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Comment by badclient | Hacker News Reader

I don't think being pissed at 28/108 students is a valid excuse for acting pissed at everyone. That is a major professional flaw and a post on how you plan to control your emotion may be appreciated by future students.

I have had professors that had me write huge essays and then proceeded to just put a huge ass check and never really read past the first paragraph. If I plagiarized and cited my frustration with all those other professors just glossing over hours and hours of my work, would you accept that excuse?

I guess what I am tryin to say is that your 80 students who did not cheat have as much right to be pissed at you as your right to be pissed at the 28 students that did cheat.

As for the evals, I always found them to be kind of a joke and would agree that the better grades you assigned, better your ratings would be. As for me, I was too lazy to bubble in stuff.

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I see your point. But consider the following: these numbers are for the students that admitted cheating. There was a significant number of other assignments for which I suspected cheating but I did not have enough evidence. So, I erred on the side of having false negatives in the accusations, rather than false positives.

Now, if you are teaching a class where you have some suspicion that half of the students have cheated, one way or another, the attitude changes. I wish I could be a cold, rational, emotionless professional, and ignore this feeling altogether. Unfortunately, I am a human. And I felt that I am teaching a class full of kids that come just for the grade, and not for learning.

And I am kind of disappointed that nyustern still demonstrates this grade-seeking attitude: He learned in the class, he appreciated my attitude in the lectures but his main complaint was that I was not approachable outside the class, and outside office hours? And that, out of all things, did not return his smiles? Hint: at 5pm, after 11 hours of work, 3 hours of lecturing, I am tired, mentally exhausted and I want to go and get some rest.

Fair nuff.

Though each time you point out your former student's grade seeking tendencies, you are just highlighting the disconnect between you and your students. Many of us would love the utopian dream of going to class to learn without worrying about grades, but at the end of the day, grades matter. May be a lot, even.

It is why you care about folks plagiarizing. It is why your former student cares about his grades.

Again, I don't think you would take kindly to a student who plagiarized complain that you are still stuck up about that one incident when the student has demonstrated he's learned a buncha stuff from your class that is as reflective of him as the plagiarizing.

It's good that you've found a career that will tolerate your unapologetic selfishness, whining and indifference. All of these things will surely limit your success outside academia.

This guy's a cheater

I don't like most police either, but that doesn't make me a criminal. It's a matter of disliking people with bad manners. Scheduling important office hours and taking a break in the middle is bad manners. Not returning smiles is bad manners. Believe it or not, living in a world with pleasant friendly people is actually nicer than having an NYU MBA, or a high paying job. So when I see people trying to justify their unpleasantness I don't like it.

I felt that I am teaching a class full of kids that come just for the grade, and not for learning.

From reading your blog post and your comments here, I got the impression that you cared more about your pay raise than about the students learning.

Now, I'll be the first to admit that I could have misinterpreted whats been said and that you were probably a victim of circumstance, but you blame the guy for demonstrating a grade-seeking attitude while you yourself demonstrate a they're all cheaters, who are not worth my time and I don't want them to rate me lower in my evaluation money-over-doing your job attitude - I think he deserves the same benefit of a doubt as you do.

Your comments here seem very whiney and bitter and you show no sign of sympathy to the students who didn't cheat.

FWIW, the guy didn't sound very grade-seeking to me.

I got a different impression from the blog post. Being a teacher does not mean you have to do charity. Everybody needs to get some food on their table. I can relate to that being rewarded less because of something you feel you were not responsible, makes you feel upset. However, I didn't get the impression that it's all he cares about. It was just one paragraph among many after all.

Similarly the part where the student cared most about the grade was only one paragraph among many after all.

I'm more arguing that the professor should treat his students under the same standards he wants to be treated and from the article AND his comments here (reading the article alone gave me a similar impression as what you wrote, kind of), he seems to be quick to blame the students without accepting his own shortcomings (not entirely true - he does acknowledge some and I do agree with how he intends on tackling cheating in the future: by changing the homework format to a more cheat-resistant form). I know I was a bit harsh in my comment, but I do get the sense that the prof is bitter and unapologetic for most of his own mistakes.

Still, I wish him luck in the next semester. I imagine the new homework format should help alleviate a lot of the problems he had and avoid this in the future.

Everyone is arguing over a flawed education system, who are any of else to judge?

My impression was that it was just another (small) data point in the long list of negative incentives for chasing down cheaters. Most of it seemed focused on the disproportionate amount of time it took to enforce the rules, and demonstrating how blatant the cheaters are about it.

Absolutely correct. The compensation part was just one of the many data points, but a point that many people can relate to. A couple of thousand dollars per year would not make a difference in my life. It is mainly a signal of appreciation for the work.

I got the impression that you cared more about your pay raise than about the students learning.

I get the impression that most people care more about their compensation than about <insert bullshit feelgood metric>. Money is an important thing in the modern world, and I guarantee that 99.99% of people in the workforce do their work solely for the money. Stop paying them, they leave. So it's natural that this professor would want a pay raise, too. Everyone does.

Jesus. Thank you.

My wife just finished a grueling, thankless year for bullshit pay as a visiting professor at a local branch of a state college. She poured her heart into it, ended up with health problems from lack of sleep and irregular access to food (not that she'd admit that, but I'm on the outside and could see it clearly), and didn't get her contract extended because she was so perturbed at people cheating their way through class instead of sitting the f* down and learning some really simple physics that she couldn't bear it. Couldn't sleep, really. (She's kind of an idealist.)

I loved Panos's post for this very reason, knowing the human side of academia as nyustern and GP obviously don't. This attitude that people should teach for the love of the field and that wanting to be paid for it is venal - that's sheer poison.

The triviality of the pay is just the last droplet of spittle.

This is a classic False Dichotomy fallacy. There is a massive difference between "working for free" and "got a payrise that didn't quite meet inflation". This tenured professor isn't complaining that he no longer draws a salary.

Yes, most people won't work for free (note that there are heaps of charity workers, though, more than .01%) but it's not about "working for free"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc

Watch this video - it makes the point that money is indeed a prime motivator... until you have enough to keep you fed and housed. Then it changes - and not only is your 99.99% number meaningless, but straight out monetary rewards can reduce performance.

Yeah - the tenured professor is complaining that his management talks big but when it comes to showing actual appreciation, they complain that his evaluation figures are off. It's not the money - it's the fact that when it comes to real appreciation, they show what they really think, which is that doing something about cheating is unpopular and they don't really want to do it.

tl;dr: it's the respect, not the money.

I don't think being pissed at 28/108 students is a valid excuse for acting pissed at everyone. That is a major professional flaw and a post on how you plan to control your emotion may be appreciated by future students.

FYI professionals are humans first and professionals second. If think that professionals can easily turn off how they are feeling and always act properly, then I conclude that you have little understanding of humans and little experience of how professionals act.

Rather than see this as a flaw, I see this self-awareness as something to compliment the professor on. OF COURSE spending so much time dealing with unpleasantness towards students is going to affect any human's mood towards the class. That's human nature. But now that the professor is armed with an awareness of this fact, it will be easier to address the underlying cause.

I know that you do not agree with me. But hopefully after you have a few decades of experience in a professional environment, and possibly experience as a spouse and parent as well, you'll learn the truth of what I say.

It goes both ways. Are you willing to listen to the many excuses for why each student may have plagiarized and potentially extend the same they-are-human-too sympathies?

I understand why the students cheat. However it is possible to be in their positions and not cheat. I don't want to have co-workers who cheat. I therefore would like to see the book thrown at them so that they learn not to cheat.

If they truly had no choice about cheating, then I'd show more sympathy. But they do. By contrast we truly don't get to choose how we as humans are emotionally wired.

> By contrast we truly don't get to choose how we as humans are emotionally wired.

What a lame excuse. He still had as much of a choice in being a dick as the students had in cheating.

Even under his own account of the office-hours incident, he was very inconsiderate and doesn't seem to understand it. If you have office hours, know there will be many students showing up on this particular day, and yet you aren't prepared with food, compound that by not bothering to explain that you need to eat now, that's a dick move, without excuse and explains the evaluations. His fault, not the students.

If you look at any of us during snapshots of our worst moments, you'll find a lot to criticize. If you are caught on the spot, you seldom make the response you wish.

The fact that the professor remembered that specific incident strongly suggests that this was one of those moments that he'd like to have over. The fact that he has come up with a strategy to avoid the problem suggests that there will be future improvement. I see a lot to applaud here.

For the love of God, man! What a trivial fucking complaint. I guarantee there have been times at your job when you weren't in peak form.

How can you possibly say that one case of leaving the office for maybe 20 minutes during office hours explains an overall 1 point drop in evaluation averages? Many here are so quick to pile on the prof, am I the only one that read this and was shocked at the amount of cheating going on??

Likewise, I know professors who under similar situation do not react like the professor in this discussion.

Also I don't understand why the same emotional wiring that can explain the professor's behavior cannot potentially explain the cheating student's behavior?

How so a similar situation?

You have known many professors who are going through reporting a fifth of their class to the deans for cheating? You know how they feel and act during that event? Really?

I firmly disbelieve. I spent 9 years in a university setting, knew a lot of professors, and I personally knew exactly nobody who went through that. And from what I know of human nature, and the likely emotions that someone in that position would feel, I very strongly suspect that your judgement of how they would react is completely wrong.

Can't help if you choose to twist my use of the word "similar" into "same".

I've been through multiple stop-te-cheating lectures and each time, the professors went out of their way to appreciate the non-cheats and minimize negative impact on the innocent due to the actions of the guilty minority.

Anti-cheating lectures aren't similar. The thing that caused problems here was a mass of effort spent going against specific students. Was that also the case with your professors?

Indeed. The stress associated with individual confrontations is orders of magnitudes higher than the stress associated with giving a general anti-cheating lecture.

For what its worth, in the one class I've had where the professor did catch a fifth of the students cheating in the first midterm (and immediately handed everyone Fs), his mood towards the rest of the class changed similarly.

>Are you willing to listen to the many excuses for why each student may have plagiarized and potentially extend the same they-are-human-too sympathies?

Unless their reason for cheating is "I don't care about my studies" and the way you extend your sympathies is by getting them kicked out, your argument is bullshit.

OK, the professor sucked. You know what? Some do, thats life, and you suck it up. The academic policy doesn't say "you have a right to a teacher you love a whole huggy bunch", but it does say "don't fucking cheat".

"Look what they made me do" is such a pathetic excuse.

I think you are reading, look at what they made me do into a situation better described by look at the impact of my emotional reaction to this course of action.

The first paints you as a helpless victim of circumstances. The second one takes responsibility for ones poor actions, and charts a course to do better in the future.

There is a world of difference between the two.

You've got that exactly backwards. Behaving professionally means turning off emotion and acting appropriately. Anyone whose job involves dealing with people has to do it, from grocery store cashiers and waitresses to doctors and lawyers.

It's expected, and literally millions of people do it successfully every day.

  >>  That is a major professional flaw and a post on how you plan to control your emotion may be appreciated by future students.

I think he is readily admitting this is a major flaw, and he plans on controlling his emotions in the future by not obsessing about cheating. This is probably not the ideal response, but it is very human, and you have to give him props for admitting his weaknesses.

> you have to give him props for admitting his weaknesses.

Um, no. No props for simply admitting his weaknesses.

Props are for succeeding in controlling them, and for having shown that one actually does more than just going "look at these weaknesses in me these students are triggering in me with their terrible behaviours".

Props for just admitting weaknesses has a good chance of making people go complacent and "look, I'm just not good at XYZ and therefore I have to be an asshole", instead of working to improve.

Judging someone on their strengths and weakness are probably done best after we've walked a mile in their shoes.

This would be appropriate to anyone and everyone who is using a judgement here.

What this, and indeed the whole monologue, emphasises for me is that the teachers should probably not be involved in the process of disciplining students. It's wasting their time and decreasing their effectiveness.

Create a position (or probably department) for quality control. Automatically send "you plagiarised, warning" letters to the student and the person who paid for the course if the submitted work receives a score above X threshold for plagiarism (this threshold to be chosen by an inter-university body and preferably standardised across universities).

Obviously a student would be able to appeal and have proper analysis done by a department member. A second warning without appeal would get a student a P grade for "admitted plagiarism".

This way the teacher just teaches, just marks the work submitted and the administrative duty of notifying students that their plagiarism has been spotted is separated and codified.

Yes, this is probably the correct thing to do. Unfortunately, most universities are too cash-strapped for such a thing.

They're paying uni professors/lecturers to do admin work that they could pay a fraction of the same amount to have done. I know that in practice it's more complex than this - for example here it only works because the lecturer is not actually being paid by the hour; they're still under-utilising their lecturers.

Imagine yourself living in a small colony of 109 individuals, 108 plus yourself. At least 25%, or one in four, want to kill you, and you don't know who they are.

Would you act friendly, trusting, kind and natural around everyone because up to 75% of them do not deserve your fear and suspicion?

It is perhaps a bit of an extreme thought experiment, but I think it illustrates handily how the human mind reacts in this kind of situation.

In non-life-or-death situations, people endure quite a large amount of discomfort to achieve other goals. But a high-enough level of discomfort kills people. Does this mean the ones enduring small amounts are irrational?

Reducto-ad-absurdum is a proof only when it takes into account everything in the argument. In life-or-death examples, other normally-included portions are dropped, making the argument something else entirely. It's just a straw-man attempt, not a valid point.

It's not a straw-man. I have attempted to refute nothing. I was merely asking my parent to consider how he might behave in such a situation.

I used a different situation, it is true, but only because I have found being on the instructional end of cheating feels very different than you might imagine, so I guessed my parent was not familiar with it.

You attempted to refute the claim that people should control themselves better in such situations. And you did so very clearly, by inferring that spreading the mood to the 75% was perfectly logical.

As a student who has not cheated, but has had to sit through countless lectures about cheating, and a few where large portions of the class did, I ask you and (other?) teachers this question: to whom are you teaching? The ones who are learning, or the ones who are cheating?

I understand that you're stuck with both, but either find motivation in the successes or consider another line of work - it's part of the job. Otherwise you're screwing the ones who did the right thing.

He's not saying it's logical. He's saying it's inevitable based on how people are wired.

And therefore we shouldn't control ourselves better?

People have limits. I don't know enough about the situation to know if he was under the kind of load that would cause most people to act differently, but I suspect that is the case.

No one wants to kill anyone here.

I am all for using analogies to reassess my views, but the degree of comparison should be similar for the analogy to work. I can't even process for a second how cheating is anything like threatening to kill someone.

Have you ever talked to a group in which more than a quarter were actively hostile and disinterested? It poisons the room. It's not "logical" that it should do that, but it is an empirical fact that it does.

The cheaters to non cheaters ration should be 0/108. If 80 of the students are allowing 28 other students to cheat, I'd be definitely pissed off at them.

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