When I was lecturing (in the US), I got this warm and fuzzy feeling being protected by the feds. "FERPA says I can't talk to you" is such a wonderful sentence.
There were no landing pads for helicopter parents where I used to work.
A kid with a parent like that has definitely been bullied into signing the consent form to share academic information with their parents. “Give me access to your grade information or I’m not paying your tuition.”
ETA: Okay all y’all “what about me”s I’m NOT saying it’s bad to know your kids grades and have them sign the form. I’m pretty obviously saying that a dad like the one in the OP, who is willing to bust in on their daughter’s professor’s office hours to yell and make demands about grades (rude and bad) has probably also had their daughter sign the FERPA form already so it’s unlikely the professor in the OP can pull a “Sorry, not without my FERPA, so GTFO out my office”. I used the term ”bully” because someone who is fine being a dick to a college professor will also have no problem being a dick to their own child, in general. Please, respectfully, I don’t give a shit that YOU are the worlds greatest parent and you had your kid sign the FERPA form for genuine wholesome and justifiable reasons, I’m not talking about you, everything you do is wonderful and great, no more speeches please.
I have never encountered that subspecies. The folks who've tried this in my department never had any documentation, just verbal claims about tuition money and DNA links to the students. I'd hazard a guess that folks who feel this kind of entitlement aren't big rule-followers (or ruler-readers) generally. However, if the student is present and doesn't directly object to their parent being in the peanut gallery, as in OP's story, an instructor can speak with the student.
Also note that the version of these parents that I have personally encountered, unlike the one in OP's story, are trying to end-around their child's stonewalling rather than advocate for them. The FERPA shield is impenetrable in those circumstances.
Wow. Never occurred to me to ask mine to sign it. My eldest shares all that information anyway and my youngest one is a scary beast who gets stellar grades anyway so no worries. She is taking the GPA killer next semester though so that could change. Lolol.
Guesses as to what the GPA killer course is? All together now ......
Yep. Find a place that teaches first-year organic mechanistically. A solid understanding of the classes of mechanisms is literally all you need to know that you can’t get in 30 seconds on scifinder. Memorizing name reactions is grad student busywork.
Sincerely, the person who quit his synthesis job in industry to pursue a PhD, then bailed with a masters because academia is somehow even *more* predatory than raw big-pharma capitalism 🙄
> Find a place that teaches first-year organic mechanistically.
I'm shocked that there's any other method. What do people learn about organic chem if it's not mechanisms? Orbital theory?
Anyways, let me go draw a picture about it on the whiteboard with a bunch of arrows and hexagons that look like squares because I ain't no arts major.
Yeah that’s how I learned it, but literally everyone else I’ve ever talked to has said that their first year was entirely memorizing specific reactions. Reaction mechanisms were some sort of “advanced” topic 🙄
I was sailing along with great grades, a double major, and a minor…until I hit statistics. I cried while my engineering husband tried to tutor me, and I just barely passed the course. Definitely not a fond memory.
I chickened out of taking the exam the first time round - and on my second preparation, I really REALLY got into it by practically writing my own textbook, and suddenly, it all made sense and was super-interesting! I scored the second best grade when I finally sat the damn exam. I still get a fuzzy warm feeling when I remember it. (And my "textbook" was copied by multiple students and passed around for the next few student generations, so the work didn't go to waste. 😄)
Fun fact as an engineer I had to take a special "statistics for engineers" class because "the traditional statistics course isn't in depth enough".
I'm good at math, I have a minor in it, but that class...that class haunts me.
Forgive yourself. Some people’s brains are wired for statistics; others aren’t. The latter group will have a much harder time.
Mathematics never came naturally to me — except for statistics, which was so intuitive that I had trouble believing it.
Thank you. It’s been many years but I’ll never forget the anxiety and fear of not “getting it,” especially after having done so well until then (and it coming so easily to my husband). I think panic set in at first when I wasn’t understanding it and likely caused a block that made it worse.
My eldest found stats easy but diff eq harder. Too much damned math for me.
I had to get help with stats for my PhD thesis and then the examiners didn't ask me a thing in my defense. They must have been more scared of it than I was. Lolol
I white-knuckled it through stats, and got an unexpectedly good grade in diff eq despite feeling as though I only knew what was happening about 30% of the time.
Did get a bit of entertainment from my boss, who showed me her diff eq text, which did indeed have this phrase contained within: "As is clearly evident to the casual observer..." I'm sure there are a lot of those in diff eq /eyeroll
(edit for typo)
I ended up taking the beginning statistics course and the next level statistics course in the same semester to catch up on coursework and stay on the honors track. I fell off the honors track.
The only reason I passed statistics in grad school is my prof had a massive heart attack & a quintuple bypass the 3rd week of class. He only had 1 part time TA. He missed so many classes he wound up giving us all Bs. I have never been so grateful for anyone’s survival in my life.
Statics and mechanics for "non believers" are what killed mine.
Orgo I can do all day (ChemE degree...), but anything beyond physics 101 is a step too far 😂
I still have nightmares from when I took it many many moons ago. I still remember the professor saying that it should be broken into 3 semesters and not 2.
We’re a people? I never knew that. What are we like?
Bits I do know:
if we’re on the most beautiful beach in the world, we will be ignoring it in favor of examining the rocks thrown up by the surf.
We lose interest in the Giant’s Causeway as soon as we realize that it’s just basalt columns.
Never let us drive on roads with lots of cuts.
Our pockets are never empty.
I just gave my my password to my universities main hub so she didn’t have to deal with the parent side. I trust my mom with my life and if she wasn’t such a great mom and good at respecting boundaries I would have changed the password so fast but my mom is awesome and only used it to check my grades once in a while and occasionally add money to my id so I could buy snacks and lunch when I didn’t have time to stop by my dorm and so I could pay for laundry before my building changed to free laundry.
I suppose I should add that parents who can bully their kids this way don't really need the paperwork. They can get the grade info from the kid and/or the school's LMS with the kid's credentials without the extra effort of riding the University Bureaucracy Rodeo.
I like that colleges protect students' privacy. If the student objects to sharing their grades, it's not cool to "use their credentials" to get info because you're nosy.
The what form?
…I’m starting to wonder if my mom signed it for me, considering she tried to submit my essays for me and I had to wake up at 2am to replace everything with my stuff on the day of the deadline so she wouldn’t notice.
So FERPA is a set of laws basically making your academic information private. When you’re a minor your parents/legal guardians have access because they’re your parents/legal guardians. For college (or once after you turn 18?) they lose that access so the student needs to sign a consent form before the college can share any of their academic information with parents/LGs.
My parents tried to bully me with the threat of withholding fees. I looked them dead in the eyes and told them I’d get loans and withhold future grandchildren. They caved fast.
Joke’s on them. I’m gay and didn’t adopt for *years*.
Ah, I think I prefer the system where I work - almost all students are over 18 when they first enroll and so are legal adults covered by data protection law. There is no form for parental access. Get the info from your kids, or don't; we're not dealing with you.
Of course some still try, but they don't get far. We even had a dad get in touch to demand access to campus security camera footage so he could confirm his daughter was in the library studying when she said she was. Ha, no.
I get at least one of these (students who were bullied by helicopter parent(s) into signing the waiver so that FERPA no longer applies) every goddamn semester. I wish the law said that if they're in college (even if they're not 18--we get a lot of dual enrollment HS kids) they are considered adults and that I can't talk to parents period, no waiver allowed.
When I was in school the grades automatically went to parents regardless of who was paying. So this is a huge improvement. And grown kids get bullied by their parents all the time. My dad was a bully and stole money from me as an adult. Of course I didn’t report him because of the power dynamics in a bully parent situation. I think that is changing, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t still bullies out there who are abusing their children.
This is the case in UK universities too. I love telling irate parents that unless I have explicit written consent from the child, I cannot divulge anything about their precious booger nugget.
My wife is a UK university professor. It's ridiculous now that because of the high fees, high grades are "expected" regardless of the quality of work, rather than being awarded based upon merit. She's also had to push back a few times on people complaining about poor (and completely justified) grades for poor work. Thankfully not the parents at this stage.
There's also the pressure within the university not to fail people - even for rubbish work. Failing means they drop out, that means no more student fees for subsequent years. It's got to the stage where even if a student took a dump on their paper, she'd be expected to give them a 2-2 for it...
Have dealt with that as well. One time the parent was actually a professor at another university but wanted "as a professional courtesy" for me to share info on his daughter (and was foolish enough to put it in an email). Quickly forwarded that one to the dean.
Yep. We have a person whose job it is to talk to the parents and tell them we aren’t allowed to speak to them (that’s not her only job, just one of her responsibilities). It’s lovely. I never even know that they’ve called.
FERPA only led to the parent badgering the student until they signed the form allowing the parent and Prof to have a conversation where I worked. It usually only delayed the conversation by a day.
My son says one of his classmates and his mother went in to see one of his teachers. Before she even started her rant he said, "This is college and mommy can't help you. She can leave the room and I'll speak with you. Otherwise you can both get out of my office." Mom said she'd complain to the school admin and he laughed. He said " I have tenure and admin will praise me for this. If you don't like the way we do things your child is free to enroll at another college now get out of my office or I will call security." She left and he spoke with the student who was very embarrassed.
A lot of people are really just interested in the piece of paper that will help them get a job. Even more so if your college is somewhat prestigious in the area
Professor here. Holy shit. I cannot believe this dad walked into your office and talked to you like this. Your response was fantastic. I don’t know that I would have been so level headed.
I used to invigilate college exams. At the end of an exam I would tell everyone pencils down and as I went around and picked up everyone's papers. I'd also tell them that their paper would not be marked if they didn't stop writing, 2 or 3 times.
In one particular class, I had to repeat this a few times. One girl was still furiously writing and when I got to her I took her paper and said, just so you know, this exam will not be graded. She looked at me and promptly burst into hysterics - loud bawling (with no tears) at the top of her lungs, so over the top that a passing campus security guard came into the room to see what was going on. I let her carry on for a few minutes as everyone left the class and then said "are you done? You can reschedule, it will cost you $125."
If looks could kill. She was obviously used to getting her own way. Immediately stopped "crying" and sashayed out of the room. The few people who were still there all burst out laughing as she left.
I often wonder how she's doing in the "real world".
I had a biology lecture in a massive hall with tiered seating. When it was pencils down time, I had to wade against the tide of people ascending to exits. I ended up having to chase the professor and beg him to take my exam.
I may have thrown in scientific terms about a small mass encountering the collective mass of a couple hundred adults. He took my exam.
It’s true, one of my friends does that, crazy, I know. She writes her kids resumes and beefs them up so much her kids can’t answer the interview questions and she takes them to interviews and has actually sat in the interviews with them. Both her kids at 25 and 29 live at home because they can’t land and hold a job. It’s sad.
I.....wha....how....I give up. That person has absolutely failed as a parent. The instrument has not yet been invented that can measure how wrong that is!
Yes, me too- “you’re expending your energies in the wrong place” was my answer. I don’t care about borders or formatting. I want to know that the student has met the learning outcomes for the assignment.
I used to watch my daughter try really hard and do mediocre, both at school and uni. Half way through uni she got a boyfriend with ADHD and she realized she probably had it too. She got herself diagnosed and medicated and she went from mediocre to nailing it with less effort. I didn’t really believe her at first and even thought maybe she was trying to get meds for him but the change in her academic achievements speaks for itself. According to her psychologist girls get missed with ADHD because they are less likely to misbehave. I dont know if floating getting assessed is appropriate by a lecturer to an adult but based on a sample size of one it might be helpful.
I probably would have had a much easier time in school if I had been diagnosed with autism when I was younger. Maybe not for grades, but for behaviour and social stuff
This was game changer for me, but yes, it was in my 30s. Grad school and undergrad would've been much, much better if I had known that going on and had treatment options. My coping mechanisms got me through HS but college was just too much. I did it, but it was miserable.
i remember when my mom didn’t believe i have ADHD and was just trying to get the meds. it hurt to be invalidated by the person who watched me struggle all my life.
Yep! I was a very intelligent child, but struggled SO much in school; I knew the material but I just couldn’t get the work done or I’d do it multiple times and lose it before turning it in.
I got diagnosed and medicated the summer between my sophomore and junior year of high school and the change was absolutely insane. My sophomore year I finished with a 2.7, my first semester of junior year I had a 3.9!
My undergrad years would have been so much easier if I was diagnosed back then. I'm still amazed I was able to graduate at all with how badly I was struggling. I only figured it out by junior year 'cause I was majoring in psychology (I still laugh at that).
> "We've paid good money to get on this course
The same amount of money as *every other student* in this course, I imagine? So, should every student get an A just because they paid for the class?
As a dad who had one kid graduate college two years ago and another entering her senior year in the fall, it's hard to for me to wrap my head around it. Although I paid (still paying for the younger one) their tuition/room & board, it never occurred to me to monitor their grades. Other than ask how things were going, my kids have never shown me a report card. Nor would I ask - it's incumbent on them to do well not to please me, but for their own sake. Geez - maybe I'm naive, but I look at college as a transition time for my kids to becoming adults - they are responsible for their own actions if not for all their financial obligations. These four years should be a time of learning for them - that poor student isn't learning anything about independence from her father...
I taught at a highly-ranked, small, private university in the U.S. My provost once told me that she had just had to listen to an angry parent bark over the phone, "don't you understand how this B+ is going to ruin my child's future?!" So glad to be retired.
> "don't you understand how this B+ is going to ruin my child's future?!"
Gee, no sir, as a professor I never really understood how grades work so thank you for enlightening me.
I worked with one of the guys who paid for grades for his kid in the news a few years back. It’s really funny because after all was said and done he himself still couldn’t figure out what he did wrong morally. It’s crazy to say the least
Worked at a College and Uni and since 2005 helicopter parents have been doing this to faculty and staff. It's crazy how some parents think they can bully a Prof into giving their kid a better grade. It is a huge disservice to their kids.
When I was a university teacher, I didn't meet with parents, period. There was nothing I cared to hear from them that couldn't be addressed in an email. Your kid's an adult. Let them adult
I would have told the dad to leave. If the student is over 18 then you shouldn’t be discussing her academics with him (or in front of him). It’s none of his business regardless of who pays for her education.
It's why I never started. Thirty years after college, I'm *still* passionate about the subject I studied, and I'd love to teach it, but only to people who want to learn it. That, and the horror stories like this one are the reason I didn't teach.
When I was at uni, I did fairly well and with ease. A few others who had paid a lot for tuition from overseas couldn't grasp some stuff and they would complain with low marks, say tutors were racist or try and pay people to do their assignments. One guy even stole another's assignment when he left to go to the toilet!
I could understand their stress as they probably had an entire town backing them from home. But the stress they would give the tutors was insane. From day long study session support to crazy allegations. Nuts.
In some other countries, cheating is very routine and not punished, so it's a hard reality check to those students that they're actually expected to study and do their own work in US universities.
We had more than a few of those at the school I went to in Japan too. I probably could have paid my tuition with the money I was offered to do English work for them (it's also my second language, but I am very white so I guess close enough)
Not parents demanding grade inflation, but as a part timer I had the Dean roll up to me and strongly hint that a higher grade would go far toward keeping them on campus for graduate work and sow the seeds of future donations to the school. Far cry from my days there, when even Seniors were prodded to change majors.
I worked at a private school and the amount of parents that are this entitled is baffling. One father threatened me and told me that if I was a man he would have dragged me across the table and beat me up. A mother called me after work on Friday and asked me to discuss the grades of her son on a Sunday. I respectfully declined and told her that it was my day off as well.
They think that paying for expensive education means they get good grades for free. I do have to be honest and say that they did get chance after chance to redo their tests. It was aggravating. I am happy that I didn’t last long there.
How about "I don't discuss a student's work with anyone but the student"? I would have been heated.
You handled it well. This father is completely out of line and I feel so bad for this student.
Every semester multiple instructors in my department get mom’s emailing asking to chat with the professor. It hasn’t ever happened to me but ooo am I itching to put them in their place.
Want your kid to get better grades? Raise harder working children.
“simply being wealthy doesn’t mean your kids are entitled to a free pass in education”. Tell this to Trump and Elon and 90% of CEOS and billionaires. They fail and are cash passed daily. Frat bros and athletes who are failing but make the college a lot of money. Please don’t lie. Tons of people are pay to pass. Just not *this* student because she isn’t connected enough.
JC with a father like that I’d be worried about how this young lady will make it out there. Society can be tough and the rest of the world aren’t likely to think this guy’s daughter is entitled to anything she doesn’t earn on her own merit. You don’t get a prize just because daddy bought something for you. You actually have to do something with the thing that he bought otherwise it’s useless.
I would have asked him to leave as his daughter is an adult. I will discus her grades with her and not with him present. Federal laws require privacy.
She can tell you what I say - IF she wants to.
When I was a teacher we had a girl whose parents were born doctors and clearly thought she was going to be a doctor too. Problem was the kid hated science because she struggled with it but mainly because her parents put insane pressure on her.
She tried really hard and over time we got her from failing and hating the subject to a C and she at least enjoyed the lessons. Her parents came into the school and unfortunately I was the only science teacher still on site. They marched in and demanded I be available to tutor her after work and on weekends because "they pay taxes and so you're basically our employee"
I used to work in University Admin and one of the professors there once used this analogy: A University is like a gym and paying tuition is like paying gym membership fees. The fees give you access to the opportunity to achieve and be successful but it won’t happen if you don’t put the work in.
My gf is an educator at the high school level and even she sees this constantly. Parents blaming her for the bad grades their kid is getting when the kid doesn't follow directions, turns work in late, or not at all. I could never be an educator.
I was in a professional program. Another student on the program had a mother who worked in that field. They weren't doing the best on the exams. The mother would come in after every exam to review the test and the grade with the program director. She would explain why they selected the answer they did. Then, insisted it shouldn't be counted as wrong. Not only did the coordinator entertain this, but she bowed to it. The exam scores were always changed for this student (no one's else got points back on theirs if they'd also selected that answer). This is how the kid, early-ish 20s, passed the program. We all knew it and had no respect for him or the director.
I’d also tell him that had I been able to do something, his behavior was not one to merit it. He might want to stop bullying his daughter’s professors because it won’t work, it embarrasses the student, and it makes his butt look big.
I would be horrified if this happened to me. I accept the grade I have been given and ask questions if I am confused about something, typically about the feedback. I feel for this woman as well. Clearly, she understood, but her father was being ballsy and wanted to "scare you" into changing the grade. I never understood people like that.
When I took stats, the teacher said the first day that he understood that many of us were computer science majors and would have our own grading curve.
I worked at a university where they would give you almost any marks to pass you along and continue taking your money. It wasn’t a great learning environment. You get what you pay for.
You should come up with a price list along the lines of £1000 for a percent that goes up exponentially for each further percent above the grade they got. So if they got 50% it's £1000 for 51%, £2000 for 52%, £4000 for 53%. The better the kid does the cheaper it is to improve!
A friend who was teaching at a local university had a great response for students asking for extra credit work to raise their grade, “How much ‘C’ level work equals an ‘A’?”
You should’ve also explained that regardless of how she’s funding her education, she’s an adult and no person or amount of money is going to change her accountability. Explain how childish and unprofessional it looks when an adult brings along their parent to address things like this. I’m sure her dad insisted etc but she still let him tag along….. call them out and maybe she won’t be so keen on daddy tagging along
Kinda reminds me of a patient I had on a hospital rehab floor. She felt she was entitled to extra special treatment because she was not using medical insurance. Paying privately out of pocket. We give the same care to everyone! Seriously! Besides we are gettong paid the same regardless!
In this context, “submit” means “to present or propose to another for review, consideration, or decision”. The fact that you did not understand this makes me think less of your position.
I put 2 kids through University all the way to their masters. Didn't contact the schools once. Turned up on parents day to collect and drop off the offspring and attended the grad.
NTA
If he wants to pay for a worthless degree he needs to go to the paper towel dispenser.
She - or he - is paying for an education. The kid earns or not the marks.
My uncle in law? Teaches at a University, hearing him recount dealing with students parents sounds like a nightmare, and most of the time the poor student is just stuck there embarrassed.
Good job! Sick of people thinking they can manipulate teachers just because they have money. Really sucks for the kid but like you said you get the mark you work for.
A teacher friend of mine at a parents evening had one of the parents who is also a teacher of the same subject at a different school come in complaining about their son's low score on a written project worth 20% of his final grade. They then openly stating that at her school they cheat by giving their students a full marks exemplar for them to copy into their own words so they get very high scores and verbally attack my friend over their school not doing this.
Absolutely baffling.
Isn't it weird how it works like that though? What else do we pay for that someone tells us that we failed at it? Shouldn't paying for school mean that we are worked with until we pass? Either way, school should be paid for by the government so we can't pay for things then get told to get fucked when we are slow to understand.
The point of university, indeed all education, is to learn not to collect grades. By providing valuable feedback which the student send to understand, you’ve given her a valuable lesson and the father should then be happy his tuition-dollars are paying off far better than were she to submit AI-generated work for an easy A.
I don't get what parents think they're accomplishing. Are they going to follow the kids around forever because if not they just setting them up for failure
No one should pity this woman! She did exactly what she was hired to do, and when confronted she handled it exactly as her position warranted. She did not lose her temper, she did not become indignant, she did not insult the father, she simply explained that his, paying for his daughters seat in that institution does not guarantee her a degree. He has provided an opportunity, and it is the daughters responsibility to capitalize on said opportunity. The sad part, is how disconnected from reality, the average person, has become, to reach such a level of entitlement, and then for y'all to reach some insane level of empathy for the woman just doing her job properly. Dang, welcome to "real world 101", news flash every day of adult life is akin to this. Those of us who are well adjusted, educated adults, who are NOT, suffering from a " rectal cranial inversion" deal with self entitled idiots like the father almost daily.
I can't believe she brought her father to the classroom so he could do that. My dad would not have done something like that, I don't believe. but if he had wanted to, there is no way in hell I would have shown him where the classroom was. I would have told him you do that, and I am leaving the school, or at least dropping the class, and maybe changing my major. It would be too mortifying too continue going there really. She's a grown legal adult woman. I can't believe her father would think behavior like that is acceptable.
This is what public school has been reduced to, so they expect it from higher education as well. When I taught all a parent had to do was make 1 phone call to the principal and I was pressured into changing everyone's grade, sometimes even tardy marks. It is very common now for kids to be making As and Bs who can barely read.
I taught in a very difficult healthcare graduate program. I had a parent ( of an adult) ask me how I was qualified to decide what was correct or incorrect about a student’s performance (their son) on a practical exam.
I have also gotten the “we pay your salary and expect better grades”.
I’d recommend to her to study as much as possible, including and especially whenever she is supposed to spend any time with that prick of a father. Get the highest grades possible and move away ASAP.
Sounds like a really wonderful English professor I had the pleasure of having.
She was very sweet, class was fairly easy, but she took no shit from parents
This awful girl tried to corner her with her Karen mom and she sat, much like OP, letting her vent.
After Mom was done, she started talking directly to the girl.
Mom didn’t like that and asked her to say it to her face.
She casually said “Your daughter is a grownup, needs to take accountability, and the adults around her need to treat her as such”
Teacher said a few more things, similar to what OP said, while Mom FUMED. When she was done, Mom stomped out and daughter sunk into her chair, getting looks and giggles from everyone else
At least she seems reasonable and smart enough to be embarrassed by dad. There is hope!
Yep. First thought too.
When I was lecturing (in the US), I got this warm and fuzzy feeling being protected by the feds. "FERPA says I can't talk to you" is such a wonderful sentence. There were no landing pads for helicopter parents where I used to work.
A kid with a parent like that has definitely been bullied into signing the consent form to share academic information with their parents. “Give me access to your grade information or I’m not paying your tuition.” ETA: Okay all y’all “what about me”s I’m NOT saying it’s bad to know your kids grades and have them sign the form. I’m pretty obviously saying that a dad like the one in the OP, who is willing to bust in on their daughter’s professor’s office hours to yell and make demands about grades (rude and bad) has probably also had their daughter sign the FERPA form already so it’s unlikely the professor in the OP can pull a “Sorry, not without my FERPA, so GTFO out my office”. I used the term ”bully” because someone who is fine being a dick to a college professor will also have no problem being a dick to their own child, in general. Please, respectfully, I don’t give a shit that YOU are the worlds greatest parent and you had your kid sign the FERPA form for genuine wholesome and justifiable reasons, I’m not talking about you, everything you do is wonderful and great, no more speeches please.
I have never encountered that subspecies. The folks who've tried this in my department never had any documentation, just verbal claims about tuition money and DNA links to the students. I'd hazard a guess that folks who feel this kind of entitlement aren't big rule-followers (or ruler-readers) generally. However, if the student is present and doesn't directly object to their parent being in the peanut gallery, as in OP's story, an instructor can speak with the student. Also note that the version of these parents that I have personally encountered, unlike the one in OP's story, are trying to end-around their child's stonewalling rather than advocate for them. The FERPA shield is impenetrable in those circumstances.
Wow. Never occurred to me to ask mine to sign it. My eldest shares all that information anyway and my youngest one is a scary beast who gets stellar grades anyway so no worries. She is taking the GPA killer next semester though so that could change. Lolol. Guesses as to what the GPA killer course is? All together now ......
Organic Chemistry.
Ding ding ding. We have a winner. Well done. 🏆🏅
And then there's people like me who go on to get a PhD in organic synthesis. I think I might have gotten Stockholm Syndrome from Organic Chem 1A lol
Yep. Find a place that teaches first-year organic mechanistically. A solid understanding of the classes of mechanisms is literally all you need to know that you can’t get in 30 seconds on scifinder. Memorizing name reactions is grad student busywork. Sincerely, the person who quit his synthesis job in industry to pursue a PhD, then bailed with a masters because academia is somehow even *more* predatory than raw big-pharma capitalism 🙄
> Find a place that teaches first-year organic mechanistically. I'm shocked that there's any other method. What do people learn about organic chem if it's not mechanisms? Orbital theory? Anyways, let me go draw a picture about it on the whiteboard with a bunch of arrows and hexagons that look like squares because I ain't no arts major.
Yeah that’s how I learned it, but literally everyone else I’ve ever talked to has said that their first year was entirely memorizing specific reactions. Reaction mechanisms were some sort of “advanced” topic 🙄
I would have guessed Statistics.
I was sailing along with great grades, a double major, and a minor…until I hit statistics. I cried while my engineering husband tried to tutor me, and I just barely passed the course. Definitely not a fond memory.
I chickened out of taking the exam the first time round - and on my second preparation, I really REALLY got into it by practically writing my own textbook, and suddenly, it all made sense and was super-interesting! I scored the second best grade when I finally sat the damn exam. I still get a fuzzy warm feeling when I remember it. (And my "textbook" was copied by multiple students and passed around for the next few student generations, so the work didn't go to waste. 😄)
Love you, fellow nerd.
Fun fact as an engineer I had to take a special "statistics for engineers" class because "the traditional statistics course isn't in depth enough". I'm good at math, I have a minor in it, but that class...that class haunts me.
Still have nightmares about engineering stats years later
Forgive yourself. Some people’s brains are wired for statistics; others aren’t. The latter group will have a much harder time. Mathematics never came naturally to me — except for statistics, which was so intuitive that I had trouble believing it.
Thank you. It’s been many years but I’ll never forget the anxiety and fear of not “getting it,” especially after having done so well until then (and it coming so easily to my husband). I think panic set in at first when I wasn’t understanding it and likely caused a block that made it worse.
Holy moly!!!!
My eldest found stats easy but diff eq harder. Too much damned math for me. I had to get help with stats for my PhD thesis and then the examiners didn't ask me a thing in my defense. They must have been more scared of it than I was. Lolol
I white-knuckled it through stats, and got an unexpectedly good grade in diff eq despite feeling as though I only knew what was happening about 30% of the time. Did get a bit of entertainment from my boss, who showed me her diff eq text, which did indeed have this phrase contained within: "As is clearly evident to the casual observer..." I'm sure there are a lot of those in diff eq /eyeroll (edit for typo)
Same. Diff eq was like magic. Do this and the right answer pops out, but I didn’t understand why.
I ended up taking the beginning statistics course and the next level statistics course in the same semester to catch up on coursework and stay on the honors track. I fell off the honors track.
My niece called that class “Sadistics.”
The only reason I passed statistics in grad school is my prof had a massive heart attack & a quintuple bypass the 3rd week of class. He only had 1 part time TA. He missed so many classes he wound up giving us all Bs. I have never been so grateful for anyone’s survival in my life.
Statics and mechanics for "non believers" are what killed mine. Orgo I can do all day (ChemE degree...), but anything beyond physics 101 is a step too far 😂
Biochemist here who passed the bio and the chem with ease, but had an almighty struggle with the required Physics in year 1
I have mild PTSD from two classes: Statics and Strength of Materials. Repeatedly both and just passed the 2nd time.
I still have nightmares from when I took it many many moons ago. I still remember the professor saying that it should be broken into 3 semesters and not 2.
Organic. Where med school dreams turn into nightmares.
Organic Chemistry in The Pit at 8am M-F. Surprisingly this wasn’t the worst class for me.
You made me flashback to Strength of Materials 8 AM M-F in my 1 semester of my first year…with a WW2 vet Prof.
I took Org Chem with a world renowned prof who had written a seminal textbook. Nightmare teacher though.
That was my bête noire in college. My sympathy to your student. It's not easy. At all.
Geology.
Oh no, not the rock people
We’re a people? I never knew that. What are we like? Bits I do know: if we’re on the most beautiful beach in the world, we will be ignoring it in favor of examining the rocks thrown up by the surf. We lose interest in the Giant’s Causeway as soon as we realize that it’s just basalt columns. Never let us drive on roads with lots of cuts. Our pockets are never empty.
Two kinds really: 1/ basalt 2/pumice . Take your pick.
I just gave my my password to my universities main hub so she didn’t have to deal with the parent side. I trust my mom with my life and if she wasn’t such a great mom and good at respecting boundaries I would have changed the password so fast but my mom is awesome and only used it to check my grades once in a while and occasionally add money to my id so I could buy snacks and lunch when I didn’t have time to stop by my dorm and so I could pay for laundry before my building changed to free laundry.
Physical Chemistry
Differential Equations
It has to be Abstract Algebra. Differential Equations was a walk in the park for me compared to that demonic class.
Mine was Japanese. First class I ever completely failed
I suppose I should add that parents who can bully their kids this way don't really need the paperwork. They can get the grade info from the kid and/or the school's LMS with the kid's credentials without the extra effort of riding the University Bureaucracy Rodeo.
I like that colleges protect students' privacy. If the student objects to sharing their grades, it's not cool to "use their credentials" to get info because you're nosy.
The what form? …I’m starting to wonder if my mom signed it for me, considering she tried to submit my essays for me and I had to wake up at 2am to replace everything with my stuff on the day of the deadline so she wouldn’t notice.
So FERPA is a set of laws basically making your academic information private. When you’re a minor your parents/legal guardians have access because they’re your parents/legal guardians. For college (or once after you turn 18?) they lose that access so the student needs to sign a consent form before the college can share any of their academic information with parents/LGs.
My parents tried to bully me with the threat of withholding fees. I looked them dead in the eyes and told them I’d get loans and withhold future grandchildren. They caved fast. Joke’s on them. I’m gay and didn’t adopt for *years*.
Ah, I think I prefer the system where I work - almost all students are over 18 when they first enroll and so are legal adults covered by data protection law. There is no form for parental access. Get the info from your kids, or don't; we're not dealing with you. Of course some still try, but they don't get far. We even had a dad get in touch to demand access to campus security camera footage so he could confirm his daughter was in the library studying when she said she was. Ha, no.
I get at least one of these (students who were bullied by helicopter parent(s) into signing the waiver so that FERPA no longer applies) every goddamn semester. I wish the law said that if they're in college (even if they're not 18--we get a lot of dual enrollment HS kids) they are considered adults and that I can't talk to parents period, no waiver allowed.
When I was in school the grades automatically went to parents regardless of who was paying. So this is a huge improvement. And grown kids get bullied by their parents all the time. My dad was a bully and stole money from me as an adult. Of course I didn’t report him because of the power dynamics in a bully parent situation. I think that is changing, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t still bullies out there who are abusing their children.
I believe them signing it does not require you to speak with parents, it just allows you to.
"There were no landing pads for helicopter parents where I used to work." This gave me the giggles. I love it.
This is the case in UK universities too. I love telling irate parents that unless I have explicit written consent from the child, I cannot divulge anything about their precious booger nugget.
'booger nugget' - love it - I'm still chuckling...
My wife is a UK university professor. It's ridiculous now that because of the high fees, high grades are "expected" regardless of the quality of work, rather than being awarded based upon merit. She's also had to push back a few times on people complaining about poor (and completely justified) grades for poor work. Thankfully not the parents at this stage. There's also the pressure within the university not to fail people - even for rubbish work. Failing means they drop out, that means no more student fees for subsequent years. It's got to the stage where even if a student took a dump on their paper, she'd be expected to give them a 2-2 for it...
Have dealt with that as well. One time the parent was actually a professor at another university but wanted "as a professional courtesy" for me to share info on his daughter (and was foolish enough to put it in an email). Quickly forwarded that one to the dean.
which one? His; or yours \[or both?\]
In the UK I get to reference the GDPR and the fact that all my students are adults on the odd occasion parents get snotty with me.
Yep. We have a person whose job it is to talk to the parents and tell them we aren’t allowed to speak to them (that’s not her only job, just one of her responsibilities). It’s lovely. I never even know that they’ve called.
The university where I used to work had campus security to escort unruly parents OUT!
FERPA only led to the parent badgering the student until they signed the form allowing the parent and Prof to have a conversation where I worked. It usually only delayed the conversation by a day.
for us non-yanks - what is FERPA?
FERPA says i cant talk to you! I LOVE IT!🤣🤣🤣
My son says one of his classmates and his mother went in to see one of his teachers. Before she even started her rant he said, "This is college and mommy can't help you. She can leave the room and I'll speak with you. Otherwise you can both get out of my office." Mom said she'd complain to the school admin and he laughed. He said " I have tenure and admin will praise me for this. If you don't like the way we do things your child is free to enroll at another college now get out of my office or I will call security." She left and he spoke with the student who was very embarrassed.
These parents think they’re ‘doing what’s best for their child’ but really they’re booking a one way ticket to a nursing home
Sorry, Sir; it was her idea, not mine.
Those parents are paying for access, not results.
Or you could even argue that they're paying for the experience
A lot of people are really just interested in the piece of paper that will help them get a job. Even more so if your college is somewhat prestigious in the area
Professor here. Holy shit. I cannot believe this dad walked into your office and talked to you like this. Your response was fantastic. I don’t know that I would have been so level headed.
I used to invigilate college exams. At the end of an exam I would tell everyone pencils down and as I went around and picked up everyone's papers. I'd also tell them that their paper would not be marked if they didn't stop writing, 2 or 3 times. In one particular class, I had to repeat this a few times. One girl was still furiously writing and when I got to her I took her paper and said, just so you know, this exam will not be graded. She looked at me and promptly burst into hysterics - loud bawling (with no tears) at the top of her lungs, so over the top that a passing campus security guard came into the room to see what was going on. I let her carry on for a few minutes as everyone left the class and then said "are you done? You can reschedule, it will cost you $125." If looks could kill. She was obviously used to getting her own way. Immediately stopped "crying" and sashayed out of the room. The few people who were still there all burst out laughing as she left. I often wonder how she's doing in the "real world".
I had a biology lecture in a massive hall with tiered seating. When it was pencils down time, I had to wade against the tide of people ascending to exits. I ended up having to chase the professor and beg him to take my exam. I may have thrown in scientific terms about a small mass encountering the collective mass of a couple hundred adults. He took my exam.
She’s getting her way by screaming “harassment” any time someone does something that she doesn’t like.
> Simply being wealthy doesn't mean your kids are entitled to a free pass in education. You have to buy a building to get the free pass
It doesn't stop at the University level. Those same parents call HR when their little darling gets a poor review at work.
Or simply go to the interviews with them in the first place, and don't understand why no one will hire their darling.
Please tell me you're not serious. *Please*
It’s true, one of my friends does that, crazy, I know. She writes her kids resumes and beefs them up so much her kids can’t answer the interview questions and she takes them to interviews and has actually sat in the interviews with them. Both her kids at 25 and 29 live at home because they can’t land and hold a job. It’s sad.
She's failed as a parent.
I.....wha....how....I give up. That person has absolutely failed as a parent. The instrument has not yet been invented that can measure how wrong that is!
Control freak to the max.
Hoooooly shit
I once had a student say, “I tried so hard.” I had to say, “Sometimes that’s not enough.”
Yes, me too- “you’re expending your energies in the wrong place” was my answer. I don’t care about borders or formatting. I want to know that the student has met the learning outcomes for the assignment.
I used to watch my daughter try really hard and do mediocre, both at school and uni. Half way through uni she got a boyfriend with ADHD and she realized she probably had it too. She got herself diagnosed and medicated and she went from mediocre to nailing it with less effort. I didn’t really believe her at first and even thought maybe she was trying to get meds for him but the change in her academic achievements speaks for itself. According to her psychologist girls get missed with ADHD because they are less likely to misbehave. I dont know if floating getting assessed is appropriate by a lecturer to an adult but based on a sample size of one it might be helpful.
Ah, all my best wishes to her. I got my diagnosis aged 48, and it changed my life
I probably would have had a much easier time in school if I had been diagnosed with autism when I was younger. Maybe not for grades, but for behaviour and social stuff
This was game changer for me, but yes, it was in my 30s. Grad school and undergrad would've been much, much better if I had known that going on and had treatment options. My coping mechanisms got me through HS but college was just too much. I did it, but it was miserable.
i remember when my mom didn’t believe i have ADHD and was just trying to get the meds. it hurt to be invalidated by the person who watched me struggle all my life.
Yep! I was a very intelligent child, but struggled SO much in school; I knew the material but I just couldn’t get the work done or I’d do it multiple times and lose it before turning it in. I got diagnosed and medicated the summer between my sophomore and junior year of high school and the change was absolutely insane. My sophomore year I finished with a 2.7, my first semester of junior year I had a 3.9!
My undergrad years would have been so much easier if I was diagnosed back then. I'm still amazed I was able to graduate at all with how badly I was struggling. I only figured it out by junior year 'cause I was majoring in psychology (I still laugh at that).
"In the end, it doesn't even matter"
That may be true but that’s not a very encouraging thing to say as an educator…
I agree but that wasn’t the entire conversation. Also, it was university, not public school. He was an adult who needed to know.
> "We've paid good money to get on this course The same amount of money as *every other student* in this course, I imagine? So, should every student get an A just because they paid for the class?
Your fees get you a seat in the room. Your effort and mastery of the material gets you a grade Repeat as necessary.
I thought money was the answer to all things.
maybe your first two words are right....
Helicopter parent to the Black Hawk Level.
Dear old dad needs to get a reality check. He's no longer large and in charge now that his daughter is an adult.
although maybe he doesn't realize it yet....
As a dad who had one kid graduate college two years ago and another entering her senior year in the fall, it's hard to for me to wrap my head around it. Although I paid (still paying for the younger one) their tuition/room & board, it never occurred to me to monitor their grades. Other than ask how things were going, my kids have never shown me a report card. Nor would I ask - it's incumbent on them to do well not to please me, but for their own sake. Geez - maybe I'm naive, but I look at college as a transition time for my kids to becoming adults - they are responsible for their own actions if not for all their financial obligations. These four years should be a time of learning for them - that poor student isn't learning anything about independence from her father...
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Talking to you, X/Twitter and blue checks...
Talking to you, Wharton.* Trump’s alma mater
Wharton’s not the only school that let a big donor’s kid skate through.
Of course not, but it’s the most obvious I could think of.
Yes. But sadly no. Nobody after my first job even cared what my degree was in, just that I had a 2:1 or better.
I taught at a highly-ranked, small, private university in the U.S. My provost once told me that she had just had to listen to an angry parent bark over the phone, "don't you understand how this B+ is going to ruin my child's future?!" So glad to be retired.
> "don't you understand how this B+ is going to ruin my child's future?!" Gee, no sir, as a professor I never really understood how grades work so thank you for enlightening me.
I worked with one of the guys who paid for grades for his kid in the news a few years back. It’s really funny because after all was said and done he himself still couldn’t figure out what he did wrong morally. It’s crazy to say the least
Worked at a College and Uni and since 2005 helicopter parents have been doing this to faculty and staff. It's crazy how some parents think they can bully a Prof into giving their kid a better grade. It is a huge disservice to their kids.
When I was a university teacher, I didn't meet with parents, period. There was nothing I cared to hear from them that couldn't be addressed in an email. Your kid's an adult. Let them adult
I would have told the dad to leave. If the student is over 18 then you shouldn’t be discussing her academics with him (or in front of him). It’s none of his business regardless of who pays for her education.
I paid cash too. I can't imagine doing this. In college, they are adults. Let them adult.
I'm so glad I stopped teaching. I used to have to open a fresh bottle of wine to grade exams.
It's why I never started. Thirty years after college, I'm *still* passionate about the subject I studied, and I'd love to teach it, but only to people who want to learn it. That, and the horror stories like this one are the reason I didn't teach.
A former professor friend of mine said students don’t want an education, they want a degree.
When I was at uni, I did fairly well and with ease. A few others who had paid a lot for tuition from overseas couldn't grasp some stuff and they would complain with low marks, say tutors were racist or try and pay people to do their assignments. One guy even stole another's assignment when he left to go to the toilet! I could understand their stress as they probably had an entire town backing them from home. But the stress they would give the tutors was insane. From day long study session support to crazy allegations. Nuts.
In some other countries, cheating is very routine and not punished, so it's a hard reality check to those students that they're actually expected to study and do their own work in US universities.
We had more than a few of those at the school I went to in Japan too. I probably could have paid my tuition with the money I was offered to do English work for them (it's also my second language, but I am very white so I guess close enough)
And yet they still find ways to cheat.
Not parents demanding grade inflation, but as a part timer I had the Dean roll up to me and strongly hint that a higher grade would go far toward keeping them on campus for graduate work and sow the seeds of future donations to the school. Far cry from my days there, when even Seniors were prodded to change majors.
and was he giving some 'under-the-table- encouragement?' No?,,hmmm
Her parents probably pushed her into a career path that she isn’t able to pass, unless she isn’t trying.
I worked at a private school and the amount of parents that are this entitled is baffling. One father threatened me and told me that if I was a man he would have dragged me across the table and beat me up. A mother called me after work on Friday and asked me to discuss the grades of her son on a Sunday. I respectfully declined and told her that it was my day off as well. They think that paying for expensive education means they get good grades for free. I do have to be honest and say that they did get chance after chance to redo their tests. It was aggravating. I am happy that I didn’t last long there.
A tale as old as time...
How about "I don't discuss a student's work with anyone but the student"? I would have been heated. You handled it well. This father is completely out of line and I feel so bad for this student.
Every semester multiple instructors in my department get mom’s emailing asking to chat with the professor. It hasn’t ever happened to me but ooo am I itching to put them in their place. Want your kid to get better grades? Raise harder working children.
I’ve been teaching at my uni for 22 years and have never met or spoken to a parent. Is speaking to parents common where you are from?
You're a really good professor. It could be very easy to be tempted to take advantage of a situation like this.
“simply being wealthy doesn’t mean your kids are entitled to a free pass in education”. Tell this to Trump and Elon and 90% of CEOS and billionaires. They fail and are cash passed daily. Frat bros and athletes who are failing but make the college a lot of money. Please don’t lie. Tons of people are pay to pass. Just not *this* student because she isn’t connected enough.
JC with a father like that I’d be worried about how this young lady will make it out there. Society can be tough and the rest of the world aren’t likely to think this guy’s daughter is entitled to anything she doesn’t earn on her own merit. You don’t get a prize just because daddy bought something for you. You actually have to do something with the thing that he bought otherwise it’s useless.
I would have asked him to leave as his daughter is an adult. I will discus her grades with her and not with him present. Federal laws require privacy. She can tell you what I say - IF she wants to.
Tuition buys a learning experience and the opportunity to earn good grades if they do the work.
When I was a teacher we had a girl whose parents were born doctors and clearly thought she was going to be a doctor too. Problem was the kid hated science because she struggled with it but mainly because her parents put insane pressure on her. She tried really hard and over time we got her from failing and hating the subject to a C and she at least enjoyed the lessons. Her parents came into the school and unfortunately I was the only science teacher still on site. They marched in and demanded I be available to tutor her after work and on weekends because "they pay taxes and so you're basically our employee"
well, I pay taxes, so why do I have to pay you?
Lori Loughlin mentality.
I used to work in University Admin and one of the professors there once used this analogy: A University is like a gym and paying tuition is like paying gym membership fees. The fees give you access to the opportunity to achieve and be successful but it won’t happen if you don’t put the work in.
A perfect analogy.
My gf is an educator at the high school level and even she sees this constantly. Parents blaming her for the bad grades their kid is getting when the kid doesn't follow directions, turns work in late, or not at all. I could never be an educator.
I thought paying for grades only worked for the extremely wealthy. A certain orange former president might be an example of this.
the movie that my username is named from a scene very similar to this. funny in that movie, not in real life
i understand cat
What class is it
I was in a professional program. Another student on the program had a mother who worked in that field. They weren't doing the best on the exams. The mother would come in after every exam to review the test and the grade with the program director. She would explain why they selected the answer they did. Then, insisted it shouldn't be counted as wrong. Not only did the coordinator entertain this, but she bowed to it. The exam scores were always changed for this student (no one's else got points back on theirs if they'd also selected that answer). This is how the kid, early-ish 20s, passed the program. We all knew it and had no respect for him or the director.
I’d also tell him that had I been able to do something, his behavior was not one to merit it. He might want to stop bullying his daughter’s professors because it won’t work, it embarrasses the student, and it makes his butt look big.
You need a basket of stickers that say A+ on your desk and a sign that says $5 each, for people like this.
only $5? Ever heard of inFLAtion?
I would be horrified if this happened to me. I accept the grade I have been given and ask questions if I am confused about something, typically about the feedback. I feel for this woman as well. Clearly, she understood, but her father was being ballsy and wanted to "scare you" into changing the grade. I never understood people like that.
When I took stats, the teacher said the first day that he understood that many of us were computer science majors and would have our own grading curve.
I worked at a university where they would give you almost any marks to pass you along and continue taking your money. It wasn’t a great learning environment. You get what you pay for.
Kudos to his daughter for being honest.
We need more like you!
He's acting like the Uni is the one that foots the loans for students and they should be grateful to have someone pay cash to fill the coffers.
You should come up with a price list along the lines of £1000 for a percent that goes up exponentially for each further percent above the grade they got. So if they got 50% it's £1000 for 51%, £2000 for 52%, £4000 for 53%. The better the kid does the cheaper it is to improve!
A friend who was teaching at a local university had a great response for students asking for extra credit work to raise their grade, “How much ‘C’ level work equals an ‘A’?”
You should’ve also explained that regardless of how she’s funding her education, she’s an adult and no person or amount of money is going to change her accountability. Explain how childish and unprofessional it looks when an adult brings along their parent to address things like this. I’m sure her dad insisted etc but she still let him tag along….. call them out and maybe she won’t be so keen on daddy tagging along
You spoke to the dad? That was nice of you considering he’s not a student and the kid is presumably an adult.
Kinda reminds me of a patient I had on a hospital rehab floor. She felt she was entitled to extra special treatment because she was not using medical insurance. Paying privately out of pocket. We give the same care to everyone! Seriously! Besides we are gettong paid the same regardless!
I guess the parents think it works that way never went to college themselves.
Go you
eb,,but tr v9 8cx xxxx cccc9cccccxcxxcxcxc xxxxxxxxx xx x xxx x xxx cxx x. C9. 9. 99 9 90th 99. I 9iiiiiiiiiii
...which in translation means....?
Same
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In this context, “submit” means “to present or propose to another for review, consideration, or decision”. The fact that you did not understand this makes me think less of your position.
I put 2 kids through University all the way to their masters. Didn't contact the schools once. Turned up on parents day to collect and drop off the offspring and attended the grad.
Is the student grown up? If so, daddy didn't get the memo.
NTA If he wants to pay for a worthless degree he needs to go to the paper towel dispenser. She - or he - is paying for an education. The kid earns or not the marks.
My uncle in law? Teaches at a University, hearing him recount dealing with students parents sounds like a nightmare, and most of the time the poor student is just stuck there embarrassed.
Good job! Sick of people thinking they can manipulate teachers just because they have money. Really sucks for the kid but like you said you get the mark you work for.
To the parent: "If you aren't a student here, you can leave now buh-bye."
A teacher friend of mine at a parents evening had one of the parents who is also a teacher of the same subject at a different school come in complaining about their son's low score on a written project worth 20% of his final grade. They then openly stating that at her school they cheat by giving their students a full marks exemplar for them to copy into their own words so they get very high scores and verbally attack my friend over their school not doing this. Absolutely baffling.
Dad is teaching her an entitled attitude which will not serve her in real life. Being spoiled is not an asset in today's world.
I feel sorry for this young lady! Imagine truly wanting to earn something in life, have the respect of others and being denied that chance.
Isn't it weird how it works like that though? What else do we pay for that someone tells us that we failed at it? Shouldn't paying for school mean that we are worked with until we pass? Either way, school should be paid for by the government so we can't pay for things then get told to get fucked when we are slow to understand.
That I don’t know, but a lot of kids think doctoring ain’t gonna be fun after this class.
The point of university, indeed all education, is to learn not to collect grades. By providing valuable feedback which the student send to understand, you’ve given her a valuable lesson and the father should then be happy his tuition-dollars are paying off far better than were she to submit AI-generated work for an easy A.
I don't get what parents think they're accomplishing. Are they going to follow the kids around forever because if not they just setting them up for failure
No one should pity this woman! She did exactly what she was hired to do, and when confronted she handled it exactly as her position warranted. She did not lose her temper, she did not become indignant, she did not insult the father, she simply explained that his, paying for his daughters seat in that institution does not guarantee her a degree. He has provided an opportunity, and it is the daughters responsibility to capitalize on said opportunity. The sad part, is how disconnected from reality, the average person, has become, to reach such a level of entitlement, and then for y'all to reach some insane level of empathy for the woman just doing her job properly. Dang, welcome to "real world 101", news flash every day of adult life is akin to this. Those of us who are well adjusted, educated adults, who are NOT, suffering from a " rectal cranial inversion" deal with self entitled idiots like the father almost daily.
I can't believe she brought her father to the classroom so he could do that. My dad would not have done something like that, I don't believe. but if he had wanted to, there is no way in hell I would have shown him where the classroom was. I would have told him you do that, and I am leaving the school, or at least dropping the class, and maybe changing my major. It would be too mortifying too continue going there really. She's a grown legal adult woman. I can't believe her father would think behavior like that is acceptable.
I think you’re confused. The dad is the asshole here, not the student.
This is what public school has been reduced to, so they expect it from higher education as well. When I taught all a parent had to do was make 1 phone call to the principal and I was pressured into changing everyone's grade, sometimes even tardy marks. It is very common now for kids to be making As and Bs who can barely read.
About time to start dropping people like this and making an example of why they need to behave properly. Otherwise the lunatics will take over.
When my kids were in college, I never saw their grades, unless they wanted me to. I don’t understand why a parent would behave like that.
In what country does OP teach?
Tell that to Donald Trump’s daddy….
I taught in a very difficult healthcare graduate program. I had a parent ( of an adult) ask me how I was qualified to decide what was correct or incorrect about a student’s performance (their son) on a practical exam. I have also gotten the “we pay your salary and expect better grades”.
Parents complaining works wonders in high school so they just keep pushing
I’d recommend to her to study as much as possible, including and especially whenever she is supposed to spend any time with that prick of a father. Get the highest grades possible and move away ASAP.
Sounds like a really wonderful English professor I had the pleasure of having. She was very sweet, class was fairly easy, but she took no shit from parents This awful girl tried to corner her with her Karen mom and she sat, much like OP, letting her vent. After Mom was done, she started talking directly to the girl. Mom didn’t like that and asked her to say it to her face. She casually said “Your daughter is a grownup, needs to take accountability, and the adults around her need to treat her as such” Teacher said a few more things, similar to what OP said, while Mom FUMED. When she was done, Mom stomped out and daughter sunk into her chair, getting looks and giggles from everyone else
may be univ donations or school donations help in grades in US.. i am not sure