In Defense of Instructors Part 1

[LoneRanger]

First of all, as a former ITT instructor, I can assure you that ITT is a complete load of crap. However, for all you students who think you got the shit end of the stick, let me tell you there’s shit on the other end too. If you take a look around though, it seems like there are plenty of success stories, and yes, I’ve met some good students who did well, went on to get decent jobs, and are doing just fine. It’s that old saw about the broken clock that gets it right twice a day. But rather than focus on the positives, I would like to draw everyone’s attention to the fact that the damn clock is broken.

The basic problem is this: of course you have some good students. But there aren’t nearly enough of them for ITT to make the kind of profits they’ve grown accustomed to. And so they bring in other kinds of students, that is anyone sober enough to find their way to the campus. But it’s not just those poor, unsophisticated fools who are being taken advantage of. The instructors get screwed too.

The marketing department, the recruiters, and the department chairs have all made you a lot of promises that the company insists are now the instructors’ responsibility to deliver. The instructors don’t have any say in it. They just stuff our classrooms with kids, some of whom invariably just shouldn’t be there, but that’s too bad. The recruiter has already collected her bonus, and she’s done with it. It’s my problem now.

I’ve had students with learning disabilities, health problems, drug problems, financial, legal, you name it. We are subject matter experts, that’s all. We’re not equipped to deal with any of that. But the company keeps beating that drum saying we are, we just need to develop a more engaging lesson plan. On our own time, of course, because they will be damned if they’re going to pay for it.

The vast majority of instructors are adjuncts--temporary, part-time employees. Now they sell this as a feature: your teachers are working professionals, out there in the industry doing their thing, and dropping real-world knowledge on you. And that’s all true to some extent, but there’s a downside too. None of them are making a living at ITT, not even close, and almost none of them ever will. Most of them are, however, hard-working professionals who want to do a good job. ITT knows this, and they exploit the hell out of it. Their turnover rate is incredibly high, any normal business would have a very difficult time functioning with people leaving with such frequency. But ITT doesn’t do anything about it; it seems to work for them in fact.

But it’s not really a job you can do part-time. There are part-time instructors there that work 40 hours a week or more. When I first started, I worked constantly. I wanted to do a good job, and of course I wanted my hard work to pay off (little did I know). But that was unsustainable. We’re not kids sleeping on our parent’s couch. Many of us have kids of our own, mortgages, etc., we have to make a living. In fact, even the full-time instructors make on average about half of what they would make at a community college. But ITT expects, and in fact demands a great deal of uncompensated time from it’s instructors. So the part-time help is not there to augment the full-time dedicated staff, but used as cheap labor instead of hiring full-time workers. To be fair, a lot of schools are practicing this. You can see how this leads to staff who in some cases really don’t care, and some people do care, and they want to be committed, but they just can’t at least not for very long.

And an inordinate amount of our time and energy is spent on those problem students who aren’t going to make it anyway, and show no sign of even wanting to be there in the first place. I don’t mean to sound callous. I don’t think they’re bad people, but they’re not ready for college, they’re not ready to compete in a very tough industry, and they aren’t going to be anytime soon. The company doesn’t care if they’re ready or not. No matter how bad they are, they are revenue, and it was my job to capture that revenue.

The instructors are there to help, of course, and tutors can supplement that to a certain degree, but we’re not miracle workers. We’re not going to change the laws of physics just because management wants a certain result. Bottom line, if you’re just too far behind the curve, then maybe college is not a realistic option for you right now. Each class is trying to get somewhere, and we’ve only got 10 weeks to do it. That means we have to start at a certain place. And if you’re not there, or can’t get there pretty quickly, then you’re not going to make it. Your instructors are just a resource, like your textbook, the library, the internet, etc. They’re just tools; the onus is still on you to do the work. You’re going to have to put in the hours. It may take a lot of sleepless nights for you to get caught up. It might take 6 months, a year, or two years, whatever. You’ll have to decide how far you’re willing to go.

For many of the students I’ve seen, it’s not very far at all. They thought they just needed to show up for class once in a while, they don’t do a damn thing in the week between classes, and the instructor will open up your head and pour the mojo in. The recruiters told you your instructors will “work with you,” they’ll be your own personal google. All you have to do is sign this form, and the instructors will take care of the rest. Obviously, that’s not the way the world works. Nevertheless, ITT insists it does, and demands the instructors be solely responsible for the students’ learning, and this creates a lot of problems.

For those of you wondering how it is those classmates who rarely come to class, or do any work, mysteriously graduate anyway, it’s because the company has already determined how many students are supposed to pass. It’s a straight percentage. Nobody knows where it comes from, but if you’ve got a small class you’re jacked because you always have at least a few slackers. But you’ve got to push them through, because if you don’t, you’re the one in trouble. You want to hold on to your integrity? That’s very admirable of you. But if you don’t pass them, they’ll just get someone who will. I assure you, most of your instructors don’t like it anymore than you do, one of the reasons they don’t stick around very long.

You’re the one who has to go out and compete for a job. Some industries are more competitive than others, some are very competitive. You’ll be going up against people who are more educated than you, better educated, more mature, more disciplined, and may even have experience. What are you going to do? Well, a lot of you are going to blame your instructors. You fed into a culture that said we are responsible for your learning, not you, and you believed it. I’ve met far too many students who probably shouldn’t have graduated high school (which is a whole separate issue), and are not exactly the best authority on who is and is not a good teacher. For instance, if you are someone who needs a kick in the ass, and I give it to you, then no, you’re probably not going to like me very much. And I’m sure the stupid surveys will reflect that. But so what? I gave you what you needed, even if it wasn’t what you wanted. Until you can wrap your head around that, you’re going to have a very hard time whether you go to ITT, somewhere else, or nowhere else.

Unfortunately for you undisciplined slackers it isn’t going to come to that. It’s company policy that instructors achieve a certain approval rating on the surveys, or they are barred from teaching the class again. You see, we’re supposed to educate you, push you, make you work hard, make you do things you don’t want to do, and try to instill some discipline where you’re lacking, but also be your buddy! Because of course that’s how it is in the real world. So the company solicits your input, stuffs it into a metal pipe, and beats me over the head with it as if you were a mature, responsible, professional, level-headed adult when they know damn well you are anything but. The survey isn’t just to annoy you. It’s a weapon.

My point of all this is, I guess, if you hated your instructors, try to give them the benefit of the doubt. I met a lot of good people. Instructors, that is. The rest of them aren’t people. I don’t know what the hell they are. You got caught up in something regrettable. So did we. I’m not saying they haven’t hired some knuckleheads to teach, I’m sure they have. I’m saying it doesn’t make a hell of a lot of difference. Overall it’s a pretty corrupt and mean-spirited system. There’s a lot of money involved here. A lot. The campus I worked at has about a thousand students on average. I have it on good authority that they only need about 90 students to cover the cost of running the joint. And it’s easy money. Once they get you to sign on the dotted line, their revenue is basically automatic. As long as they file the papers on time, the government cuts them a check. When you’ve been in the working world for a while, you’ll realize that very few companies will ever fix the problems until they have to. With that much money flowing in, there are no problems. There’s just them taking you (and us) for a ride.

[Seven ALive]

Well said, but i have noticed as time goes on, most of the good instructors (if they do not quit or are fired) turn into the bad ones that you can tell are just there for the paycheck. Now i don't condone to anyone slacking, but you have to realize ITT teaches them to slack when you have instructors that come to class late and give the answers before the work. Who is actually going to do the work if it is already done? Who is going to do work when its 10 years dated (see my web development post)? I had instructors who came ranted about his daily life and did not even teach the subject, he just gave assignments at the end of class for homework. There were others, such has the "Technique for the Microsoft Office Professional!” where they would hand you a packet and then go on the internet. Maybe they were tired of trying, but they should find other employment, because then you get new students who are trained to slack off.

I did my work for the first few quarters; i was an A and B student in high school that never slacked off. I even went to community college for 2 semesters and got A's. But for some stupid reason, i went to ITT Tech (thought it was actually a school). It took me only 1 quarter to find out what it really was. At that point, i got so depressed about the money and waste of time, instead of quitting i kept going, because i did not want to pay off a $10K loan in 6 months. So then i started to slack off in classes that did not mean anything (see web development and economics), not because of the material, but because the lack of it and the lack of the instructor teaching the class. So when i actually had an instructor who actually gave a damn, i was trained to slack off already. The only classes that i remember that actually wanted to teach something were the math classes and a few programming classes. Those are far and few in-between.

Now of course this is no excuse for those "students" who come to ITT to specifically continue slacking off. Those students attend ITT because they don't want have classes that teach the basic subjects (little did they know, they still have to do those classes).

In your experience, did the older students, 30+ slack off? It seems ITT is really meant for post career education, not for students in their 20's (of course, ITT isn't good for anything except healthy profits for their shareholders).

[doniker]

Seven ALive, you asked if students 30+ slacked off.

I was 43 years old when I started ITT and I was at a point in my life when I was laid off from a job I held for a decade and needing some sort of degree to get a chance to find a new career.

I went to ITT to learn, but 80% of the student were slackers who hated to be at the school and had no interest in doing anything with their lives.

I looked like the asshole because I wanted to learn, cared about learned and tried to participate; it was hard enough that I was 20 years older than most of the students and didn't feel like I fit in.

I get sick everytime I think of all the time and thousands of dollars I have waste with no chance for a future in the IT field.

[LoneRanger]

I had mixed feelings about the older students. At times my 5-year-old nephew showed more maturity then my entire class combined. So on the one hand, having older students was like a breath of fresh air. But on the other hand, I felt really bad for them, that they had to put up with that crap. I was a few years older then most when I went to college, and I remember sitting next to some knuckleheads. It sucks. I also felt really bad about how much they were getting ripped off. I mean getting jacked like that when you’re young is bad enough, but at least you’ve got time to recover, and you’re going to be a lot more careful after that. But I’ve had students in their mid-thirties, forties, and in some cases, from our conversations, it seemed they were not in very good shape financially to begin with, and they’re betting everything on this ITT thing.

Now, it can work out if you pick the right program, work hard, and market yourself. Electronics seems to be pretty successful, and computer networking does okay. I’ve seen CAD students do really well, but only the good ones. That’s key. Companies will hire these ITT grads, several at a time. I’ve seen companies pick up a dozen CAD students at once. But the weak ones are going to be passed over.

I've got a lot more to say about their programs.

[SheepToTheFleecing]

I mean getting jacked like that when you’re young is bad enough, but at least you’ve got time to recover, and you’re going to be a lot more careful after that. But I’ve had students in their mid-thirties, forties, and in some cases, from our conversations, it seemed they were not in very good shape financially to begin with, and they’re betting everything on this ITT thing.

Time to recover? Financially? No. It is over financially. Do the math. No matter how old you are, if you take out $50,000+ in Federal Student Loans and have nothing to show for it, there is no financial recovery.

I honestly don't know if I have a chemical imbalance that causes rage and depression. I do know that I am always thinking about ITT Tech every single time I am deeply angry or depressed. (It is possible that the feelings bring forward thoughts of ITT Tech rather than the reverse always being true. The chicken and the egg?) People have gone through much worse and they have been okay.

I've got to stop thinking about that institution.

[aka name]

...

It's always interesting to hear an "instructor's" point of view of ITT Tech, whether negative or positive, and I can back-up your critique of it's students (customers) behavior.

What I don't buy is this supposed common ground ITT instructor's have with their students; it's as if you're trying to absolve yourself from guilt. ITT instructors get paid to push out "degreed" turds, while the real students end up with an extraordinary amount of debt and a piece of paper worth less than a high school diploma.

I knew more than one instructor who got their kid enrolled at ITT, for a "99% discount", and another instructor who actually took BS classes themselves (again, for a major discount) while "teaching." One of my favorite instructors only worked there because of the overtime, others bragged about how much money they earn, etc. A few were former students teaching at nights to supplement their meager daytime job salary. Almost all of them yucked it up during classtime twice a week, sometimes for an entire hour.

Real students shouldn't be enrolled at ITT Tech and the same goes for real teachers. Maybe it's time for you to bail?

[linuxgod]

As a 2 time graduate of ITT and a former Instructor of the same ITT I have a little bit of perspective. Things have changed quite a bit from when I was a student of CNS and ISS. We had a few slackers. Not that many. We had crappy books in the ISS program, but not CNS. CNS we had industry quality books. Mind you this was the days of NT. The current books are custom published by Pearson. Custom by cutting out the important chapters. Instructors do not make very much money. 50k is the average salary of full time instructors. Sure beats what career services finds you as a job. I got tired of trying to teach and be told what I had to do every week and so on. I went above and beyond the curriculum. I guess that is why I am an ex-instructor.

[Bootsy]

50k is the average salary of full time instructors.

If you make 50k a year that is not a poor house. It is probably the fact that I live in poor house.

Thanks for everything ITT.

[noveler7]

As a current (albeit new) instructor at ITT, I've been suspicious and finally catching on to how their system works. Sadly, it took reading an article on Wal-Mart--how they screw their employees and the government at the same time by giving terrible wages and benefits and forcing government medicare/welfare systems to pick up their slack--for me to realize ITT acts very similarly. They take advantage of a government system in place that's meant to help underprivileged individuals achieve a higher-education by creating an overpriced "school" that essentially collects all the grant $ meant for a real tuition, limiting their overhead (a.k.a. updated text books, computers, instructor salaries, etc.) and still squeezing loans out of their students. It's sick.

I first caught on when I found out how much the students pay to go to the school vs what they pay instructors and the quality of the building/equipment. I knew it was a for-profit organization, but I was naive enough to think that this would mean they simply would be more efficient and effective, highering good instructors with competitive wages and offering the best hands-on experience for their students. Of course this wasn't the case.

Then came the monthly meetings, beating instructors over the head with details about attendance and retention. Then came the personal advising from my chair of how I could keep my students "entertained" so that I would have higher attendance. Then I was told that I needed to "work on" my student success rate (since I was a teacher who actually failed students who didn't do any work, thinking that's what a school with degrees of any value would want.) The bottom line remains the same: get the students in, keep them there, get them out. It doesn't matter what they learn, what skills or tools they develop. We never once talk course content or actual student success. It's all about attendance.

As a part-time instructor working at multiple schools, unfortunately I feel stuck as an employee (and I certainly feel more like an employee than an instructor.) I'm just trying to make a living myself, but I hate being part of a system like this. I want to do some more research, but I can't help but foreseeing a blaze-of-glory exodus for me real soon. I'll certainly tell every student I have to try and quit before it's too late. It makes a mockery of the educational system.

[SheepToTheFleecing]

Edit: So I just found noveler7's other post am in the middle of reading it now. Below is my original unedited post.

Even if this site is not intended to be a honeypot to expose would-be whistle blowers, it is acting as one.

Then I was told that I needed to "work on" my student success rate

ITT was successfully sued in Califonia for "work[ing] on" their student success rate.

Sounds like you are one of the instructors that actually has an understanding of what you are "teaching." Otherwise, you would consider yourself lucky.

I have no advice for you. (I like to give advice.) I will tell you this. If you take out your frustration by being an asshole towards your students, it would be a bad thing.