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E-PrincePrinceton is renowned as a research university that is also committed to educating undergraduates. The University demonstrates this commitment by requiring all professors to teach and partially basing tenure decisions on teaching ability. Graduate students also play a vital and ...(back to the article)
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I'm an undergrad, but I have to say, rarely have I read a dumber editorial than this one. The preceptorial system is just fine; grad students are, for the most part, extremely intelligent individuals who put sincere effort into teaching undergrads. Undergrads, by contrast, don't even do the reading half the time. This article is really just a way for the ed. board to feel self-important by staking out a "position" on a non-issue. The NYT runs fake trend pieces, but at least they don't editorialize about it two days later. I'm sorry, but it's just true -- the Prince is pathetic.
Re: Re: Teaching Teaching
Thank you for your response. We are glad that you seem to have had a positive experience in your precepts. Many of use have had wonderful experiences in precepts as well. We do not deny that "grad students are, for the most part, extremely intelligent individuals who put sincere effort into teaching undergrads." In fact, we suggest that the University do more to reward (often under-appreciated) preceptors for their important contributions to undergraduate education.
There are certainly aspects of the precept system that can be improved. We believe that the suggestions in the editorial would better equip graduate students to impart their wealth of knowledge and their important and diverse experiences to undergraduates more effectively.
I'm going to repost my comment I put on the "Preceptors prepare to take charge" article, which was a "news" piece that said the same thing:
It would have been nice if, instead of suggesting that TAs should use some of their copious free time to take more classes on teaching, the piece had talked about the mixed incentives for teaching the university has. In some departments, you actually take a pay cut to teach. If there were "hazard pay" for teaching beyond your minimum, the better and more experienced TAs would be more inclined to teach.
a)"Most graduate students have no prior teaching experience"
-Where is this information from?
b)"under the current system, preceptors are only required to attend a day-and-a-half long session at the McGraw Center."
-Not universally true. Some departments have semester-long teaching/pedagogy seminars that are required for all preceptors.
c) "At the same time, the preceptors have no real gauge of how they're doing;"
-Many times the onus here is the professor. There are professors who support their preceptors, who meet with them every week, and there are some who are AWOL, who preceptors only see at lecture. So it seem the accountability, in some cases, trickles up.
d)"The preceptors will leave Princeton with solid teaching experience that will aid them in their careers."
-Princeton graduate students are already at a disadvantage compared to other universities because we rarely get to teach our own classes, unlike most other institutions. So since graduate teaching is de-emphasized because Princeton is undergrad-orientated in the first place, the "aid" suggestion still doesn't add up to this disadvantage.
It is fine that some undergraduates perceive that a solution to this "problem" is to reform the training system, and to ensure that non-native English speakers in particular receive closer attention. One cannot blame them for nurturing the profoundly inflated idea that we are here solely to enhance their undergraduate experience. Although many of us sincerely enjoy teaching, and put hours into it above and beyond what is expected, we also are being paid to write top-notch dissertations that will advance knowledge in our respective fields. When, upon teaching our first few precepts, we ascertain that many undergraduates themselves don't care to do the reading or display much curiosity at all (there are clearly exceptions), it becomes clear that we shouldn't be devoting our short lives as Princeton graduate students to enhancing their experience. In fact, most faculty members flat out warn graduate students from spending too much time and energy on precepts, which distracts even the best PhD candidates from timely completion. For undergraduates who feel like they aren't getting the most out of precepts, the best solution is not to implement a more comprehensive teaching training program (which would, in short, piss many of us off), but rather to get your fellow undergraduates to care enough to show up to precept in some form other than braindead zombie.
On the topic of non-native speakers -- there are already extensive resources. The horrific "trap" in the system is that most international students in the past had not been adequately informed that they would be required to pass an English exam upon arrival. If they do not pass, some of them will face pressure to leave. As I understand it, this crucial contingency is now communicated in advance.
In summary, it is discouraging to see how graduate students in this place are treated like tools. When you arrive, you quickly learn that you are identified with the word "sketchy" -- then you learn that you are expected to devote yourself to enhancing the undergraduate experience. What an awesome deal! A little R-E-S-P-E-C-T goes a long way...
i'd like to follow up on one of the previous comments, that "Undergrads, by contrast, don't even do the reading half the time." It's very hard to lead a discussion when students haven't read and often haven't attended lectures. It might help to remember that most precepts have a student ration of something like 10 students for every 1 preceptor, so it seems like students themselves need to take some responsibility (not all, but a good portion) for the quality of precepts -- a point that this editorial utterly fails to mention. Once again, for dailyprincetonian editors, any failing must be the failing of grad students and not underprepared undergrads.
Maybe we should hold mandatory "how to do your reading and pay attention in class" workshops for undergrads, so that by the time they graduate they can know how to read an argument clearly and actually talk about it. Of course I'm joking, that's what precepts are for -- just as they are also for helping to train grad students to teach. grad students might not get it right all the time, but it's about time for undergrads to stop making excuses and to take responsibility for their own education.
I wholeheartedly agree with this. Undergrads often take classes and precepts for granted, as if just showing up is going above and beyond what is expected of them.
I've learned one thing while precepting undergrad courses, and that's not to spend too much time on the precepts and more time individually interacting with the undergrads who actually give a damn. It's a whole lot more rewarding that way.
To those ranting: Yea, the article has problems in not seeming to have given much if any thought to your side of the position. With that said, you guys are hardly better. Your response to an article that blames grad students when precepts are bad is to blame undergrads when precepts are bad- for instance, "braindead zombie." I mean come on, if you want us to think better of grad students, insulting us is hardly the way to go about it. The truth is that I've had great preceptors - my current POL preceptor comes to mind - and I've had atrocious ones as well - freshman year math, shudder. By the same token, I've had precepts where I show up incredibly well prepared and ones where I maybe skimmed the reading at most because I have two papers due that day. So for god's sake, don't bash an article by making the exact same mistakes you're accusing others of.
If no one else is going to say it, I will: I'm a third-year engineering student and I've spent the past three years in horrible, miserable labs and precepts where it's impossible to learn anything from the uninterested grad students in charge unless you speak fluent Chinese. In fact, in one of my classes last semester there were two guys who were Chinese who would go meet with the preceptor at office hours to discuss the psets in Chinese, and then they would come back and explain the problems to the rest of us because they, unlike him, could speak English. Thanks ed board for finally writing something useful and true.
"Princeton is renowned as a research university that is also committed to educating undergraduates." I hate that this is now the "mission statement" of the school. I loved the good ole days when the excellent research university part was assumed instead of trumpted around like we have something to prove. Grad Students face a tough row to hoe when they come to PU, most do an extraordinary job. The focus on the undergrads is what sets us apart from our "peer institutions" that we seem determined to mimic more and more every year rather than be our own institution.