"Maybe TAing is not the job for you if you do it only for the pay and compromising my education is not an issue to you, but is only a "necessary evil". Having someone's education in your hands requires much more dedication than that."

you shouldnt be a ta if you care about your pay, your biggest concern should be teaching me. you should be more dedicated to me than yourself.


sry I read this like that. I think I missed your point.

Originally Posted by smiles

I paid for tutors tutoring me / conducting my labs in tuition, and I expect that service to happen.

but what you are saying now makes sense

Originally Posted by smiles

I paid for TAs tutoring me / conducting my labs in tuition, and I expect that service to happen.

I cheerfully agree.

But what about the wider systemic problem that so much of your classes are now essentially "taught" by tutors and TA's? Isn't that a larger issue? Shouldn't you raise that concern with the school itself as well?

Where I went to school, tutorials were unheard of. We had professors teaching us everything in classes of 30 or less, which is how I think it should be.

TA's get thrown into a discipline they're not familiar with it's kind of crazy sometimes.

Originally Posted by Our Luck

I cheerfully agree.

But what about the wider systemic problem that so much of your classes are now essentially "taught" by tutors and TA's? Isn't that a larger issue? Shouldn't you raise that concern with the school itself as well?

Where I went to school, tutorials were unheard of. We had professors teaching us everything in classes of 30 or less, which is how I think it should be.

TA's get thrown into a discipline they're not familiar with it's kind of crazy sometimes.

So are you proposing that we get rid of all TAs and hire a lot of new professors? Because that would be fine with me, except that would also mean a lot of $$$ which I don't know if I would be able to afford.

Originally Posted by andrew22

"Maybe TAing is not the job for you if you do it only for the pay and compromising my education is not an issue to you, but is only a "necessary evil". Having someone's education in your hands requires much more dedication than that."

you shouldnt be a ta if you care about your pay, your biggest concern should be teaching me. you should be more dedicated to me than yourself.


sry I read this like that. I think I missed your point.


but what you are saying now makes sense

Yeah... I wasn't very clear.

Originally Posted by smiles

I paid for TAs tutoring me / conducting my labs in tuition, and I expect that service to happen.

But didn't you also pay to be taught by professors?

That was one of CUPE's major concerns: That TAs have been given too large a role in the instruction of students, and that they're overworked.


I'm not telling you whether or not they're correct in saying this, you've got to make that judgement call for yourself...but by this logic, shouldn't you be happy they're on strike? Now you have better educated people responsible for more of your education.

Originally Posted by Mowicz

But didn't you also pay to be taught by professors?

That was one of CUPE's major concerns: That TAs have been given too large a role in the instruction of students, and that they're overworked.


I'm not telling you whether or not they're correct in saying this, you've got to make that judgement call for yourself...but by this logic, shouldn't you be happy they're on strike? Now you have better educated people responsible for more of your education.

Yeah that was my point too: TAs do far too much of the "grunt work" of instruction. The problem is that I think it is actually VIEWED as grunt work, which is a fairly good indicator of how the "system" feels vis a vis how we're being taught

Originally Posted by Mowicz

But didn't you also pay to be taught by professors?

That was one of CUPE's major concerns: That TAs have been given too large a role in the instruction of students, and that they're overworked.


I'm not telling you whether or not they're correct in saying this, you've got to make that judgement call for yourself...but by this logic, shouldn't you be happy they're on strike? Now you have better educated people responsible for more of your education.

Yeah. If I were able to opt out of paying for the tutorials, I would do it. I do think that TAs play a very large role in labs - they do basically everything, and I appreciate them for that. But in tutorials... ehh. I don't know. I have 3 tutorials this term. I have chem, math, and psychobio. I only ask my chem questions to the prof, as the tutorial is still fairly large and you feel the same kind of "I'm holding up the class" as in a lecture. My math TA doesn't give us time / room to ask us questions (uh, I'll take questions later) and the odd time he does, he would respond with "uh... what d'you mean?" and then "I don't understand your question" until the student just gives up. I do admit that I really do like my psychobio TA. He is very helpful, but that may just be because of the much smaller class size (15).

I'm wondering also why CUPE wants less in the hands of the TAs then want to reduce tutorial sizes. Wouldn't that put more of the education in the hands of the TAs?

Originally Posted by smiles

My math TA doesn't give us time / room to ask us questions (uh, I'll take questions later) and the odd time he does, he would respond with "uh... what d'you mean?" and then "I don't understand your question" until the student just gives up.

Just a quick point before going to bed: I'm sorry you feel dissatisfied with your Math TA. If you have any math questions (you're in first year right?), you can send me a PM and I can try to help. (I have a few regulars from these forums who do exactly that, haha).

I do think from my own personal experience, the majority of math TAs are fairly good...but I also know from my own tutorial, sometimes it's difficult in large classroom settings (my tutorial regularly has about 40-50 in attendance), Q & A sessions are difficult (which is why I book lots of time for office hours, which ironically, my students don't take advantage of, haha).

edit test test

If CUPE and (certain TAs) are only considering their jobs, then I have every right to only consider my education that I pay for.

Please don't single out indivdual users on this forum. Almost every poster is just as opinionated as Taunton, and we all pretty much know what's going on in this situation.

If you must, please enlighten us on what we have so seriously misunderstood about the strike.