WHY THEY ARE CALLED EDUCATED IDIOTS

Houston area college professor did not realize she was teaching an advanced chemistry class to students enrolled in introductory chemistry

The chairman of the college’s science department apologized by email to a complaining student for her having been taught the wrong course, while the Lone Star College administration insists the professor taught the correct course. And that’s why they are called educated idiots.

COLLEGE PROFESSOR ‘SPENT THE ENTIRE SEMESTER TEACHING THE WRONG SUBJECT BEFORE ADMITTING HER MISTAKE JUST BEFORE THE FINAL … AND ALL SHE DID WAS CURVE UP THE GRADES’
Intro chemistry student Lauren Firmin claims Professor Thao Shirley Nguyen admitted just before the final that she had been teaching them an advanced chemistry course

By David McCormack

Mail Online
March 27, 2014

A college student who signed up for an introductory Chemistry course claims that their professor told the entire class shortly before final exams that she had been mistakenly teaching them an advanced course instead.

Professor Thao Shirley Nguyen has since refused to confirm what student Lauren Firmin alleges that she told the class, while officials at the Lonestar College-University Park in Harris County, Texas, also deny any wrong doing.

Firmin said she was a student with a 4.0 grade average, but found herself unexpectedly struggling with the subject during the Fall 2013 semester.

‘I was getting 40’s on every test,’ Firmin told KHOU. ‘I studied as hard as I could, did everything in my power to try.’

Then, shortly before the class’ final exam, Firmin claims that Nguyen admitted to teaching the wrong course all semester.

‘She told her mistake in class to all of the students,’ said Firmin.

Nguyen told students she would add extra credit to their grades to compensate for her mistake.

For Firmin that meant her F grade became a B, but still ruined her straight A, 4.0 grade point average.

‘4.0 students, we are really stressed out altogether, but this just added to it to see what I have been working for, for two years destroyed,’ she said.

When KHOU tracked Nguyen down she refused to comment on the story, while college administrator John Powell said the teacher had ‘followed the syllabus and taught from the 1405 textbook’.

But this explanation doesn’t tally with an email from the head of the college’s science department that Firmin received when she complained about Nguyen.

‘This was not intentional on Ms. Nguyen’s part,’ the science chair wrote. ‘She was new to the introductory level of material and did not realize it until just a week ago.

'Ms Nguyen has made every effort to be fair in the distribution of the grades and I am confident that she will assign the grades justly. If you feel that your grade is inaccurate, there is a grade appeal process that you can go through to try to get the grade changed.'

Firmin appealed her B grade, but Lonestar has ruled against it and has said it has no plans to carry out a formal investigation into her claims.