Speaking English and other challenges for TAs

By Kushal Dave

When I enrolled in Math 115, I got an information packet with a section devoted to "anticipated student questions." One of them was: "What if my teacher doesn't speak English?" Upon first reading, this caused my friends and me to laugh hysterically. But when the packet told us that while all instructors were competent in the language, we should nonetheless consider it an "opportunity" to have an incomprehensible Teaching Assistant (TA), our revelry turned to bitterness. After consciously shying away from state universities and their highly unpredictable set of graduate student teachers, I had found myself in a similar sea of educators with questionable qualifications.

At the start of this semester, Math 230 lost its TA because Yale limits the amount of money a graduate can earn in his first two years at the school. For a while, it looked like he might not be replaced. But why was this cap imposed to begin with? Its purpose, according to Associate Dean Richard Sleight, is twofold. First, it limits the teaching commitment of students who should be learning, and second, it ensures that money is evenly distributed to the students who may need it. Another reason for the cap is that TAs are viewed as students, not as employees, in order to eliminate various complications that would otherwise result. When this last idea was first proposed, the opposition was fierce. As The Yale Herald reported on Fri., Feb. 21, 1997 ("Report aims to redefine teaching at Yale"), the Graduate Employees and Students Organization (GESO) criticized the plan, saying, "Only Yale's legal strategy demands that the current system be discarded."

This whole experiment in hair-splitting has obviously failed. Many graduate students are in fact employees. As such, they should be paid and employed on the basis of merit rather than on some sort of flat schedule. As it stands, the graduate student coordinators apparently see undergraduate teaching as an opportunity to play at communism. If teaching assignments are arranged in such a way as to ensure that everyone gets an equal piece of the pie, then there's no reward for the good teachers. This policy is unfair to graduate students who happen to be superior teachers and should be entitled to more teaching opportunities. And by undermining the quality of instruction, it is clearly unfair to undergraduates as well. Employing less-qualified teachers because others have already gone over the cap makes for a larger percentage of bad TAs.

Talented TAs also shouldn't feel discouraged from teaching extra sections. While teaching a class may cut down on a graduate student's free time, it hardly makes it impossible for him or her to do other things. A few hours out of the week leaves plenty of room for classes and helps to reinforce the fundamentals of whatever subject the TA is studying. One would hope that getting into graduate school at Yale demands a backbone and time-management skills.

Of course, one would also hope that these TAs who teach undergraduates would be proficient in the areas they were hired to teach. Yet complaints continue to circulate about TAs teaching outside their departments and even performing poorly in introductory classes in their field. Why employ teachers who compromise the education of their undergraduate students? With a merit-based employment sys-tem, unqualified graduate students would have to find a more appropriate source of funds or become better teachers. Since students can only shop classes, not sections, this system is Yale's only chance at quality control.

Sleight volunteered that it might be a good idea to have a professor teach the sections of his or her class. However, there's a reason that this role is excluded from professors' job descriptions. The alternative perspective of a section leader is absolutely critical for those who may not respond well to the professor or the textbook. Yet this unfavorable circumstance is almost what happened in the case of Math 230. Sections would have been reduced to once a week (denying a service promised at the start of the semester) and would have been taught by the professor himself. Fortunately, a last-minute replacement saved the day.

When nobody else is volunteering for the job and a qualified and willing graduate student is available, it is shortsighted and silly not to make the obvious decision and reward this TA's talents. Some common sense would be more than welcome in the mess that's been made of Yale's TA system. If we're particularly fortunate, the TAs might even speak English.

Kushal Dave is a freshman in Pierson.

What do you think? Respond in Speak your Mind.

Back to Opinion...