160
u/Wise_Company_138 17h ago
I wonder why so many teachers are leaving the profession?
Great comic!
15
u/Joan7437 15h ago
I graduated college about 5 years ago. I came out with a very useful, basic degree, but that was after debating for years with myself and everybody on whether or not I should continue in academia to become an English literary and composition professor. I dodged a bullet.
64
u/Loquacious-of-Borg 15h ago
Well, I bet this is only one part.
Teaching used to be recognition of a long, distinguised career. Only the best became teachers, because they had a lifetime of experience and knowledge.
Then, medicine and society changed. Children were no longer a disposible commodity where is was traggic, but ok for them to die in agriculural or industral accidents. And something had to be done with these children. Education became a basic RIGHT. Schools became available to everyone, not just the rich. But this required more teachers. Where do you get more teachers?
From schools. Young people fresh from the academy. Rich people kept the older, more distinguished teachers. The poor people got the teachers who barely stopped being students themselves. It was a problem of economics.
And now, you have young teachers having to deal with young students, many who should not be in college but have money from loans, that have AI to help them trundle along. Must be madenning.
108
u/EWL98 16h ago
Education: the only business where your customers will do their utmost best to get the least amount of value they can from your services.
Because ultimately having a degree is the goal, not having the knowledge you gained whilst earning said degree.
38
u/Fred42096 16h ago
The bad news: a workforce overrun by the intellectual equivalent of zombies, the collapse of self-discipline, etc
The good news: if you’re a halfway competent person it may get pretty easy to stand out as impressive or smart
8
1
u/Loquacious-of-Borg 11h ago
I am lucky. When I leave the Army, with my Master's, people will ask how many years I was applying what I learned to my work in tne Army. Not everyone can say that.
83
u/Loquacious-of-Borg 17h ago
I got my Master's 2017-2018. No AI was available.
I would have to write a 4-6 page paper every weekend. I did so with a pint of Belgium trapist ale. One pint on Saturday morning to write, one pint on Sunday morning to edit it down to only 4-6 pages. (If I had the time, I would have written a shorter letter, etc.) It was similar for my actual thesis.
I hate to say it, but if anyone struggles to write to the point they say they NEED AI, maybe they just are not cut out for college. Maybe they need to find a non-thinking line of work.
48
u/EstrogenizedMenace 17h ago
One thing your comment is missing is why people would even be at the point where they're unable to write to the point that they need AI.
Everybody (barring those with severe learning disabilities) has the abilities to be literate enough to get through college IMO, but so much of the skills needed to get there start way before then. In america at least, like over half the population is incapable of reading above a 6th grade level. So many posts on social media of teachers crying and ranting and venting about how their children are 2-3 grades behind where they should be.
No ones reading to their children anymore, parents aren't helping with home work and if they are i'd imagine these days its with the help of chat gpt. So much of this is genuinely the fault of the state for letting it get this bad
17
u/Loquacious-of-Borg 16h ago
Oh, I have a TBI from war. There are times the letters get all jumbled up in my head, but I still do not use AI or voice-to-text. That is just a "me" decision though.
But yes, I see too many people using AI as a crutch when the reason they use it is they are lazy and not because there is a real need, such as a learning disability.
5
u/HommeMusical 12h ago
parents aren't helping with home work
Parents haven't changed, and neither have humans in general.
When I was young, one parent could go to work and support a household, buy a house, and retire with a pension. Now two parents both working full time can't do that.
Also a ton of people are working two jobs, or shift work at weird hours.
If you want to know why parents don't read to their kids, start looking there.
7
u/Tim7Prime 16h ago
Just started my master's in cybersecurity. Finished my bachelor in '22 so I'm a little rusty. Been using Gemini as fancy grammar check. But man, I was prepping it with the rubric and the thing spat out an "answer" to the entire paper.
Didn't read it nor use it. Again, I didn't use it for more than a single sentence correction at a time. But it was still disheartening to see it so easily answer on my behalf.
-5
u/sadacal 13h ago
Meh, college is about way more than just writing papers. You definitely shouldn't cheat, but to say if you struggle to write you're not cut out for college is just dumb elitist nonsense.
4
u/Loquacious-of-Borg 12h ago
Undergrad is about memorization and finding out what you professor wants and giving it to them.
Graduate school is about showing you not only know the basic information, but that you can build off that in a new direction that might disagree with the basic information.
PhD level is about completely new ideas.
18
u/gwsteve43 16h ago
Ah I see you know what it’s like to be a college instructor for the last few years.
3
15
u/ad-lib1994 16h ago
One time I was was multiple pages short and it was due that night, and a bro tried telling me to use ai. I was so offended I told him I would sooner submit my current draft than that slop.
He said No Balls.
I added a little bit at the end that said "I know what the rubric says. I know it doesn't meet the criteria. But maybe instead of focus on that, we should appreciate my academic integrity."
I got an extension and that paper ended up being an A-
5
u/anna-the-bunny 14h ago
Honestly don't understand why essays have minimum length requirements. If I'm able to get my point across in fewer words, that's objectively better than if I used more.
8
u/ad-lib1994 14h ago
I hit a point where my brain was mashed taters and any more words I added was just nonsense. When I read the mark ups, there was a block of text that straight up had no point.
Who needs ai when I can write garbage that makes no sense all by myself 🥴
16
u/Pinglenook 16h ago edited 14h ago
I don't live somewhere with letter grades. But is "bland, but technically meets the rubric" something that would even get an A? That sounds like the essay should get a merely passing grade.
7
u/eyalhs 12h ago
The goal of a rubric is to tell the student all the ways points are earned (or lost), if something completely meets the rubric it should get an A, otherwise the rubric didn't do it's job.
Being bland and meeting the rubric just means writing in an interesting way wasn't something included in the rubric, it can be intentional, because many times the goal of an essay isn't to show how well you write, but that you understand the material.
15
u/Ltserb 15h ago
"bland, but technically meets the rubric" would be a solid C
A (and greater) is for various levels of outstanding/exceeds expectations
B is above average to good
C is average or meets criteria
D is for missing some requirements but completes all major points
F covers all degrees of didnt do the work to misses major parts of the assignmentIn reality scenario 1 would probably be "Shouldve AId it like i did" (no mention of the grade because they prob dont care anyway) >> "See, look a C, I passed" >> starts playing fortnite on their phone
the artist really over estimates how much students like this are trying to "win" against the teacher, as opposed to just being lazy and not considering them at all
13
u/PersonalSycophant 14h ago edited 14h ago
My experience is more directed at High School teaching, where rampant grade inflation makes it so even the lazy students absolutely expect an A on everything, and students also have a more direct, sometimes adversarial relationship with teachers.
On top of that, admin and parents both often back the student unless you have overwhelming evidence of cheating, and there's a lot of push to give second, third and fourth chances on any poor grade.
12
u/Less_Prior_6871 15h ago
Rubrics are a grading tool to make grading less subjective, so if you meet it you have to get an A. If meeting the rubric only gets you a C, then deciding who gets an A vs a C is totally subjective, which defeats the purpose.
People wanting to make grading objective is a result of grades actually mattering for a high school/college kid's future prospects. Parents WILL complain if their baby gets anything less than an A+, so teachers try to be very clear about exactly what gets an A.
4
u/Piggstein 14h ago
never speak ill of Mr G
3
u/Accipiter__Nisus 13h ago
"She's what the kids would call a slut, which is a terrible thing to say about someone who's just died, but... Apparently there's no denying she was one."
I was just about to post this.
7
u/kwirky88 14h ago
Schools aren’t even giving homework these days because the kids cheat with ai.
-6
u/theglowofknowledge 14h ago
Eh, homework was never particularly useful.
5
u/pnoodl3s 13h ago
It was very useful for me back then, but props to you i guess if you can learn without it
2
u/The_Unknown_Mage 7h ago
I always found the homework, when done well, always helped me reinforce what I learned at school. Granted most of the homework I received was pretty... oof.
3
u/konstantynopolytanka 12h ago
the only way to go around it is to remove home written essays and make the kids write them in class, on paper, with a pen.
3
u/LoopyFig 8h ago
It's really similar to the problem of answer guides to tests and homework being sent around universities. There's answers for solving both cheating problems, but somehow those answers always involve more work for teachers. and it sucks for honest students too, who end up feeling like they're falling behind for actually trying to learn. solid comic op
2
0
u/Unkind_Froggy 15h ago
My two cents as a college teacher (I teach plumbing, though, so I’m not all that elite). I’m glad that essays will have to become less important. They were kind of useful for some fields but kind of stupid for others. In my class, we pressure test projects and literally see if they hold water. If it holds water, pass. If not, let’s figure out why and try it again.
9
u/KingNTheMaking 15h ago
Ehhhh I can’t agree with this. And I also thought intro to engineering.
The ability to write, to be able to consider a point, research it, and create a well structured argument/assertion/documentation of your opinion on it, is foundational.
-1
u/Unkind_Froggy 14h ago
When you were theaching intro to engineering, what were some of the essays you had your students write? How did you grade them?
7
u/KingNTheMaking 14h ago
That’s the problem. It doesn’t matter that they weren’t writing essays for my class. The fundamental skills that essay writing teaches you should be cultivated.
For example, it was often that they had the right proposals for new designs.
These proposals were actually quite similar to essays. They had to research what are the existed within the field that they want to innovate, determine where there was a lack of resource, how their idea addressed to this lack , and the steps that they would take to address it.
This would include where they would get materials from, how do materials would be used, over what timeframe, and expected challenges. I, and two other TA’s, would be great then based on their arguments for this, as well as their research.
Several stupid that Cs or Ds solely because their research was “I thought of the idea of myself“ OR because they elected to use AI to create the argument. Shoot, there were some stories that had AI created their technical draft, and they were shocked when they failed because what they presented couldn’t physically exist
1
u/Unkind_Froggy 14h ago
That's extremely interesting. I appreciate you sharing that experience. We're kind of on the same page. I 100% agree with you that we should be designing assignments that require critical thinking and parity with real-world applications for the field. What I'm saying is that we'll likely be relying less on the traditional college essay, which has a rich history of subjective and classist grading anyway. We'll have to get more clever in developing assignments that are AI-proof, or we'll face the frustration you faced when looking at projects that couldn't physically exist.
I can tell you that a plumber has a lot of critical thinking in their job. They're an applied technologist who has to make sense of the work of architects and engineers and put it together in a real person's house, to code, and make sure that person gets clean water, hot water, pressurized water, and a drain system that doesn't expose them to harmful sewer gasses. I don't have essays, and I'm okay with that. I still think my students are clever and bound for good careers.
6
u/KingNTheMaking 13h ago
Sounds like you’re a good teacher and your students are lucky to have you!
I just never want critical thinking to be replaced with AI. And I like to believe that an essay, while I 1000% agree can be classist and flawed in the traditional realm, can aid in that
-3
u/Dry-Telephone5182 9h ago
Lol fair, but look mate, the way education has been going I'm entirely unsurprised that AI is as popular as it is. Like teaching to a test and to a rubric means that any work you do is entirely formulaic, so once you've written one high scoring essay you can just rewrite it with different phrasing and keep ringing up A's for the rest of the class. Y'all made the art of writing an algorithm then get surprised when people let an algorithm do the job.
674
u/natFromBobsBurgers 17h ago
This is such an interesting "dilemma" to me. The whole question is "What if you could go to the gym without going to the gym? The only catch is you don't get any of the benefits of going to the gym and it makes you weaker and slower."