIU to work in the industry (at least in the US), then I’m not so sure he’s doing a bad job of preparing them. He could be more politic, though, I agree.

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It’s not about being treated gently either. All he had to say was “X number of students failed this report, you are not going to pass the course and it doesn’t seem you are learning what you will need in the real world”. Everything past that was a waste of time which could have been used in teaching them things which he feels they should know but they obviously don’t (as seen when answering the question about the four aspects of whatever).

He could trade places with the average buxiban teacher here, and that teacher would probably do a better job at classroom management.

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Students, in general, are lazy buggers. I know I was. Frankly, 18, 19 years old is a really bad time for attempting to study. Sure you have the energy and mental focus for it, but let’s face it, you’re more interested in drinking, sleeping, and getting laid. Database theory is not high on your list of priorities, even if you’re aiming for a career in software engineering.

We had one or two rants from our tutors, on the general theme of what lazy buggers we were. We felt guilty for an hour or two, but basically it went right over our heads.

My suggestion is that all teenagers should go on a three-year long, tax-funded sex-and-alcohol bender to get it out of their system. Then they can settle down to the mindless monotony of degrees and blue cubicles. I’m going to email Jeremy Corbyn about it.

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Boomer prof cares too much. Let people play on their phone if they want, just fail them and move on. They already paid, and you’re gonna get paid just for being there.

I was one of those that ignored the profs and browsed reddit, but also aced most tests

I remember we had a hotshot prof assigned to teach a class a week, worst lecturer ever was really pissed off that he didn’t treat us with respect and make an effort. The guy didn’t last long either.

Dude has a point about the phones, though. I walk past some classrooms with professors droning into microphones with banal Powerpoints in the background, and not a single student listening. 30% are sleeping and 70% are playing with their phones. I often wonder how they do it. It must be utterly soul-destroying if not one person is paying attention to what you’re saying.
It’s really hard to make your classes fun and engaging when you’re lecturing dry, technical subjects, too.

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The only issue I have with the last sentence is the students did elect to study a dry, technical subject. I know, their parents make the choice in many cases, but even so - if someone chooses to study, say, coding then they really should be interested in coding for coding’s sake. Not coding with fun games thrown in.

I agree 100%.

But if you’re teaching technical subjects, there are still ways to make your classes engaging. Some teachers are unfortunately just crap at it.

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In the case of the tie dye guy not sitting behind your computer all the time would be a start.

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Those professors aren’t making their lessons interesting enough. You’ll never get zero percent of students using phones in this day and age, but if your class is interesting you can keep it to a minimum. This prof had no idea how to engage with his students.