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What's the worst professor/teacher you've ever had?


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What's the worst professor/teacher you've ever had?
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Capella
Dark Cat of the Sith
 
Join Date: Jun 2007
Location: Rochester, NY
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2009-11-18, 08:58

Today I was filling out rating surveys for my professors. One of the questions is: What would you teach differently? What does the professor fail to do?

I decided I would share my response, because of how much I loathe this professor. Then I want to hear all of your responses about what your worst professor(s) have ever been like.


Quote:
Everything. The professor moves through material on handouts very quickly and provides no way of actually making up a day you missed because you certainly can't figure it out alone from his handouts. Next, the professor is an incredibly harsh grader and takes points off if the solution isn't 100% what he wanted even if it's clearly obvious you knew what you were talking about. For example, in a question where it says to list the minimum number of features that define something, listing one correct feature that he thinks happens to be superfluous results in losing points. This is incredibly annoying. His homework assignments take a decent amount of time to complete, but he doesn't always give you appropriate time. Between class Mon and class Wed to do a 2 page assignment that probably requires 5 hours is not enough time; people have other classes and probably other work (homework or work-work) to do, but when you bring up that you feel you didn't have enough time, he acts as though you should have ignored any other responsibilities to slave at the altar of his class. He has a draconian questions policy with the homework where you may ask him as many questions as you want, but in ONE email. He very specifically says one email per student per assignment and that is IT. This means that even if you collate all your questions and send them to him, if his followup doesn't clarify it for you 100%, you can't email back and get clarification, because you already used your email. In addition, after the homework is turned in, he generally teaches things that would have been really useful in the homework. I think the worst part of all, though, is how he treats the students in the class. He can be very critical of students when they raise their hand to ask a question or volunteer an answer, making them feel as if they don't know anything, and then he gets very angry when no one asks questions or volunteers because now we're all scared shitless to raise our hands. In short, he treats the students badly and has unreasonable expectations.
This man is a very angry man. He's like "Will no one answer my questions? What are students coming to these days?" in a very big, angry voice; but when we do try to answer questions he poses, if we're wrong he's like "Have you learned nothing in this class? Have you been paying attention to the birds outside instead? If you had been listening, you would know that..." That is NOT a way to teach a course. It makes the students feel like crap and be afraid to say anything in case you're wrong.

Also, I missed Monday's class because of a critical health appt. Now I'm afraid to ask any questions today if I don't understand today's handout, because he will say something like "If you had bothered to attend on Monday..."; also, despite me having provided him with the appointment card, he refused to let me turn in my homework today, because it was due Monday, even though I couldn't be in class because of a legitimate medical reason. Yes, he drops the lowest homework, but that's still obnoxious.

Oh, and speaking of the handouts, he makes us print them and bring in our own. He also is merciless when you don't have one. Three weeks ago he posted the handout at 11:20 AM. Class is at 1 PM. When a fair chunk of the class didn't have the handout because, you know, some of us have other classes prior to his and thus didn't have time to get to a computer lab even if we got the email. Or, shockingly, most of my classmates don't have smartphones and thus don't get email alerts of new handouts, and thus didn't know he posted a new handout, and thus didn't print it... and he completely chewed out the class, told us we were all irresponsible, blamed the fact that "now I cannot teach this class properly and will all fall behind" on us instead of him not giving us the handout in a reasonable period of time to get to print it... seriously, is it any wonder I need to get out of this class now?

So, enough of me. What's yall's bad prof stories?

"A blind, deaf, comatose, lobotomy patient could feel my anger!" - Darth Baras
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psmith2.0
Mr. Vieira
 
Join Date: May 2004
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2009-11-18, 09:25

He sounds kinda like a dick to me, but I expect a few here to defend/rationalize his behavior for whatever reason (occupational solidarity and so forth).



Maybe that's just how some folks get once they reach a certain career point, attain tenure, etc. I've known more good than bad, fortunately.

Hey, I'd be an arrogant, abusive and disagreeable prick too if I knew I didn't have to work for my job and knew I wasn't going to get fired or disciplined for acting in a manner I couldn't get away with in a private sector gig.

I've known a couple, but it's been so long ago. They meant nothing to me then, and even less now.


Last edited by psmith2.0 : 2009-11-18 at 09:39.
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Argento
I puked at work.
Because I'm a pussy.
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Head in a trash can.
 
2009-11-18, 09:28

James Fetzer. Had this guy in college for a philosophy class. The guy is a conspiracy NUT. Google search him and you can find all sorts of neat theories he believes in. He started his own 9/11 truther website, he believes Paul Wellstone's plane was shot down by some sort of energy weapon (my dad ran into him when he was covering the story for the St. Paul Paper, and when I told him I had this guy for a class he couldn't stop laughing for a couple minutes), that the World Trade Centers were also shot down by some sort of energy weapon, he's a big JFK nut, etc. the list goes on.

His class consisted of him coming in and yelling about how duped we all are and how terrible the government is and that Bush is going to kill, rape, and plunder us all etc., (I'm no Bush fan myself but this guy went above and behind rational).

I stopped going to all of his classes except for tests and I aced all his tests and not because I studied. Au contraire, all I did was say things like "A means B because the American government would like you to believe that so they can hide the truth from you which is C." I got an B+ or a A- on every test.

He shortly "retired," after that year.

And All That Could Have Been
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BuonRotto
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2009-11-18, 09:30

Worst teacher I ever had was Mr. Rizzo, high school math teacher. Oh, and maybe Mrs. Burns, my third grade teacher.

Mr. Rizzo was an MIT grad who just couldn't fathom that math could be difficult for anyone. He'd openly mock you if you asked a question with things like "duh!" and "Really, are you that stupid?" This is in AP Calculus. Dickhead who lived in his own little world.

Mrs. Burns hated me, seriously had a personal issue with me. I was one of two boys in the class, the other being the son of one of the teachers. I couldn't answer questions fast enough for her (I'm a reflective thinker) and she didn't like further questions when I asked them on a subject. Whatever she said was gospel and I (inadvertently) would question her wisdom/authority in her mind. I literally had detention during recess and lunch every day for the vast majority of the year. Petty little woman.
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psmith2.0
Mr. Vieira
 
Join Date: May 2004
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2009-11-18, 09:30

Re: Argento's prof

See?!? Holy hell...

And I'm sure he was respected among his peers for his "daring, thought-provoking insight" and blah, blah. Right? They probably named a building or dorm after him.

Inmates running the asylum, IMO. Insulated circle-jerkers.
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tomoe
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2009-11-18, 09:48

IME, conspiracy theorists are more or less universally despised in most of academia, mainly for lack of critical thought put into their crackpot conjectures. I would be really, really surprised if Argento's prof was respected and not snickered at.

As for worst professor, it would have to be my fresh off the boat Calc 1 prof from oh so long ago. I hate to be harsh or un-PC, but this guy couldn't utter an intelligible, coherent sentence if his life depended on it. He was also the guy who, when asked to elaborate on something, would mutter, "Oh, that would take too long..." and just go on, ignoring the question.

Seen a man standin' over a dead dog lyin' by the highway in a ditch
He's lookin' down kinda puzzled pokin' that dog with a stick
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psmith2.0
Mr. Vieira
 
Join Date: May 2004
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2009-11-18, 10:01

Maybe. Unless, of course, he's surrounded by others just like him. (depends on the school, I guess)
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Naderfan
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Join Date: May 2004
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2009-11-18, 10:33

well, as someone working to become a professor (and just got done lecturing for the class I TA for), I would say that a.) conspiracy theorists are routinely mocked and b.) the only thing I could justify in the first one is that most professors expect that if you miss a day, you're on your own in finding out what you missed (by talking to other students). But he sounds like a complete dick, especially how he treats his students.

My worst professor is one I have right now. She is very disorganized. For example, she had a quiz listed on the syllabus but forgot about it until the day of, so she quickly wrote it up during the break and gave it to us. And there were things on there that hadn't been on the study sheet which she told us she was basing the test on. The assignments don't make sense and a lot of things are redundant. For a graduate class, there's a lot of busy work that just takes too much time for very little purpose. I could go on, but I'll stop there.
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Argento
I puked at work.
Because I'm a pussy.
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Head in a trash can.
 
2009-11-18, 11:05

I believe (because I refuse to think otherwise) that he was pretty widely mocked. I know one of my professors did it pretty openly. I forgot this little doozy, he had a sexual harassment complaint filed against him as well that I think was part of the reason for his "retirement."

And All That Could Have Been
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ezkcdude
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2009-11-18, 11:08

I hate this thread because I am one of the guys who gets evaluated. Last year a girl said I made her cry during office hours.
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Kickaha
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Join Date: May 2004
 
2009-11-18, 11:29

Don't you love it when they make shit up?

Having been on both sides of the fence, however, I have even *less* sympathy for my lousy profs than I did before I taught. Is it hard work? Yes. Is it *difficult*? Not really. Basic rule #1 is "Don't be an ass." Accomplish that and students will give you a lot of leeway on the rest of it. Get off your damned high ivory podium and come down with the rest of humanity, you insufferable git. You're there to trigger neurons, not impress them with your godhood. (Which by the way, isn't that impressive.)

Srsly.
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alcimedes
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2009-11-18, 11:31

The weird part is, I can't remember my worst teachers at all, but I have a ton of memories of my few teachers who I thought were great.

Generally at the college level if I didn't like a prof I didn't attend. My last forced attendance was in high school, and I had a few nutters there.

Google is your frenemy.
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Luca
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Join Date: May 2004
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2009-11-18, 11:40

Worst teacher I've had was my 11th grade science teacher, Henry Axt. He seemed more interested in making everyone stay organized (by HIS organizational system, not your own) than he was with making sure everyone learned what he was trying to teach.

He made every student maintain a three-ring binder with a specific number and order of tabs, and if you had too many tabs or too few he would deduct points when he graded your binder (yes, he graded our binders on how organized they were).

He also made us write a very specific set of numbers and information at the top of every single page of our homework assignments. We had to list the problems we were doing, the date, which period we were in, etc., but you couldn't just put it there. It had to be all in a specific order and arrangement, and if not, you lost points.

Oh, and his homework assignments were worth 5 points each, but the most you could get for doing them was 4.5 points. If you wanted the full 5 points, you had to do the extra problems. To get that extra half of a point, you had to do something like twice as much work. And it wasn't even for extra credit, where it's a common practice for teachers to require students to do a ton of extra work for only a few extra points. This was to get the last 10% of your credit for each assignment. I guess you could turn it around and say that he offered a "full" assignment worth 5 points and an "easy" assignment worth 4.5 points, though.

I remember several full class periods that he designated as study hours. He was supposed to spend five minutes at the beginning of class going over a few things and then let us work on our homework for the rest of the time while answering questions. But every time he'd end up switching topics over and over again and talking about an unrelated subject for nearly all of the class period (maybe 40 out of 50 minutes). Meanwhile, he'd answer the first person's question in too-great detail, and then decide that the entire class needed to hear the full explanation, which generally took all the rest of the time. The second person in line was lucky to ever talk to him.

I think he meant well, and he seemed like a nice enough guy, but his rules made everyone wonder what his problem was. My brother ended up with him when he went through high school after me, and of course he hadn't changed a bit.
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Luca
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2009-11-18, 11:44

Oh yeah, and my girlfriend had a prof earlier this year who assigned group projects with very short due dates, and then was offended when my girlfriend told her that she couldn't meet because she works and it was impossible to find a time when all of her group members could get together. Her prof implied that she should choose between her job and school, and then talked about how hard she (the prof) works at her job.

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ezkcdude
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2009-11-18, 12:18

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kickaha View Post

Having been on both sides of the fence, however, I have even *less* sympathy for my lousy profs than I did before I taught. Is it hard work? Yes. Is it *difficult*? Not really. Basic rule #1 is "Don't be an ass." Accomplish that and students will give you a lot of leeway on the rest of it. Get off your damned high ivory podium and come down with the rest of humanity, you insufferable git. You're there to trigger neurons, not impress them with your godhood. (Which by the way, isn't that impressive.)

Srsly.
I'm sure some professors have giant egos, but I think most, if they're like me, simply have a ton of pressure on their shoulders (to get grants and publish), that it can boil over in class. It shouldn't, and that's not an excuse, but that's where I think the attitude is coming from mostly. In my experience, the well-established profs/PI's with big labs and tons of grant money tend to be the nicer (more magnanimous) ones with students.

(We're not all "ivory tower" types, afterall.)
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Banana
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Join Date: Feb 2005
 
2009-11-18, 12:19

My "favorite" worst professor would be my Calculus teacher I took in my 2nd year in college. I still remember the first day when I went and took my traditional seating preference: right in the middle in 3rd to 5th row of the classroom. He said I had to sit at the front row. No discussions. Didn't matter a bit that I don't lipread and therefore benefit absolutely nothing from sitting in the front row.

After 2 days, everyone quickly learned to not ask questions, unless they wanted to receive a barrage of insults and rants of how stupid we (the current generation of students are nowadays). Even not asking questions didn't help as he was wont to go off on tangents that had nothing to do with calculus. He once wasted a entire period talking about amazing that computers in his days would have had cost millions and taken up big room could now be fit in a calculator. Yeah, thanks, Captain Obvious.

Probably the most memorable moment was when I had to do a quiz on calculating the moments and center of mass/gravity on irregular shape or non-uniform distribution. One of the questions involved a mass that was supposed to be no longer than 10 cm and I made a mistake somewhere in my calculation that the result was bigger than 10 cm, and I knew it was wrong. After doing the rest of the quiz, I went back and tried my luck again, but I didn't catch my mistake. I decided to turn it as it is and hope for points for partial work done. When I got it back, he had written "Pitiful! The ruler is only 10 cm long!" I guess the benefit of doubt was just too much for this guy, considering that I got B on the quiz overall.

I pretty much survived the class by sleeping through the class like a bobblehead, getting a B in the end only because I actually read the frickin' textbook. I suppose in a way he did me a favor: he forced me to learn things for my own, but boy what a dick.
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Kickaha
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2009-11-18, 12:32

Quote:
Originally Posted by ezkcdude View Post
I'm sure some professors have giant egos, but I think most, if they're like me, simply have a ton of pressure on their shoulders (to get grants and publish), that it can boil over in class. It shouldn't, and that's not an excuse, but that's where I think the attitude is coming from mostly. In my experience, the well-established profs/PI's with big labs and tons of grant money tend to be the nicer (more magnanimous) ones with students.

(We're not all "ivory tower" types, afterall.)
Too true. I had a very specific subset of profs in mind, the ones that have *no* business teaching, but simply can't fathom that they're not God's gift to students. Had *way* too many of those over the years. I think the best teachers I've had have been those who were the first to admit they had no real idea what the hell was going on... funnily enough, those tend to be the best researchers too. Admitting you haven't a clue is the first step towards establishing kick-ass research. It's also a really good way to continue to relate to students, remembering that they're going through the same thing you are *now* - they just are at a different point in the path, and are looking for a guide to get to where you are.

Or they're just there for a requirement, in which case fuck 'em. I keed. One of the best taught physics classes I ever took was an intro that was attended by MANY arts majors for a requirement fulfillment. The prof had the most unique grading system I've ever seen that accommodated both serious physics students and those who were just there to check off a box, and did it well.

It worked like this: Ten weeks in the quarter, there were 9 unit tests, one per week. You *HAD* to pass each unit test with an 85%, minimum to *pass the class*. But... 1) they were really, really basic things out of the previous week, 2) they were based heavily on actual homework problems from that week, 3) if you didn't hit 85%, you could just take it again, as many times as needed until you got it.

If you did that, you had a 2.0 in the class, the minimum needed for requirement. At that point, you could opt out of the midterms and final completely. Yup, no tests. In his mind, you had a basic working understanding of the material, and he was happy if you were. He said he didn't see any reason to stress out people who weren't going to go into the field, and probably had other classes they were more worried about.

If you decided to take the tests, they were graded on a curve of the folks who decided to, which meant that now you were in competition with the geeks. ie, it just got a lot harder. Your placement on the curve meant that you were assigned one of the following bins: F, Pass-, Pass, Pass+, Honors-, Honors, Honors+. They changed your 2.0 by the following: -0.7, -0.3, 0, +0.3, +0.5, +0.7, +1.0.

Yup, if you tanked the first midterm, you'd have *LOWER* than a 2.0. This meant that the arts majors avoided the tests like the plague. You had to be confident that you could hold your own against the physics majors to even enter into the pool. Which meant... he had a lot fewer tests to grade. (Suddenly his flood of unit tests to grade made sense - he was just replacing >100 intricate midterms with a few hundred *easy* to grade unit tests that could be whipped through quickly.)

So then the second midterm rolls around, and the pool is even smaller, because again, you stop when you're happy with your grade. And then the final... which is brutal. Because he knows that the only people left at that point are the really competitive physics wonks, and he pushes them waaaaay past the reasonable point for that class to see what they can do. That final was harder than most I had in my final year of physics. It really forced you to think outside of the box and be creative in your problem solving. ie, you had to think like a researcher, not a student.

Basically, he managed to come up with a way that the student and the teacher negotiate the grade. The student stops when they're satisfied with the outcome, but *no one* gets out of his class without a passing knowledge of the material, unless they outright drop it. Which few did. Win/win.

Last edited by Kickaha : 2009-11-18 at 12:52.
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evan
Formerly CoachKrzyzewski
 
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2009-11-18, 12:40

Does a basketball coach count? I think so:

Coach Harold Baber.

Just to preface this I started playing basketball in high school my junior year, got put on the JV team, and broke my wrist halfway through the season. I like to consider myself pretty good at basketball but I was very very inexperienced in actual high school official gameplay. Senior year we got a new coach, Coach Baber. He started off the season by telling me in front of the team that "we have 13 people on this roster and you're #13 - I kept you on because the captains and other seniors are friends with you and think you're a good guy." During preseason practices whenever I did ANYTHING wrong he would spend a solid couple minutes chewing me out for it. For anyone else he would just tell them to do a better job next time.

Once games started he almost never played me so during the 4th/5th game when he put me in - about 5 minutes left in a game where we were winning by 30 since halfway through the 2nd quarter - I turn to my friend on the bench and just say "finally" jokingly. He gets PISSED and sends me back to the bench for the rest of the game. When we head back to the locker room he says nothing of the 30 point win or how well the team played or anything of that sort. He IMMEDIATELY starts yelling at me and continues for 10 full minutes. "bout time!?! BOUT TIME!!!!!!!" Needless to say from that point on I even more rarely went in games.

My declining playing time also coincided with much improved play in practice. I'm a shooting guard and although I'm not spectacular at defense or ball control, I really am a great shooter (or was for our high school's level of play). It was the one thing I really prided myself on and did really well. During scrimmages I would routinely play better than the 3 people in the depth chart ahead of me (and guess what the starter's season 3 point percentage was? - 16%. I'm not kidding). I guess this pissed my coach off more because towards the end of the season during a scrimmage I had a great couple of possessions where I hit a 3, got a good rebound on the other end, hit a 3 on that possession, then we get a fast break and I hit another one on the run. Baber blows the whistle and stops play and decides to have another yelling fit directed at me. Why? Because I'm too much of a "practice player" and could only play well in practice. Well, when I only get about 10 total minutes of playing time on the season I think I am going to look much better in practice. Oh well.

And still, it gets worse. Last game of the season, 5th place game for our conference tournament. win or lose, the season's over after this one. Of course the game's winding down and I haven't played a second. It's a close game so I'm rationalizing once we hit the final minute, "well, 2 other guys haven't played yet, and one of them is also a senior" (the other was a junior who was by far the worst person on the team). We're up by a couple points at about a minute left and he puts the other senior in. Ok. Whatever. The minute passes by and we get to the final 10 seconds, tie game, we're inbounding the ball. Timeout. He puts in the junior, keeps the other senior who didn't play often, and our 3 best players. Play resumes. We win on a last second tip in. Everyone is ecstatic. Woo. Yes, you read that correctly - I did not play my last game of my high school career when EVERY OTHER PERSON PLAYED, EVEN THE SHITTY JUNIOR, who, prior to that game, basically matched my play time.

This guy hated me from the start and there was really nothing I could do to win any favor with him. I played my guts out in practice and actually improved significantly at basketball over the course of the season but he wasn't looking. He wrote me off from the first second he saw me and never once reevaluated his decision.



As for professors, I just have the usual stories of awful math TAs straight out of asia who don't speak a lick of english and teach the examples in the book. They would also have one pop quiz a week to keep people coming to class despite it being 100% pointless if you possessed the ability to read. They literally wrote the examples from the book on the board and really didn't understand english well enough to answer questions. Happened to me for Stat and Calc 2.
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ezkcdude
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2009-11-18, 13:01

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kickaha View Post
I think the best teachers I've had have been those who were the first to admit they had no real idea what the hell was going on... funnily enough, those tend to be the best researchers too. Admitting you haven't a clue is the first step towards establishing kick-ass research. It's also a really good way to continue to relate to students, remembering that they're going through the same thing you are *now* - they just are at a different point in the path, and are looking for a guide to get to where you are.
Hey, you must know me.
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Freewell
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Sep 2006
 
2009-11-18, 13:19

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kickaha View Post
Don't you love it when they make shit up?

Having been on both sides of the fence, however, I have even *less* sympathy for my lousy profs than I did before I taught. Is it hard work? Yes. Is it *difficult*? Not really. Basic rule #1 is "Don't be an ass." Accomplish that and students will give you a lot of leeway on the rest of it. Get off your damned high ivory podium and come down with the rest of humanity, you insufferable git. You're there to trigger neurons, not impress them with your godhood. (Which by the way, isn't that impressive.)

Srsly.
This is by far the BEST description of pathetic individuals posing as (worthless) teachers I have heard yet!!! Naturally, you are not referring to all teachers... only those who are more concerned with their own little world than the lives of their students and the indelible imprint they can leave on their futures.

I have found that these particular "teachers" in general have little purpose in life but to feel significant and to impress those whom they deem worthy. Incidentally, this is almost NEVER their students! Thus, their students are merely pawns in their little game of egotistical relativism... They are nothing more than a means to an end, to serve no other purpose in their life but to pad that professor's already arrogantly inflated ego, and most often LOUSY self-image hidden strategically behind huge walls of conceit and self-importance. Their resume now boasts one more claim of greatness for "teaching"... Hoopty-do!!!

I too have been on both sides of the teaching fence, and find this manner of instruction so far beyond any trace of redemptive value whatsoever, that there is nothing productive left to be done but to purge it completely, along with the "teacher" in question. Sadly, rarely, if ever does this actually happen. Excuses are made. Truth is irrelevant. Strings are pulled. Students are ignored. The cycle continues. After all, we wouldn't want to risk a higher tenure law-suit on our hands, would we?!?

No, the fact of the matter is that in most cases, if you are a teacher/professor of this "caliber," in spite of all your justifications and denial, in your heart of hearts, you know it. And if you have no desire to truly change, you do your best to silence anything or anyone who for any reason causes that revelation within yourself to surface.

If you are not... You know that too, because while you may not be perfect, (None of us are!) your heart towards your students and your job is one of serving, not one of self-serving. You are not there to lord over your students, but to help educate, inspire and raise them up to higher plains than they themselves ever thought possible!! Will you occasionally have to don your 'asshole' hat to get a point across for whatever reason? It's a definite possibility. But that is the snapshot... NOT the movie of the life of a great teacher!!!

Here's a litmus test for you: If you are truly knowledgeable in your field, and in general are respected even more by your students (brown-nosers do not factor in whatsoever!!!) the FEW times you have to "cut them down to size," you Sir/Madam are a good teacher!!
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wtd
Member
 
Join Date: Jul 2004
 
2009-11-18, 13:45

The worst teacher I ever had was 11th grade Honors English. To sum it up, the woman hated men, and I happen to be a guy, so she made life a living hell based on that alone. She made us write a paper with an emphasis on documenting sources and factual information, and then gave another student a higher grade for his "creativity" in speculating on the undocumented inner thoughts of historical figures.

But the worst was the final. I left it blank in protest. I was done playing her games. She didn't give me a zero for it. Instead she gave me a grade of 14, which was specifically designed to make sure my final grade for the class was the bare minimum to keep me from failing, as she prided herself on never having a student fail her class.
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Kickaha
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Join Date: May 2004
 
2009-11-18, 13:52

Quote:
Originally Posted by ezkcdude View Post
Hey, you must know me.


Here's to the clueless ones! *clink*
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Robo
Formerly Roboman, still
awesome
 
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Portland, OR
 
2009-11-18, 14:07

Quote:
Originally Posted by wtd View Post
The worst teacher I ever had was 11th grade Honors English. To sum it up, the woman hated men, and I happen to be a guy, so she made life a living hell based on that alone. She made us write a paper with an emphasis on documenting sources and factual information, and then gave another student a higher grade for his "creativity" in speculating on the undocumented inner thoughts of historical figures.

But the worst was the final. I left it blank in protest. I was done playing her games. She didn't give me a zero for it. Instead she gave me a grade of 14, which was specifically designed to make sure my final grade for the class was the bare minimum to keep me from failing, as she prided herself on never having a student fail her class.
But now that's speculating on the undocumented inner thoughts of your teacher. Maybe she thought you deserved to pass, or maybe she just didn't want you to screw your high school career over a protest? Idunno...

My worst teacher ever was, if I'm being honest, my mom. I was indoctrinated home schooled up until fourth grade, which did wonders for my social prowess, and then I was sent to a small, private religious school, where everybody had long formed cliques (which didn't help). I literally had no friends until I got to college, but that's beside the point...

My mom actually started teaching at that school a few years later, just in time to teach me English in seventh grade. It was embarrassing, both how she repeatedly demonstrated her cultural ignorance (she didn't know who Shaq was) and how she lost her temper several times at students and went all passive-aggressive on them (she was not asked to return after her first year, which she of course blamed on internal politics). But the part that stung me the worst was when she decided to give away awards at the end of the year.

I don't mean to brag, but the English language is my strong subject, and I won all the awards (they were for things like spelling, composition, &c.). But my mom didn't want to appear biased, so the night before she made me choose which of the awards I wanted (I think I chose spelling) and then gave the rest of the awards to the runners-up. (I was, of course, forbidden to mention this.) I had worked hard in the class, and I was (still am) sort of insecure, so I didn't exactly like watching other students walk up to the front of the room and get applauded for winning my award. (I think I got the least amount of applause, for spelling; I'm sure some thought that was a category my mom made up just so I could win something.)

What I don't get is, if you're not going to be able to give out awards without looking biased, and the "solution" is giving out awards to people who didn't earn them, why give out awards at all? It's not like it was a requirement, that she had to hand out awards to her best students in each area. But she never, y'know...thinks, like that. Once she gets an idea in her head she will do it, no matter how little sense it makes.

No, I'm not bitter. OK, maybe a little

Other bad professors: The one who started yelling at the class during the final (one student forgot to bring a pencil for the Scantron), the one who graded papers based on how much you agreed with her politically (Once, a school printer messed up printing out most of my essay. I should have checked, but I was in a hurry. She embarrassed me in front of the class for only writing two pages, despite the fact that it was obvious I had written more; I think she didn't agree with my political perspective. The irony is, I agreed with her, that just wasn't clear from the first two pages.), and the one I have right now, who is nice, but incredibly disorganized.

and i guess i've known it all along / the truth is, you have to be soft to be strong
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kieran
@kk@pennytucker.social
 
Join Date: Jan 2005
 
2009-11-18, 14:31

My worst was the teacher who assigned seats.

In college.

To a lecture of 300 kids.

We honestly couldn't believe it. I've had other teachers "assign" seats, but that was just "sit where you sat the first day and continue to it there so I can get your name down"

That was just the beginning for that teacher. Read straight from the PowerPoint slides (which most Drexel profs did) and read straight from the book. I could have done that at home.

No more Twitter. It's Mastodon now.
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Mugge
Thunderbolt, fuck yeah!
 
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Denmark
 
2009-11-18, 14:34

I don't think I have had any truly bad teachers in school, high school or business school. But in the army I had this Warrant Officer who was something like Wilbur Smiths Herman Fleischer. He was quite incompetent outside his narrow set of skills, but that didn't stop him from gloating about what he knew and what his subjects had yet to learn. Of course that would be ok if he was as bad ass as his talk was, but the fat bastard could barely run and was invariably ranting about the Soviets despite it being early 2000.
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Robo
Formerly Roboman, still
awesome
 
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Portland, OR
 
2009-11-18, 14:38

Quote:
Originally Posted by kieran View Post
We honestly couldn't believe it. I've had other teachers "assign" seats, but that was just "sit where you sat the first day and continue to it there so I can get your name down"
Which, by the way, am I the only one who's noticed that everybody tends to do this anyway?
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Capella
Dark Cat of the Sith
 
Join Date: Jun 2007
Location: Rochester, NY
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2009-11-18, 14:56

Quote:
Originally Posted by Roboman View Post
Which, by the way, am I the only one who's noticed that everybody tends to do this anyway?
For me, it's bordering on obsession; I have my rituals. I do things the same way. When I get on a bus to go to class, I have my two preferred seats I always try to sit in (though on Rutgers buses getting ANY seat is damn near impossible). I always sit in the same seats in my class. I follow the exact same pacing path at work when I pace while waiting for customers.

My friend B, however, hates being the same. So while I'll sit in the same seat every class, she'll sit on my left one day, my right the next, behind me the next, in front of me after that...she won't bloody stay still, and it drives ME nuts.

But yeah, I've noticed that in classes, almost every student will fall into the same seat. Only a few people won't.

By the way, to all teachers here, I hope I didn't offend you by starting this; I didn't mean to imply all teachers are awful. Just that some do shitty things.

"A blind, deaf, comatose, lobotomy patient could feel my anger!" - Darth Baras
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CitizenTony
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: Dallas
 
2009-11-18, 15:04

I've had a number of bad teachers over the years. The worst haven't been the mean or rude ones, they've been the ones that just read from an overhead in monotones. I can't stand that, it's such a waste of my time and money. One had a large percentage of the class get up and walk out one afternoon. He just kept talking as, one by one, they got up and left. When the last person left, he said that everyone remaining just passed the mid-term and those that left did not. I was glad I stayed seated, but such a bad style of teaching.

I'm dealing with one right now. This semester I decided to take the last of my core classes online to avoid sitting in boring lectures. During the first half of the semester my family had a sudden tragedy and the last thing I was concerned about was meeting deadlines. I emailed the teachers explaining the situation and all but my English teacher understood. Her stance is that I should have gotten my work turned in to her anyway. She won't let me turn in anything that I missed during that period. She won't work with me, and just doesn't care. I understand she has a ton of students and all that, but damn, don't be a bitch. I fluctuate on whether I should bring this up with the Dean or somebody else.

The other one I'm dealing with is a good teacher, he's just not strong enough at controlling the class. It's the one class I'm taking this semester that has to do with my degree, Architecture. It's just a bunch of projects and he tells us how to do them in plain enough english along with an assignment sheet. But there are two or three students that just can't understand what he's saying and he spends the entire class explaining every detail to these students. Every damn class. It took us three weeks to do a one week assignment. I wish he'd stick to the deadline and let these guys come to him after hours or something so the rest of us could learn what we need to. As it is, half of us just skip classes after a new assignment because we know nothing will get done.
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Robo
Formerly Roboman, still
awesome
 
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Portland, OR
 
2009-11-18, 15:20

Capella: I always sit in the back of the room, usually in the same seat (in a corner if possible). This isn't because I want to doze off or anything; it's just that I have trouble concentrating if there's people behind me. I'm the same way with writing - in cafes or wherever, I have to have a wall behind me.

The problem is that, even though everybody sits in the same seat every class anyway, there's a certain sort of mind that misconstrues "taking the seat they always do, next to me" as "golly, they must really want to be my friend! I'll talk to them during class." There's a person I sit next to in my (required) HPE class that thinks I want to be his BFF. But of course I can't move, now. Then it would look like I would be avoiding him on purpose, which of course I would be, but then he might feel bad. Plus, I would lose my prime back-wall-corner position, and there's only two of those, after all.

Last class he grabbed one of my pens, though. We were supposed to mock lift weights using pens, and he had one and I (of course) had three. So he grabbed one of my shiny new Uni-ball Signo 207 Micros -- without asking -- and of course proceeded to get sweat all over it, because it was apparently that realistic.

No no no. You don't do that. You do not touch my writing utensils. A pen is my wand, my athame. This sounds weird, but I use them to make stuff, and they are very important to me. Plus, they were like four dollars and I don't want your sweat all over them, kthx.

and i guess i've known it all along / the truth is, you have to be soft to be strong
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Mugge
Thunderbolt, fuck yeah!
 
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Denmark
 
2009-11-18, 15:24

This thread has a sub-thread: Weird student habits.

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