Uni's warned over 'snowflake' demands.

[FriendofBill]

Hi all,
Saw this article in the telegraph & thought of you.
First became alerted/concerned over the Tara Hudson prison lunacy.
At least there seems to be some kind of push back here?
Surprised to see an article anyway

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/01/08/universities-warned-snowflake-student-demands/

OP, when you say you're a friend of Bill's would that be a friend of Bill W's? Because he's a friend of mine too.

The fees should get you decent facilities and teaching - exactly what that entails will vary by subject and also be appropriate to the general ability level of the intake. And there really should be some sort of external moderation. As it is, it's surely pretty unfair on a good hardworking student who for whatever reason goes to a poorly rated uni which nevertheless hands out a high proportion of Firsts - they have received devalued currency.

I'm hoping to be a friend of Bill W's but its not quite working out.

Agree that this generation special snowflake status is worrying. They are in for a big hard shock. I find I can tolerate the teens in the poor rough area I live in far better than most teenagers, because they are far more realistic about life. They know that life will be tough for them, and that this government has made everything harder, they are not silly.

Making friends with Bill is the second best decision I ever took. I've known him for many years.

I work as a teacher and find it astounding the amount of complaints that we receive about: style of teaching, marks for assessments, lack of help. We are told to help the students to become more independent learners and increase their resilience. But God help us if someone gets a bad mark. In my school teachers are professionally humiliated if the grades are poorer than desired (by the school, parents and students). This attitude then goes on to university. Being a total people-pleaser, i find it a very hard balance (good outcomes versus promoting independence) and have had some shocking situations of student/parent foot stamping that I have created by being too accommodating.

At uni (20 years ago), if a topic was considered to be poorly taught, tough shit - go to the library and figure it out. Personally I think that is part of uni education. Over half of the content that I teach as a science teacher I have had to teach myself to level that is "perfect" and inspires interest and confidence in my students. You cannot get those skills from spoon feeding and "poor" teaching helped me to develop those skills.

DC require ever more open-ended tasks as they progress through school in order to use their imaginations and their research/analytical skills. However, open-ended tasks are risky and even the best students sometimes fail to make the best of them.

German universities, after experimenting with the retail model, have mostly returned to the sensible model, i.e. not demanding payment except for a small fee. If one demands people to pay loads of money, it is only understandable that they see it as purchase and want something for their money.

It reminds me of Sussex university (home of lgbtqietc equality) recently banning sex-based pronouns. No he or she, strictly "they".

I think that's actually a good approach.

If everyone is "they" then no one is a special snowflake. I wonder when the first trans will complain that they are not addressed with the female pronouns they want. (I am pretty sure males will be the first to complain)

It's not as simple as that unfortunately. The uni has banned the use of gendered pronouns until the preferred pronoun has been clarified by the individual. Origins in special snowflake politics. I can only presume a lot of form filling wrt "what gender do you identify with and which pronoun would you prefer". This is the next generation coming.

At uni (20 years ago), if a topic was considered to be poorly taught, tough shit - go to the library and figure it out

It was like that for me, too. Looking back now I feel a bit angry that the teachers who couldn't be bothered or had poor knowledge of the subject got the same pay as the fantastic ones.

It's not as simple as that unfortunately. The uni has banned the use of gendered pronouns until the preferred pronoun has been clarified by the individual. Origins in special snowflake politics. I can only presume a lot of form filling wrt "what gender do you identify with and which pronoun would you prefer". This is the next generation coming.

Oh. :(
Bad news, indeed.

One could do what Captain Bluebear does in ^The 13 1/2 lives of Captain Bluebear" when he encounters a tribe where everyone has a horribly long name that must be pronounced correctly every time when addressing the person. Namely, giving himself an even more tongue-breaking name than they have.

I think I'd choose my first name, middle name and last name as pronoun.

So that everyone who mentions me in conversation has to say the whole name every time.

At uni (20 years ago), if a topic was considered to be poorly taught, tough shit - go to the library and figure it out

Yes I remember this attitude well - and it sucked 20 years ago too. If giving 3 lectures a week is part of your job then prepare and deliver them professionally. If your field has moved on in recent years the your lecture notes should too.

At uni (20 years ago), if a topic was considered to be poorly taught, tough shit - go to the library and figure it out

Yes, this was rubbish. But even in the subjects that were well taught you were expected to self teach, explore, challenge the texts, not just regurgitate them.

Education has already been devalued. When I went to uni 20 years ago 1 person in my course (approx 50 of us, uni requiring high a level grades to get in) got a first. He was a cut above the rest of us and truly deserved it.

Then when I started recruiting people I'd look at uni degrees and be surprised that graduates with firsts were struggling with more technical aspects of the job. Until someone pointed out to me the massive increase in top grade degrees (1/2:1) being given.

I've found graduate problem solving skills are generally low. We had to coach and mentor more and more - new graduates weren't working less (if anything they were doing longer hours and seemed more dedicated) but didn't seem able to cope with coming up with their own ways of doing things.

20 years ago my uni education was crap!

6-10 contact hours a week, lecturers not worth staying awake for, tutorials no one would speak in etc

Going to uni 15 years later the lecturers worked so much harder!
Handouts, up to date lecturers, more group work, more frequent assignments.

The academic standard was lower but I learned more.

Completely agree with grumpmitchell. This was the obvious outcome of making students pay.

It reminds me of Sussex university (home of lgbtqietc equality) recently banning sex-based pronouns. No he or she, strictly "they".

Actually that is one thing I would be fully supportive of. For the most part whether you are male or female is irrelevant. Mr/Mrs etc could go as well, one pronoun and one title for all. This isn't pandering to the trans lobby either, I suspect they'd want to keep gendered pronouns anyway as a form of validation. And this isn't to say we should also get rid of sex segregated spaces.

The thing is, you can give a really good, up to date lecture on a topic and the students won't be satisfied. Indeed my students are much less likely to be satisfied if you try to teach them something than they are when they're given objectively bad lectures that don't challenge them. They'd much rather you asked them to talk about what their mum thinks about the topic than actually engage in any way with research. And they get incredibly angry if you do anything that encourages them to think.

I have several colleagues who mistake activity for learning. The students love their classes because they spend all their time doing really easy, unchallenging tasks. But they genuinely do not learn anything from the classes. They can spend all year supposedly learning one concept and at the end of the year they do not have any understanding of the concept. It's not even a particularly hard or new concept (I used to successfully teach it in one lecture in previous jobs) but their not understanding it makes it impossible to teach the students in other classes. They're then much less satisfied with the modules where we do try to teach things, rather than dumbing everything down and wasting everyone's time.

And they will not read anything or think about it on their own. They won't even pretend they did the reading and try to skim it in class (like sensible undergraduates). No they'll just complain that they shouldn't have to do it.

I think it's brilliant that students are so engaged and thinking critically about their courses/curriculum.

Groups such as "why is my curriculum so white" and "Rhodes must fall" have done an excellent job in exposing the false narrative that universities and their curriculums are neutral or free from racism/sexism and are often taught with little or no meaningful critique.

They are not trying to censor or omit certain philosophers instead asked that they are recontextualised so that Kants racial hierarchies are understood within a wider context which classified black people as sub human and justified colonialism.

The vital work or women and more so women of colour are deliberatly omitted from the academy.

I think we need to ask why universities which are overwhelming white and male are so against being challenged.

I think it's brilliant that students are so engaged and thinking critically about their courses/curriculum.

I would love my students to be even vaguely inclined towards learning, never mind engaged and thinking critically.

Sadly they're generally just at university because they were told that it's what you do after school and that a degree will (allegedly) get you a better paid job. A large number of them are genuinely antipathetic to learning anything.

A system of student satisfaction only reinforces their belief that they shouldn't be challenged or asked to think.

What Milady said. Word for word. :(

Surely this is a consequence of pushing ever greater numbers of young people into university?

It's not a form of learning that suits everyone, or even, I believe, the majority. Yes it is an excellent attribute for a society to have some critical, abstract thinkers - but a society consisting of those alone will quickly fail.

Our current value system is all wrong. Diversity is the only way to make everyone happy / fulfilled. And diversity does not mean 'more universities and more courses'

Also how the fuck have we got to the point where the assumption of universities is that students don't want to learn - just automatically get good grades.

Why are they even letting people like that in?! Oh yeah because money. But don't be fooled by our money grabbing tactics we're totally the victims here as Sir Terry would say pull the other one it has got bells on

Those of us who work in universities genuinely want to teach people. We even do our very best to teach the recalcitrant students we get. We want them to get on in the world and to do well.

I am not assuming that my students don't want to learn. I know for a fact that significant numbers of them do not want to learn. They simply feel it is their right to have a 2:1 handed to them after 3 years.

Remember that the people who actually teach the students have absolutely no control over what the university does. Nor do the universities (and certainly not the teaching staff) necessarily agree with government policy.

I have been in HE for ten years. I used to believe in the power of universities to change people's lives and minds, to show them different ways to think about life and the world around them, to challenge meta-narratives etc.

But now, I think it is time for me to go. The conformity of thought among undergraduate students now is almost frightening and they react so badly to any challenge to it, as though a challenge will crack the facade they hold as "the world and how it works" and everything will then come tumbling down.

I am also getting rather irritated by the lack of rigor in some of the research produced at my institution. Some of it is fucking batshit.

This makes me so cross.

Sure, sometimes students can be OTT or silly about what they demand (and if you can't be those things at 18 when can you?). And sometimes universities can be daft too.

But broadly, I don't really think my students are culpably 'snowflake'-y. I do think they're encouraged to worry hugely about offending each other, and I do think that some of them are being put under unfair social pressures. But I think they respond to all of that pretty well, on the whole.

I've taught courses on rape, violence, gender and sexuality for just over two years now, and they've all been able to talk intelligently about it without insisting we be 'banned' from saying things.

All this super sensitivity being foisted on our young will only lead to more dangerous decisions being made further down the line, by those shielded from the school of hard knocks.. They become easily led...