"Once I got through school, I only ever used ten percent of what they made me learn" is something I hear a lot from former students.
I ask them if they could have predicted WHICH ten percent it would be when they were in school? And is it the same ten percent they will be using ten years down the road? Are there tools and concepts learned in the "Other" ninety percent that support what IS used?
The ironic thing here is that what you describe as your weed-out experience is precisely what I think leads people to be skeptical about whether weed-outs have to be weed-outs. As someone who is more of an insider to the disciplinary spaces involved in the course you describe, I don't think there's anything about that content that has to be so difficult or punishing that some students just can't do the work. There might be things about that content that just leads some students to say "that's not for me, I don't like it", but that's not what's happening with something like organic chemistry--or it's not what chemists are saying when they say "this just has to be difficult because it has to be difficult".
If you had said, "I had my heart set on being a Marxist feminist literary critic, but I just cannot deal with this class", that would be like someone saying "I was going to be a research chemist, but I just cannot deal with organic chemistry". It means there's something wrong with the person expressing that desire--they don't really know what it is that they want.
If you said on the other hand, "I want to do an MFA in film-making and focus on cinematography, but they're telling me I have to take this class on Marxist and feminist theories of culture to get into any MFA program", that would maybe be like the situation with orgo and med school. Would it be *good* for you to have gotten through that class? Yes. Is it necessary? Oh my no.
- I appreciate you calling out the needs of chemistry students - back when I was in college (and a P-Chem major) there was a lot of resentment from the chemistry students towards the premeds for their complaints and grade negotiation in the 100 and 200 level courses. I'm more sympathetic to the premeds view now, but I think we weren't well served by the premeds and chem/chem-eng students sharing the class.
- Also speaking of which, I remember during college (>10 years ago) that there was some discussion of moving med-school from organic chemistry to something closer to biochemistry. I guess that never really panned out.
- I do appreciate that some of the more difficult courses I took really stretched my skills. I feel like there may be some distinction between "weed-out" and "difficult stretch course", but I'm pressed to find a fine point besides teaching quality.
- Organic chemistry (as an academic discipline) has a reputation in chemistry as being pretty toxic. http://www.chemistry-blog.com/2010/06/22/something-deeply-wrong-with-chemistry/ is a pretty prototypical example of how grad students and postdocs get treated in the field. I do think some of this may bleed into how the field gets taught.
- As someone who did use Prof Jones' orgo textbook, I do agree with Burke's assessment that it is much better focused on teaching concepts versus the endless memorization orgo gets associated with. Somewhat ironic in light of the above two points.
An incredibly minor quibble (mostly because it gives me a chance to recount one of my favorite anecdotes): Criminal *procedure* is not a required class in law school, but criminal *law* is. (In other words, you learn what constitutes a felony, but not when to tell your client to STFU.) However, it *is* tested on the bar exam, so you eventually need some familiarity with it. But you can pick that up in bar prep without ever taking the class (which was the situation I found myself in after graduation).
My wife - a recovering attorney - used to enjoy watching "Law and Order" reruns after going to bed but before falling asleep. One of the things she liked about it was that - at least in the earlier seasons - the actual law was pretty accurate (of course, in later seasons that tended to go out the window in favor of making it more dramatic).
So when it came time to take the bar exam, I was lamenting the fact that I needed to know criminal procedure but had never taken the class. She said, "Look, it's pretty easy. If you come to a question and you're not sure, just ask yourself what they would have done in one of those early episodes of Law and Order. Then answer it that way."
"Once I got through school, I only ever used ten percent of what they made me learn" is something I hear a lot from former students.
I ask them if they could have predicted WHICH ten percent it would be when they were in school? And is it the same ten percent they will be using ten years down the road? Are there tools and concepts learned in the "Other" ninety percent that support what IS used?
The ironic thing here is that what you describe as your weed-out experience is precisely what I think leads people to be skeptical about whether weed-outs have to be weed-outs. As someone who is more of an insider to the disciplinary spaces involved in the course you describe, I don't think there's anything about that content that has to be so difficult or punishing that some students just can't do the work. There might be things about that content that just leads some students to say "that's not for me, I don't like it", but that's not what's happening with something like organic chemistry--or it's not what chemists are saying when they say "this just has to be difficult because it has to be difficult".
If you had said, "I had my heart set on being a Marxist feminist literary critic, but I just cannot deal with this class", that would be like someone saying "I was going to be a research chemist, but I just cannot deal with organic chemistry". It means there's something wrong with the person expressing that desire--they don't really know what it is that they want.
If you said on the other hand, "I want to do an MFA in film-making and focus on cinematography, but they're telling me I have to take this class on Marxist and feminist theories of culture to get into any MFA program", that would maybe be like the situation with orgo and med school. Would it be *good* for you to have gotten through that class? Yes. Is it necessary? Oh my no.
Some assorted thoughts:
- I appreciate you calling out the needs of chemistry students - back when I was in college (and a P-Chem major) there was a lot of resentment from the chemistry students towards the premeds for their complaints and grade negotiation in the 100 and 200 level courses. I'm more sympathetic to the premeds view now, but I think we weren't well served by the premeds and chem/chem-eng students sharing the class.
- Also speaking of which, I remember during college (>10 years ago) that there was some discussion of moving med-school from organic chemistry to something closer to biochemistry. I guess that never really panned out.
- I do appreciate that some of the more difficult courses I took really stretched my skills. I feel like there may be some distinction between "weed-out" and "difficult stretch course", but I'm pressed to find a fine point besides teaching quality.
- Organic chemistry (as an academic discipline) has a reputation in chemistry as being pretty toxic. http://www.chemistry-blog.com/2010/06/22/something-deeply-wrong-with-chemistry/ is a pretty prototypical example of how grad students and postdocs get treated in the field. I do think some of this may bleed into how the field gets taught.
- As someone who did use Prof Jones' orgo textbook, I do agree with Burke's assessment that it is much better focused on teaching concepts versus the endless memorization orgo gets associated with. Somewhat ironic in light of the above two points.
An incredibly minor quibble (mostly because it gives me a chance to recount one of my favorite anecdotes): Criminal *procedure* is not a required class in law school, but criminal *law* is. (In other words, you learn what constitutes a felony, but not when to tell your client to STFU.) However, it *is* tested on the bar exam, so you eventually need some familiarity with it. But you can pick that up in bar prep without ever taking the class (which was the situation I found myself in after graduation).
My wife - a recovering attorney - used to enjoy watching "Law and Order" reruns after going to bed but before falling asleep. One of the things she liked about it was that - at least in the earlier seasons - the actual law was pretty accurate (of course, in later seasons that tended to go out the window in favor of making it more dramatic).
So when it came time to take the bar exam, I was lamenting the fact that I needed to know criminal procedure but had never taken the class. She said, "Look, it's pretty easy. If you come to a question and you're not sure, just ask yourself what they would have done in one of those early episodes of Law and Order. Then answer it that way."
I ended up passing easily.