I suppose there could be some teachers who "get off on failing students." But in my experience, failing students is not fun. It's a painful, difficult decision. I don't want to give anyone a failing grade and I generally give every possible chance, every benefit of the doubt, to bring that grade up to passing.
Maybe I just haven't been doing it long enogh to get mean and cynical yet.
I just can't imagine a teacher gleefully failing anyone -- even the worst teachers I had in school weren't that evil. (Maybe I was lucky.)
If someone fails, you didn't get through to them. Even if that's because the student didn't make any effort, you still feel as if you've failed as well. No teacher enjoys that feeling.
Your other points are well-taken, though I personally would like to hear more details about this story. How, really, was the course advertised? What was the syllabus? From the article you can't tell whether these students were really misled or not.
I teach web development at an art school and I've run into much the same thing. Of course, many of the students are wonderful and try very hard, but every quarter there is a substantial minority of students who don't really want to be there. They want the good grade, and the want the degree or certificate, but they don't seem interested in being there or learning anything.
It's almost like high school -- as if they are only there because their parents require it. And maybe that IS why they are there. *sigh* I find it very odd -- they are all adults, and if they don't want to be there, why are they there at all? Why screw around when you're paying $600 for 3 credits?
I wonder what good having the degree or certificate is going to do them if they come out of school knowing as little as they can get away with, and if they go into the workplace with the same attitude of "I don't want to learn anything here, I just want to get the paycheck and go home."
I assign readings/exercises every single week and find that no one did them except for two or three people who do everything. Maybe next quarter I'll give a pop quiz that's completely based on the reading material and see what happens... but instead of everyone getting the point that they should start doing the readings, I think I'd show up the next week to find out that everyone dropped the class.
I just hope none of the students I've given failing grades to hear about this lawsuit.
On the other hand, even if he didn't register the domain to hold it hostage, that doesn't mean that it's not worth more than $35 for the hassle of being forced to change his domain (which costs $70, anyway). The offer is fairly insulting, monetarily speaking.
There is no mechanism in the system for folks looking for Theo at theos.com to be able to easily find that he has moved once he gives up that domain name. The company who takes it over *might* provide a link, but even so Theo will lose a certain amount of traffic from people who will no longer be able to easily find him. This is a major difficulty when you, essentially, *live* at a certain address on the Net.
When I lost my old domain, I described it to my lawyer like this -- it's as if you've been forced to move away, and someone comes looking for your house and the house is gone -- there's nothing there but a hole in the ground. Not even a sign saying where you've moved to. Do not underestimate the stress that this causes.
My old domain name was shut down over a year ago and I still can't get some major sites to stop linking to the old address.
Even if he's not using the name to gain money, if this company really wants to treat him right, they should make an offer reasonable enough to make the name change less painful. Essentially they are asking him to "move" to a new home. I'm not saying that it should be megabucks, but it should be more than the mere cost of registering a new domain.
.com, .org, and .net are different
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There was a time when.org and.net had specific implications. (Yeah, I know, it's never been enforced much... the Seattle Mariners have been a.org since 1994, and they sure as hell are a profit-making entity... but still.) I find it really annoying that people are being *encouraged* to grab up.org,.net AND.com just to prevent anyone else from having a similar name.
Trademark law doesn't prevent other businesses from having similar names, or from having similar addresses.
This is just stupid. We need more TLDs to make room for all these different companies with similar names but different products, but instead, when we actually have 30 or 40 different TLDs, you're probably going to see companies told to grab all 40 of 'em, just in case someone with a similar name gets one! ARGH. And then we're back to square one.
(Just imagine -- Disney or someone like that gets an.xxx domain name, just to prevent anyone else from getting it.:)
I may not be a lawyer, but I have been through a trademark/domain dispute so I (unfortunately) have been through some of this. I used to have slumberland.com, now I have slumberland.org and slumberland.seattle.wa.us. It was a fight to get this result, believe me.
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I suppose there could be some teachers who "get off on failing students." But in my experience, failing students is not fun. It's a painful, difficult decision. I don't want to give anyone a failing grade and I generally give every possible chance, every benefit of the doubt, to bring that grade up to passing.
Maybe I just haven't been doing it long enogh to get mean and cynical yet.
I just can't imagine a teacher gleefully failing anyone -- even the worst teachers I had in school weren't that evil. (Maybe I was lucky.)
If someone fails, you didn't get through to them. Even if that's because the student didn't make any effort, you still feel as if you've failed as well. No teacher enjoys that feeling.
Your other points are well-taken, though I personally would like to hear more details about this story. How, really, was the course advertised? What was the syllabus? From the article you can't tell whether these students were really misled or not.
I teach web development at an art school and I've run into much the same thing. Of course, many of the students are wonderful and try very hard, but every quarter there is a substantial minority of students who don't really want to be there. They want the good grade, and the want the degree or certificate, but they don't seem interested in being there or learning anything.
It's almost like high school -- as if they are only there because their parents require it. And maybe that IS why they are there. *sigh* I find it very odd -- they are all adults, and if they don't want to be there, why are they there at all? Why screw around when you're paying $600 for 3 credits?
I wonder what good having the degree or certificate is going to do them if they come out of school knowing as little as they can get away with, and if they go into the workplace with the same attitude of "I don't want to learn anything here, I just want to get the paycheck and go home."
I assign readings/exercises every single week and find that no one did them except for two or three people who do everything. Maybe next quarter I'll give a pop quiz that's completely based on the reading material and see what happens... but instead of everyone getting the point that they should start doing the readings, I think I'd show up the next week to find out that everyone dropped the class.
I just hope none of the students I've given failing grades to hear about this lawsuit.
On the other hand, even if he didn't register the domain to hold it hostage, that doesn't mean that it's not worth more than $35 for the hassle of being forced to change his domain (which costs $70, anyway). The offer is fairly insulting, monetarily speaking.
There is no mechanism in the system for folks looking for Theo at theos.com to be able to easily find that he has moved once he gives up that domain name. The company who takes it over *might* provide a link, but even so Theo will lose a certain amount of traffic from people who will no longer be able to easily find him. This is a major difficulty when you, essentially, *live* at a certain address on the Net.
When I lost my old domain, I described it to my lawyer like this -- it's as if you've been forced to move away, and someone comes looking for your house and the house is gone -- there's nothing there but a hole in the ground. Not even a sign saying where you've moved to. Do not underestimate the stress that this causes.
My old domain name was shut down over a year ago and I still can't get some major sites to stop linking to the old address.
Even if he's not using the name to gain money, if this company really wants to treat him right, they should make an offer reasonable enough to make the name change less painful. Essentially they are asking him to "move" to a new home. I'm not saying that it should be megabucks, but it should be more than the mere cost of registering a new domain.
There was a time when .org and .net had specific implications. (Yeah, I know, it's never been enforced much... the Seattle Mariners have been a .org since 1994, and they sure as hell are a profit-making entity... but still.) I find it really annoying that people are being *encouraged* to grab up .org, .net AND .com just to prevent anyone else from having a similar name.
.xxx domain name, just to prevent anyone else from getting it. :)
Trademark law doesn't prevent other businesses from having similar names, or from having similar addresses.
This is just stupid. We need more TLDs to make room for all these different companies with similar names but different products, but instead, when we actually have 30 or 40 different TLDs, you're probably going to see companies told to grab all 40 of 'em, just in case someone with a similar name gets one! ARGH. And then we're back to square one.
(Just imagine -- Disney or someone like that gets an
I may not be a lawyer, but I have been through a trademark/domain dispute so I (unfortunately) have been through some of this. I used to have slumberland.com, now I have slumberland.org and
slumberland.seattle.wa.us. It was a fight to get this result, believe me.