Liberation Day!

Free at Last.

Warren Buffet said “How do you know the day that you become old?” the day came he stepped down as chair of Berkshire Hathaway. I know the feeling because 2025 was the year I finally felt my age. You know the saying that its weird when you realize that you are the same age as old people? It is weird. I feel great but my arthritic knees are 100 years old. I think that part of the reason was my going back into the classroom. The campus is very hilly and I stood and lectured for an hour and a half. The knees are now perpetually sore and hopefully will get better now that I am done teaching.

May 15 was my Liberation Day – the day I gave my final exam. I had forgot how much I enjoyed teaching. But I did not particularly like the fact that many students just don’t come to class. They look at the recording of the lectures instead. However, those that came to class made it worthwhile. One student came to my office hours and said that many of the terms in the study guide were not in the power points or the textbook. I said that I had substituted my own materials for that in the book and had posted them in the “announcements” section. He then said that he had never looked at that part of the course. Another student complained that I took off points when his definitions were correct but were not precisely what I had said in class – or on the power points. He was getting his definitions from the internet. Again this was a student who seldom came to class and who had not looked at any of the materials that I had posted.

I was told that this was the new normal. I guess I am old fashioned but I hated the technology. I had to put all the empty seats out of my mind. I came to realize that hardly anyone there had even heard of Paul Volcker, Alan Greenspan of Ben Bernanke. They didn’t even know who Diana Ross was!

The textbook used in the class was also wrong in many places. So I created my own powerpoints and readings for about half of the chapters. The early editions of the text were fine. I knew the authors and both were well respected scholars. However, they are long retired and the author of the revision is little known and knows even less about the subject matter. I might have adopted earlier editions of the book but not this one. The Finance department does not have any full time faculty in the area of financial Institutions. They are all in Corporate or Investments leaving the teaching of financial institutions to adjuncts or graduate students – who I like to refer to as walk-ons. Although smart, this is not their area of expertise. They do not know the literature. They do not know the research. They do not know the legislative history. So someone adopted this book and much of what they teach is wrong.

This got me thinking: is what you teach important or is how you teach what is important? Even if the material is wrong, if a teacher challenges the students, makes them think, analyze and synthesize, then isn’t that worthwhile even if what is being taught is garbage?

I showed the students how virtually every problem could be analyzed using supply and demand and present value. I also described verbally the equations and tried to show them how to make sense out of statistics. I would bring in news from current events that were relevant to what we were discussing that day. I wanted to show them how what we did in the classroom was relevant to what was going on in the world. That is why finance and economics are exciting. I remember once when a student told me that they didn’t know why they were enjoying my class because economics was boring. I told them that economics was exciting but economists were boring. My hope is that they will read the financial press daily and now understand what is happening around them. Hopefully, they will now look at issues differently. They no longer have to accept the status quo as truth. They now can intelligently think about minimum wages, usury laws, regulations, the CFPB, tariffs, gold, crypto, the Fed and all the rest. I hope they now realize the importance of being intellectually curious.

As always, some students will appreciate what I do and how I do it while others don’t. I was given a copy of my evaluations and per usual there were some very flattering comments and five that were not so much. One student called the course BS, the lectures BS and the exams BS saying that this was not a spelling bee. I listed six words in the syllabus that could not be misspelled else I took off a point per word (capital, receive, guarantee, yield and separate). I guess this student persisted in misspelling them throughout the term losing one point per misspelling. One said I was racist. I had a terrible time with allergies this term and walked into class and started sneezing. I said that I must be allergic to white people. After class a host of students came up to give me advice on allergy meds. Another said I was intimidating and made students feel stupid which is why they didn’t want to come to class. Others hated the exams. However, there were positive comments contradicting the negative ones. One in particular almost brought me to tears. But I thank them all for caring to respond. My evaluations have always been bimodal.

But now maybe some of them will not go through life taking the path of least resistance. I told them to be a healthy skeptic. I also told them not to believe a word I said in class. Some asked me if I were going to teach again. I said “Hell no.” This is a one-off. It has ruined my turkey season. I surely would not do it during deer season. And anyway I could never get pass the fact that when I retired 13 years ago most of the class were in the second grade.