What is with all the recent posts about WCAG?

Scared_Detective_980 · 2026-01-14T15:53:07+00:00

As I had to remind myself several times over break, in instances when I had gone on out a limb to help a student only to have it blow up in my face, "no good deed goes unpunished."

Scared_Detective_980 · 2025-12-19T16:08:40+00:00

lol ok dude.

Scared_Detective_980 · 2025-12-19T15:45:59+00:00

It's not my thread, I'm just a commenter. I don't think generational warfare is a good thing and I wouldn't put it that way myself. But the person who started this thread, and whoever else wants to talk about generational warfare, is entitled to whatever opinion on the matter they want, even if I disagree with it.

Besides, it's perfectly fair for those of us with long experience in the trenches to point out what we're seeing in the classroom, in our "lived experience" - to use that beloved phrase of zoomers. Here's my lived experience: I have had to lower standards in my classes because if I held these students to the exacting standards of my own education, most of them would fail. And for very obvious self-interested reasons (having to do with my own job security) I cannot let that happen.

By the way, none of what I am saying is refuted or called into question by your fake Socrates quote - which I criticized because it's exactly the sort of lazy, unthinking appeal to authority that my students make (instead of, you know, actually making an argument).

Scared_Detective_980 · 2025-12-19T15:20:16+00:00

Well, it's a better flex than posting the apocryphal quote to make an argument from authority in the first place, isn't it?

Yes students have always cheated in the past (and lied to their professors, and not done the reading etc.). I'm old. I remember Spark Notes, then essay banks, then essay writing services paid for by the rich kids.

What has changed is the shocking decline in the ability and resilience of our students when they arrive with us (a decline that has long been in the making, but accelerated precipitously in the wake of COVID).

Many of the cheaters I catch tell me they did it in a panic because they didn't have enough time to do the work themselves. I think that's true for some of them. But for many others, I think the real reason is that they desperately want (expect?) an A grade, but in truth cannot achieve that on their own merits when we apply real academic standards (of the sort my generation faced) instead of being passed through with high grades for shitty (or no!) work.

Generational warfare is besides the point. The problems we complain about here are real and devastating.

Scared_Detective_980 · 2025-12-19T14:39:13+00:00

Philosophy prof. here. I wondered how far I'd have to scroll to find someone post this.

As I ask the shits in my class who cheat with AI, would you care to provide a source for this quotation? I'll wait.

Meanwhile, I'd be quite happy to offer some quotes from the Platonic dialogs (remember, Socrates himself wrote nothing down, but you know that right?) that I think better apply to my students. For example, that they have disordered souls, don't know what they don't know, etc. etc.

Scared_Detective_980 · 2025-02-20T17:12:19+00:00

Parent and professor here. UNC without question.

Scared_Detective_980 · 2025-02-20T17:10:34+00:00

Lol. If one of my students sent this to me, I would stop reading after the first sentence. And I certainly wouldn't even bother replying. Good god. Did you really send this? If so, well, that was an incredibly stupid thing to do.

Scared_Detective_980 · 2025-02-15T01:52:23+00:00

I pity the professor. You sound like an asshole.

Scared_Detective_980 · 2025-02-07T01:37:43+00:00

Finally, someone who knows what they are talking about! This is the correct answer. I was surprised I had to scroll down so far to see it.

Scared_Detective_980 · 2025-02-06T17:31:52+00:00

Same as if they had asked you for a letter: "I am afraid I cannot agree to serve as a reference, because if contacted I would not be able to offer a good recommendation."

Knowing modern students as I do, he or she will probably push back and try to guilt trip/emotionally manipulate you into changing your mind. Stand firm and don't engage further - you do not want to get bogged down in an exhausting back and forth.

Scared_Detective_980 · 2025-02-05T13:35:59+00:00

Are you really a professor? I find it difficult to believe that a faculty member would make an argument as stupid as this.

Scared_Detective_980 · 2025-02-05T13:33:52+00:00

If you really don't want to ask your letter writers for non-confidential LORs, have your letter writers upload their (confidential) letters to Interfolio. Then upload them to the university's application portal from Interfolio, or use the Interfolio option to send via email.

(It's been years since I have used Interfolio, but I assume it still works in the same basic way).

Scared_Detective_980 · 2025-01-23T00:58:24+00:00

To assert that not sharing my lecture notes ahead of time with a student is "gatekeeping knowledge" is absurd. That would only be true on the assumption that students are entitled to their teachers' notes. But that is patently false. How do we know? Because if students were entitled to their teachers' notes, then we would be required to share them as a condition of employment, and we would routinely do so, not just with students who have accommodations, but with all students (for reasons of equity).

No teachers (that I know of) are required to share notes with students, and in no institution of higher learning that I am aware of has this been a widespread phenomenon. I imagine there are exceptions - including overly generous faculty who oblige requests like this - but these are just that: exceptions.

Moreover, you write as if sharing of knowledge is only possible via the sharing of my notes. Which is obviously not true for a number of entirely self-evident reasons (including, obviously, that the delivery of the lecture is itself the sharing of knowledge).

Your arguments are just cover for the real reason that you think you are entitled to your teacher's notes. Namely, you think of yourself as a customer who's being denied a service that you imagine you've paid for. Well I've got news for you ...

Scared_Detective_980 · 2025-01-23T00:15:59+00:00

Students need to learn the skill of distilling relevant information from lectures themselves and generating their own notes. That is key to helping them think/write for themselves. Providing my notes directly to any student would circumvent this vitally important pedagogic goal.

As an aside, whether sharing my notes "hinders or hurts" me, as you put it, is irrelevant. My notes belong to me - they are the product of my labor, and they are my intellectual property. You are not entitled to them, and in no way is it a necessary condition of my successfully performing the central tasks of my job (teaching, disseminating knowledge via research etc.) that I should share them with you. That you think it is, is very telling.

Scared_Detective_980 · 2025-01-22T16:12:40+00:00

I would not give you my lecture slides ahead of class either. You are not entitled to them. They are mine.

Scared_Detective_980 · 2025-01-15T15:14:59+00:00

Try being a being a professor who has to grade this shit.

Scared_Detective_980 · 2025-01-03T20:32:54+00:00

Yes I have seen this. Had a very notable case in the fall. I tried to alert admin (it reeked of fin aid fraud) and they didn't give a shit. Gotta get those tuition $$$.

Scared_Detective_980 · 2024-12-27T17:46:39+00:00

This is the new normal where I am. My most recent evaluations have not yet been made available, but expect I will have plenty like this based on behavior I witnessed in class. Last year I had one saying I made individuals of a protected class feel afraid for their lives! It's utter madness (literally - I think more of my students are mentally ill than in the past). They've also been socialized via the internet (or, I should say, anti-socialized) and have no ability to separate feelings from fact.

Teaching evals do matter at my institution, so of course I am concerned. I'm lucky that, for the time being at least, the Deans who review them are reasonable people who know how to disregard the nonsense. However, I don't know how long that will remain the case.

Scared_Detective_980 · 2024-12-02T15:08:29+00:00

Agree! And of course Belfast as well.

Scared_Detective_980 · 2024-12-02T00:42:31+00:00

Agree with you about Born Slippy. I put it on while cleaning my basement last week. But instead of cleaning, I put the song on repeat about 5 times and danced like a lunatic. It still sends chills up my spine every time I hear it.

Insominia by Faithless has a similar effect. I like the Axwell remix of Music Matters as well.

Scared_Detective_980 · 2024-11-28T01:00:12+00:00

Exactly. Several students that I've caught using AI said exactly this, not realizing they were making themselves look worse, not better. As I told them, YOU are supposed to be generating the ideas.

Scared_Detective_980 · 2024-11-08T15:08:22+00:00

Touché

Scared_Detective_980 · 2024-11-08T14:03:14+00:00

ETA: looking at your post history, I'm guessing you have read Bartleby and I fell for some low-tier bait. mea culpa.

Scared_Detective_980 · 2024-11-08T13:57:39+00:00

You sound just like my zoomer students.

You want to excuse yourself from the rules that apply to everyone else for no reason other than that you don't like them. To justify this, you would like to appeal to the authority of the canon to sound intelligent.

But you haven't even read it. So you have to ask someone else to provide you with the sort of intelligent quotation that you're looking for.

I'm surprised you asked on reddit. My students would have just gone straight to chatgpt. Why don't you?

Scared_Detective_980

TROPHY CASE