I remember once we had an microeconomics professor at university, a young Indian fellow. In all seriousness no one could understand hardly a word of his lectures. Complaints were constant and had a certain 1980’s NYC vibe to them 
I remember cramming for a test all night (I wasn’t a great student, unlike a lot of my classmates). When the grades came out I got a 37 or something. Everyone else did horrible. The professor called in all the students individually. I remember he told me “you got a 37 on the test”. I nervously blabbed, “I know, I tried really hard, I didn’t grasp a few things totally” or some stuff like that. He said “Well, it’s actually one of the better grades in the class. You got a B.” I was like, oh lol. He asked why people were having such a tough time, I don’t really remember but I think I didn’t have the heart to (or I was smart enough not to) tell him that no one could understand wth he was talking about. “Complaining to the administration resulting in the professor being fired” wasn’t an option at the time. I think I did OK in the end.
I tryd to read the article, but it war to hard. 
Actually, one of my majors was in chemistry. The truth may be between “picky/lazy/entitled students”, and an “old prof that can’t teach well.”
A perfect way to support the professor’s claim that our social media addled brains have lost a few steps in basic reading comprehension!
And speaking of social media and its logic (such as it is): based on the amount of “hearts” given so far, casual ageism seems to be the preferred point forumosans have put forward so far.
Come on people, I think you can do better than this! 
Guy
Guy
No, that’s not it at all. I really don’t think it needs to be explained.
Just pushing you a bit, to try to get a bit further.
Guy
I originally said it was “easy to imagine”, not that he can’t be a good professor. I said the same about lax standards. I don’t think I have enough information to reach a definite conclusion. It’s actually easy to imagine that ANY professor might be underperforming (especially in this new paradigm) and might not be retained. That being said, people do experience various forms of regression with age (as I well know lol).
We know as well that university hiring is implicitly ageist, as we do not hire five year olds to lecture to students, no matter how bright they may be.
And in Taiwan, it’d be impossible for this guy to be in front of a classroom in a public university, where the mandatory retirement age is 65 for most, up to 70 if you can get permission or if you been named a Distinguished Professor. That guy is way beyond the upper limit the system in Taiwan would or could accommodate, unless he was teaching some kind of general education course.
Guy
I’m sure that’s true of a lot of situations, sure. And if that’s a factor here, it’s certainly wrong. But we shouldn’t give special consideration either if the guy was underperforming, right?
sorry, I apparently go autocorrect select crazy sometimes. that’s like the 2nd time I did that to you with a ‘@t…’ in a week or so 
eh. dude’s 84… everyone in is some level of decline at that age. acknowledging that isn’t ageism. and no, you don’t need to be old to have lost the plot.
But blaming autocorrect is cool right?
Just checking with you.
Guy
dafuck you talking about? it was an apology, followed by saying i crazily selected the autocorrect option. so no, not blaming it, and I don’t even know where the ‘cool’ part comes in.
There is no need to be rude. Just pushing you to up your game here, especially in a thread where one of the bones of contention is how well we read and respond to materials.
Maybe we would be flunking this guy’s course too. 
Guy
There was an article I saw that described it as a workplace issue. It said that the main thing everyone agrees on was that the professor was unhappy with his students’ performance. On the ledger against him were: untenured status, (age), a higher fail rate, and changes post-Covid.
I like that in Taiwan there’s a hard limit on how long people can teach. Part of what has destroyed US academia is making it nearly impossible to fire tenured professors, even in their 70s and 80s. I’m at a school where about five people retired in the spring and every one of them probably would have gone another 20 years if they could. I’m glad they’ll be replaced with younger folk.
Nah, you ended up in Taiwan… 
That was from hanging out in the pool hall too much!
Hey some of us actually like it here! 
Guy
Well, the 放牛班 can be lots of fun. I should know…