Posted By:
David AtkatzI don't feel bruised that they made those comments anonymously, Jeff. Not at all. Hell, I'm the one who posted the name of the website, so that anyone can go there. What I am pointing out, though, is that their statements should carry the same weight as hearsay testimony. There is a reason why it is, for the most part, inadmissible. Nor can witnesses testify anonymously. To be taken seriously, there must be some accountability. And, too, you are not looking at the evaluations that every student must submit, but rather those on an independent website, where the students who are the most pissed off are likely to post, while those who were satisfied may not feel any compelling reason to do so.
Physics is a very difficult subject. It requires hard work, and it requires a large amount of native aptitude. And it requires brutal (maybe the wrong choice of words) honesty. Some students deal with all that well, and some don't.
All of the quotes you posted are from students in the intro course, 90% of whom are pre-meds, and who, for the most part, would rather not have been forced to take physics, All many of them care about as far as physics is concerned, is doing well on the physics portion of the MCATS. I fully understand, and I do sympathize with them. But I tell them at the beginning that that is not what I am there to teach--that mine is not a Kaplan course. I am there to teach the skills, and the manner of thinking that a physicist must have, and that is what I stress. I can do it no other way; you see, I have pride in my work, and my discipline too, just as you do. Think of me as a "Professor Kingsfield" of physics. The students come in with a head full of mush, but they leave (some of them, at least) thinking like physicists.
But many don't. Some because they can't, but most who don't because they are unwilling to work as hard as one must. So they don't do well. That pisses people off. And at seventeen, the truth is that not many kids are mature enough to say "I didn't work as hard as I needed to," but would rather say that I'm an ******* for not giving them exactly what they wanted.
Now, that's not to say that I'm perfect, or can't be abrasive at times, or arrogant. Hey--I'm a smart-ass New York Jew.
But I've been doing physics long enough to know what is important, and what needs to be stressed, and how hard one must work.
You really ought to hear what some of my upper-level students have to say about me; students who want to be physicists, and who want to think (and enjoy thinking) that new, exciting way.
You point out that some of your clients who are convicted nevertheless appreciate how hard you worked for them, and understand that they themselves, not you, got them into the mess in the first place. That's a pretty mature attitude. I doubt whether very many of them are 17-18 years old.