posted
My astronomy professor. I need to do this in list form.
1. showed up the first day and told us his lesson plan was 25 years old, that he wasn't too keen on technology so there would be no visuals, and he wasn't going to read the homework or give essay questions on tests.
2. He enouraged us not to study so that the curve would be low and we would have an easier time getting ok grades. he was NOT kidding.
3. He lets class out most days 45 minutes early- in a 2 hour class.
4. He didn't ask or learn a single name all session, in a class of less than 10 people.
5. He suggested we not bother reading the book- he certainly never had.
6. This is by far the worst- he passed out the course evaluations at the beginning of our last class and remained in the room. This is against the rules at the UC, where the prof has to leave the evals and havea student bring them to the department to be read AFTER grading. He just handed them out, encouraging us to give him good marks, then he collected them, then he stood in front of the class leafed through the evals until he came to mine and READ THEM ALOUD!!!! He has complete contempt for the privacy of the students or the rules of the university. If I intended to challenge my grade with judicial affairs, this would be enough of a grievance to do it, since he read my comments on him, before grades were finalized, ALOUD. GAAAHH!!! I felt so violated.
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
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posted
Well, in my HS we had a math teacher who used to give extra credit to female students who wore short skirts and crossed their legs. And if you brought him food. But took points off your grade if he didn't like the food. Or if you were Korean. Or Armenian. Or if you had an accent of any kind, or if he just didn't like you. He spent most of the class talking to his wife on the phone, who was the home ec teacher, and whom he had married the month after she graduated from HS (yes, she had been in his classes. Presumably she passed.) He didn't really teach, nor did he actually grade papers of students he didn't like-- just wrote "F" on the top. He was known to keep female students who were, um, well-developed after school and "help them with their work" with his arm around them.
Successive generations of students complained about him, and the district and the school did nothing. Finally a family threatened to sue and he was asked to retire.
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posted
I was going to email the department heads as soon as the final grades went through, but maybe that isn't the best idea. I should start the dialogue BEFORE that happens, although I am fairly sure I am getting an A in the course, and I don't want to jeopardize that, there is only one more class meeting, and then the final.
I think I will email the dep. head today and complain, but ask not to be named until grades are in and all that. I suppose that may bethe best idea.
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posted
Yes, that is the best idea. If you wait, then they'll only see you as trying to change your bad grade.
And it shouldn't hurt if he does find out that you complained, since you can have your grade investigated by them, don't you think? I hope you've saved all of your assignments/notes/etc.?
He probably has tenure. Sometimes that seems like such a retarded idea.
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posted
Yes, complain now. Even if your grade is not affected, he needs to be stopped.
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Blayne Bradley
unregistered
posted
Sounds to me like an easy pass to me.
Theres ths 1 teach I had in cegep where he would teach the class and try to do so in an interesting manner but the tests were funny. He would say I'm going to make the multiple choice part woth 100% and then 5 minutes later as we are writing it incase you havent noticed by nwo the test kinda has a pattern infact incase none of you noticed Ill write it on to the board and then he would proceed to write "A" several times on the board.
posted
I've taken a couple of tests where there were obvious paterns in the multiple choice questions so the teach/prof could grade easier (which kinda defeats the point of a scantron, but whatever). I never trusted the pattern until the very last question, when I would look back and think "Well, yeah, it sure was ABACADABA all the way through. Darn me for working so hard!"
And I would definitely report the professor for number six on the list. That is just ridiculous. I certainly hope you didn't put your name on the evaluation, I've never had to. But the other five could just be odd quirks, not particularly worng, so long as he was a good teacher. Did he deliver the important information? Did you learn what you wanted/needed to from the class? Or was all of this just him being lazy so he wouldn't have work very hard at teaching?
Posts: 2596 | Registered: Jan 2006
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posted
My most innapropriate teacher did a handstand in a skirt on the first day, offered kids to help her come move out of her husbands house, gave us A's if we tried, and offered methods for guys to score on Valentines. This was a high school class and yes she's still there.
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Yep. I was the only female in the class and he offered me a guarenteed "A" if I came to his office for "extra help <leer> <wink>".
I went to the dean and was immediately transfered to another section and graded on only my work from that point on, not anything the first teacher turned in.
Posts: 9866 | Registered: Apr 2002
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posted
Just a thought on the last interplay between Farmgirl and Blayne from a teacher's perspective.
Tests don't teach you anything.
Tests can evaluate what you do or do not know, but they aren't meant to instruct. So, making an easy test does not automatically mean the class didn't learn anything. The evaluation may be invalid with results that are not representative of student learning, but that's another ball of wax.
If students (I'm assuming students like Blayne, though I could be misinterpreting his POV) feel that the grade is the important thing and consistently see easy tests, then they will study (and therefore learn) less. Of course, students whose ultimate goal is the grade (instead of understanding the material) study for the test itself and then move on to the next test, many times never achieving understanding. Students whose goal is understanding will learn whether there are tests or not.
The only students that difficult tests really help are those that would rather understand than not understand, but who aren't willing to put in any effort toward that goal unless there is some punishment for lack of effort. Still, even among these, a high grade does not necessarily mean understanding.
An anecdote: A honors seminar teacher I had in college started the first day of class by saying, "Syllabi are death. There will be no syllabus in this class. There will be no tests, quizzes, essays, papers, or evaluations of any kind. You will all be receiving A's. Now that that's out of the way, we can get down to the actual learning." And, because of his highly motivated honors student audience, this approach worked wonderfully. Everyone was interested in learning - we asked oddball questions, tossed out crazy ideas, argued about crazy theories, and dissected the topic in numberous ways. I don't think any of this would have happened if the students were concerned about their grade - these particular students would have been too busy taking notes for what might be on the test.
He said he wanted to use that approach in his Physics 101 class, but the administration wouldn't let him. It was meant as a weed-out class, after all. His opinion was that most of that 150 person into class would just stop showing up, and he would be able to give more individualized attention to the students who were there to learn instead of just there for the grade.
I do want to make clear that I am not defending Orincoro's teacher at all, because he sounds like a complete ass. I just wanted to address the "the test was easy, therefore nothing was learned" sentiment expressed by Farmgirl. While in Blayne's case that statement very well may be totally correct, I don't feel it hs general applicability in all situations.
Posts: 3960 | Registered: Jul 2001
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posted
Flying Cow- I'm in college because I need the outside motivation of tests and grades to help me learn. It's not that I don't like learning, I love it, I just have a lot of trouble doing it without outside stimuli.
Your approach would work great for some students, I'm sure, but it would cripple me.
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posted
FlyingCow - I was being snarky because Blayne was talking about how "easy" the class was, while filling his posts with misspellings and bad punctuation, etc. In other words, he wasn't trying to show any skill in literacy in his post. If a person cares about their work, they usually at least proofread, and fix any mistakes they notice.
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posted
There's also the fact that if everyone is given the answers, or given the same grade, it reduces or eliminates the meaning of the grades in the class, and, by extension, the value of the degree you receive. If everyone did those sorts of things, we'd have lots of people getting degrees who didn't know anything more than they did in high school.
I'm not saying that there aren't people who are that way now, but it's the college/university's job to try to prevent that from happening.
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quote:There's also the fact that if everyone is given the answers, or given the same grade, it reduces or eliminates the meaning of the grades in the class, and, by extension, the value of the degree you receive. If everyone did those sorts of things, we'd have lots of people getting degrees who didn't know anything more than they did in high school.
I'm not sure that is necessarily true. Their have been some classes I've had where the professor completely disregards tests and grades. When I found out about this at the beginning of the class, I was ecstatic (being generally lazy and accepting of the easy way out). Unfortunately for me the professors who manage class this way generally have a much more strict attitude when it comes to making sure the students know their stuff.
That is, the professor won't care about tests and grades, but will care a great deal about making sure that you know your stuff and learn everything he wants you to learn, which is often more than the tests require. I have had at least two classes where I finished the semester with all A's on my tests and assignments, but got an Incomplete in the class because the prof didn't think I had learned enough.
I haven't had a great deal of these types of classes, but I have had some, and I always prefer them over the more standard classes, both because I learn more and because they are approached in a way I can appreciate.
[Edited for spelling]
Posts: 2596 | Registered: Jan 2006
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posted
I've had a professor who approached innappropriate. We read A Day In The Life of Ivan Denisovich apparantly purely so he could rant about the evils of communism. He was openly disparaging of certain groups. If you disagreed with him he'd make fun of you. He often seemed to be purely to be looking for a fight.
He gave out silly awards for answering snarkily on tests when you didn't know the real answer.
However, this was balanced by the fact that class was the most informative English class I've ever taken, and that his radical ideas and somewhat insulting stance on various issues made me think far more than other professors might. Despite the fact that he seemed to discourage opposition, he actually really liked the people who had their own opinions and argued with him.
I won the "most argumentative" award at the end of the year (and got a cookie), which is pretty stunning for me, and, I figured, not a bad validation of my existance as per this professor.
So I let him off his other transgressions. He never did anything really, really offensive or inappropriate, just approaching that.
Posts: 8473 | Registered: Apr 2003
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quote:There's also the fact that if everyone is given the answers, or given the same grade, it reduces or eliminates the meaning of the grades in the class, and, by extension, the value of the degree you receive. If everyone did those sorts of things, we'd have lots of people getting degrees who didn't know anything more than they did in high school.
I'm not sure that is necessarily true. Their have been some classes I've had where the professor completely disregards tests and grades. When I found out about this at the beginning of the class, I was ecstatic (being generally lazy and accepting of the easy way out). Unfortunately for me the professors who manage class this way generally have a much more strict attitude when it comes to making sure the students know their stuff.
That is, the professor won't care about tests and grades, but will care a great deal about making sure that you know your stuff and learn everything he wants you to learn, which is often more than the tests require. I have had at least two classes where I finished the semester with all A's on my tests and assignments, but got an Incomplete in the class because the prof didn't think I had learned enough.
vonk, the cases you've mentioned are very special cases. Are there instances where the "everyone gets an A" method works? Sure. Does it work the majority of the time? I doubt it. The lazy, indifferent students who just want the grade outnumber the ones who really and truly want to learn the material. Take it from someone who's taught at a college level for seven years now: most students, given an easy way out, will take it, even if it means not learning the material.
(In my experience. Yes, I know there are exceptions, and I'm sure everyone here is one of them. )
Posts: 4077 | Registered: Jun 2003
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posted
The guy should be canned. Astronomy in my college was probably the most fun course I took. (Not saying much coming from a Business major though.) The labs were just plain fun, and the lectures were very interesting.
We even went out after class with a very nice telescope to see Saturn. Actually seeing the rings of Saturn with my own eyes, and not in a book or on tv was one of those amazing things I have ever seen.
Posts: 3134 | Registered: Mar 2005
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posted
I've had two teachers fired for molesting students. My music teacher/choir director in elementary school, and one of my religion teachers in high school.
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quote:Are there instances where the "everyone gets an A" method works? Sure. Does it work the majority of the time? I doubt it. The lazy, indifferent students who just want the grade outnumber the ones who really and truly want to learn the material. Take it from someone who's taught at a college level for seven years now: most students, given an easy way out, will take it, even if it means not learning the material.
Absolutely.
Though, at the college level, I really do believe that the onus is on the students to get value for their money. If they're paying the school so they can blow off class and fail, that's their choice and their wasted money. If they're paying the school so they can learn, that's also their decision to make the most of what they've already paying for.
Or, more commonly, what their parents are paying for. I'd venture to say this is the case with most unmotivated students. Those that are paying their own way generally don't blow off the classes they're working so hard to pay for.
Posts: 3960 | Registered: Jul 2001
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posted
The only really bad teacher I ever had was in 8th grade.
She took an irrational dislike of me and did stuff like write to my parents complaining about how I breath (No kidding!)
She also marked me down in conduct for getting picked on in class. Apparently it's rude to ask her to do something about the little boy behind me pulling my hair and flicking my ears.
I'm so glad she had my little brother 4 years later. He's not shy and stood up to her crap.
Posts: 7085 | Registered: Apr 2001
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posted
I had a high school teacher who threw pencils and erasers at me for getting wrong answers, and once threatened to throw a stapler. And locked me out of the classroom the day after the Columbine shootings because she thought I might try to kill her. When I finally got someone to let me in, the lecture that day was on why it's a good idea to martyr yourself to save your teacher from an armed attacker.
Posts: 1681 | Registered: Jun 2004
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posted
Caution: This post is VERY LONG. But it's an interesting story, I swear.
Check this out. When I was a kiddie, I was in "gifted school" for the smart little nerdlings. Most of my teachers in that school were awesome - one, I thought hated me. Seriously, I thought that she loathed me as a human being and would be thrilled to death if I vanished from her world immediately. It made going to school every day a torture.
Although I was in gifted school, I got in totally on the merit of my bizarro ability to read (and understand) at college level by age 6. I was otherwise not at all gifted. I guess you could say that I was linguistically gifted in that I had a very firm grasp on English and understood the context of just about anything I read or heard from a very early age. By extension, I could also do (and had/have a great passion for) science, because science depends very much on reading and understanding data.
Otherwise...I was practically an idiot. I barely graduated from high school because I struggle so badly with math, and in college I had to take remedial algebra a few times before I could move on. Even my music classes in high school and college were extremely difficult for me, because music has an awful lot of math hidden in it. As much as I worked at it and studied with tutors and sought out really patient, brilliant math teachers, I never could fully grasp much of mathematics beyond the basics. I did somehow manage to get into trigonometry eventually and escaped with a C-, and that was as far as I pushed it.
So, as you can imagine, as a 10-year-old in Mrs. Anderson's super-smart-kid class, I was already having a difficult enough time. I was linguistically brilliant and read at a level far, far beyond that of even the other little nerds around me, but multiplication and long division would tie me in mental knots. Most of my teachers understood this, and probably realized that I was in these classes because to make me read and experience science at the level of normal kids my age would be cruel and unusual punishment. Mrs. Anderson seemed actually to revel in the idea that a kid like me existed, and I swear even to this day, sixteen years later, that she took EVERY OPPORTUNITY to embarrass me about my math problems.
I would get so nervous about math hour that I would shake and feel nauseous, but LIKE CLOCKWORK, she would call me up first to work the problems on the board in front of the whole class, and I'd try every time, but I never could do it. She'd respond by saying things like, "Is anybody smart enough to do this problem?" implying, of course, that I was not smart. My mother thought I was exaggerating when I told her about this, so it was never addressed with the school.
I don't know whether she was trying to make the other kids feel validated because I was a better reader than they were, or what. Or whether she just really delighted in the idea that although I was probably smarter than she was when it came to reading comprehension, I was a totally average little kid when it came to multiplying several numbers at once. Whatever it was, she had some kind of creepy agenda against me.
It also went further - I loved horses, of course, and I would try to work horses into every project I could. She started forbidding me to use horses in any project about midway through the year. The reason she gave me: "I'm sick of horses." Even back then, I would have understood if she'd said that I needed to try thinking about other things, or that I should expand my horizons, or something.
Final evidence on why she was a totally inappropriate teacher: The class pet was a turtle. We had a brainstorming session to name the class turtle. I offered the name "Myrlte," because it rhymes with "turtle." She told me, "That's a stupid name," RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE WHOLE CLASS, and wouldn't write it down. WTF??? What the crap kind of elementary teacher tells a student that their idea is "STUPID" in front of the entire class? Or ANYwhere?
Anyway. Somehow, I managed to get through that year with my sanity intact, if not my self-esteem. I even had one very cool teacher in the next year of school, before I went on to middle school, who really went out of her way to help me with math and helped me feel a little better about myself. Finally I reached high school, and in the very last quarter of my senior year, during a private conversation with my creative writing teacher, whose name was Mr. Anderson, somehow the topic of that evil teacher in the gifted school came up. I was telling him all about the crap she put me through, and how horrible it made my life, and how it only added to my math handicap. I swore to him that she hated me and that she was deliberately trying to break me down every chance she got.
He told me he believed me, and said she hated children.
I asked him if he knew her. Why, yes, he did. She was his ex-wife!
WHAT? Yes! Apparently, she wanted to be a college professor, but never was able to compete effectively for the jobs that came up, so she had to "settle" for teaching incredibly brilliant children who learned at a college level. But because we were all children, and not adults, she took out her anger on us. Mr. Anderson said that's why he ended up leaving her. He loved teaching kids, and she HATED kids, and he couldn't take the differences anymore. He assured me that she was doing that crap to ALL the kids in the school, not just me.
quote:Originally posted by ketchupqueen: Well, in my HS we had a math teacher who used to give extra credit to female students who wore short skirts and crossed their legs. And if you brought him food. But took points off your grade if he didn't like the food. Or if you were Korean. Or Armenian. Or if you had an accent of any kind, or if he just didn't like you. He spent most of the class talking to his wife on the phone, who was the home ec teacher, and whom he had married the month after she graduated from HS (yes, she had been in his classes. Presumably she passed.) He didn't really teach, nor did he actually grade papers of students he didn't like-- just wrote "F" on the top. He was known to keep female students who were, um, well-developed after school and "help them with their work" with his arm around them.
Successive generations of students complained about him, and the district and the school did nothing. Finally a family threatened to sue and he was asked to retire.
Was his name, by any chance, Doug Openshaw? Because that is almost an exact description of a history teacher at my high school. Ewww.
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posted
I had a teacher once pull me out of class and yell at me loud enough for the other sixth-graders to hear. She yelled at me for "looking insolent." It wasn't even for being insolent! I wasn't! Apparently I LOOKED like I was insolent. Holy freaking crap!
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quote: Though, at the college level, I really do believe that the onus is on the students to get value for their money. If they're paying the school so they can blow off class and fail, that's their choice and their wasted money. If they're paying the school so they can learn, that's also their decision to make the most of what they've already paying for.
Or, more commonly, what their parents are paying for. I'd venture to say this is the case with most unmotivated students. Those that are paying their own way generally don't blow off the classes they're working so hard to pay for.
I agree with this from the student's point of view. However, from the college's point of view, it's in the college's best interest to produce people that know what they're talking about, with degrees with that school's name on it. People who are knowledgable reflect well on a school, and people who aren't, don't. That's the principle behind using grades at all--it's a (possibly rough) approximation of what a student has learned in a particular class, program, etc.
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quote:Originally posted by breyerchic04: My most innapropriate teacher did a handstand in a skirt on the first day, offered kids to help her come move out of her husbands house, gave us A's if we tried, and offered methods for guys to score on Valentines. This was a high school class and yes she's still there.
Where were these teachers when I was in school? Well, my school wasn't co-ed, so the Valentine issue didn't come up (thank God), but still...
I had one female English teacher show us the movie Animal House, unedited, in class. Cool at the time, but in retrospect that was really messed up.
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quote:Originally posted by FlyingCow: [QUOTE]Or, more commonly, what their parents are paying for. I'd venture to say this is the case with most unmotivated students. Those that are paying their own way generally don't blow off the classes they're working so hard to pay for.
...I really, really hate the attitude embodied by this statement.
posted
Libbie, your story reminds me of a 6th-grade teacher in my elementary school. We lived on the street behind the school, and it was in the days when neither our house nor the school was air conditioned, so windows were open in warm weather. Mrs. L's classroom was not far from our backyard, and on more than one occasion my mother heard her screaming at the kids. She swore that if I were assigned to Mrs. L's class in 6th grade, that I she would have me transferred to another teacher.
I was a very shy kid and easily mortified, and I just prayed I wouldn't be sent to her class so that my mother wouldn't do anything so awful as to draw attention to me by making a fuss. Well, I wasn't, and I had Mr. Lang, the best 6th-grade teacher EVER. But then we ended up splitting into reading groups based on reading ability, so once a week (I think) I was in Mrs. L's class. I'm not sure if I ever told my mother that. I still remember that we were reading Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (clearly a challenging piece for 6th-graders of any ability). We were reading aloud, and I remember when it was my turn that my stomach was in knots--unusual for me because I loved to read out loud. Maybe I was a show-off, and that's what got under her skin and prompted what ensued, but she just ripped me up one side and down the other. Because I didn't give a certain phrase the proper inflection. I remember she made me look like a blithering idiot--and I promise, I was one of the best readers in a group of gifted readers. I guess she was just going to cut me down to size, and she was pretty successful. I had tears in my eyes for the rest of the day, and although if I remember correctly she toned down her approach for the duration of the group, I was alwasy terrified of her thereafter.
What got to me was how many kids loved her as a teacher and were totally loyal to her. I figure she just made them part of the "in" group in her sarcastic comments. My mother called it right--she would have destroyed me if I'd been in her class every day.
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posted
But overall, I have to say that aside from a few jerks here and there, most of them in high school, and a fair number of eccentric characters, I had very good teachers and I can't believe the horror stories shared here!
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quote:Originally posted by ketchupqueen: Well, in my HS we had a math teacher who used to give extra credit to female students who wore short skirts and crossed their legs. And if you brought him food. But took points off your grade if he didn't like the food. Or if you were Korean. Or Armenian. Or if you had an accent of any kind, or if he just didn't like you. He spent most of the class talking to his wife on the phone, who was the home ec teacher, and whom he had married the month after she graduated from HS (yes, she had been in his classes. Presumably she passed.) He didn't really teach, nor did he actually grade papers of students he didn't like-- just wrote "F" on the top. He was known to keep female students who were, um, well-developed after school and "help them with their work" with his arm around them.
Successive generations of students complained about him, and the district and the school did nothing. Finally a family threatened to sue and he was asked to retire.
When I first read this, I could have sworn that I knew the teacher you were talking about. Upon second reading though, I see that yours was a high school teacher, whereas mine was a middle school teacher. He did the same exact stuff though. He was forced to retire about 3 years after I had him because of the stuff he did. Creepy guy that one.
Posts: 1960 | Registered: May 2005
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posted
Going to a Lutheran Private school had its share of moments I must say.
In Kindergarten my mom reports that I got in a theological arguement with my teacher when she declared that God was a woman, and that sexist men had portrayed HER as a HIM. Apparently I impressed the teacher, and I became one of her favorites. I suppose thats not inappropriate but I can see why we seperate church and state in school.
In 2nd grade I had a teacher that just did not like me. I can't say I blame her I am a WHITE personality and I forgot my text books/homework all the time. She would frequently make an example of me in front of the class though. Every time I screwed up BAM she would pounce on me and announce my falicies to the class. Eventually my mom got sick of it and moved be back to 1st grade so I was a year older than everyone in my grade from that year on. It was kinda cool, I was the only kid who could drive a car in 11th grade (the legal driving age in Hong Kong is 18, and believe me it SHOULD be that way)
5th grade my teacher played the movie "It" on the last day of class. WHAT!?
8th grade my teachers wife died, and he only took 1 day off to mourn. I couldn't believe it when he came back to class to teach, he was so stoical about it. My mom eventually played matchmaker and hooked him up with his now current wife.
9th grade I was late to class on the day of the final, but I beat my teacher to class who saw me run in the door. He dismissed me from class and said I couldnt take the final. I always endeared myself to my teachers (I'm just that way) and my friends reported by mid class he looked really upset, and he polled the entire class as to whether or not I should be allowed to take the final. 75% said yes, 25% said no (I REALLY wanted to know who voted no). I go to take the final, and I got an A in class. That teacher went on to have an affair with a female student, and got fired I am not sure if his wife stayed with him.
11th grade my teacher screamed at me in front of the class when I sharpened my pencil during lecture. After getting out of class one of my friends found out I was in his class and said, "Do NOT sharpen your pencil during lecture." Too little too late it would seem. That teacher ended up loving me too and wrote my college letter of recomendation. I took Russian History from him in 12th grade JUST because I enjoyed his class so much.
My religion teacher in front of the class said that Mormons don't believe in God or that Jesus was the son of God. We disregarded the old testament, and we believe everyone else is going to hell. That was theological debate #10 by then.
For the most part I think I was happy with my teachers. It was college that REALLY upset me.
I had a history teacher, I attended every class, did all my homework, and got A to A-'s on all his exams. These exams SUCKED. They took 2-3 hours on the average to complete because it was basically barfing out EVERY little detail in the book and in lectures. You were screwed if you didnt study several hours before the exam.
At the last minute, just 3 days before the final a student mentions on the silibus that we had 2 term papers that he had never mentioned. We all wanted to murder that kid. The teacher said and I quote, "Well I was hoping nobody would mention those, but since the cats out of the bag and you have already started on yours I might as well give the rest of the class the same work load."
He procceeded to assign both 5 page papers and made them due the day before the final (remember 3 days later). But dont worry it gets better. I typed up his damn papers and did EVERYTHING he wanted. The day of the final rolls up and he gives us our projected grade while we are doing the final. He gave my papers a B and a C- respectively and I demanded to know why. He proceeds to tell me why
an example: "You said you were going to write on the Southern Campaign but you only wrote about one battle in that campaign."
my response: "It says right here in your SILLYBUS "Choose a campaign and then select ONE battle, and write about it."
We had that basic exchange about BOTH my papers SEVERAL times. I refuted every point as respectfully as I could and he still marked my papers up only a half letter grade. He ended up giving me a B+ for the semester. It basically screwed up my GPA and now getting into a better school just seems that much harder.
posted
Wow, these teachers are pretty messed up. Except for the one who showed Animal House - that sounds more cool than messed up.
Posts: 8120 | Registered: Jul 2000
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quote:Originally posted by ketchupqueen: Well, in my HS we had a math teacher who used to give extra credit to female students who wore short skirts and crossed their legs. And if you brought him food. But took points off your grade if he didn't like the food. Or if you were Korean. Or Armenian. Or if you had an accent of any kind, or if he just didn't like you. He spent most of the class talking to his wife on the phone, who was the home ec teacher, and whom he had married the month after she graduated from HS (yes, she had been in his classes. Presumably she passed.) He didn't really teach, nor did he actually grade papers of students he didn't like-- just wrote "F" on the top. He was known to keep female students who were, um, well-developed after school and "help them with their work" with his arm around them.
Successive generations of students complained about him, and the district and the school did nothing. Finally a family threatened to sue and he was asked to retire.
Was his name, by any chance, Doug Openshaw? Because that is almost an exact description of a history teacher at my high school. Ewww.
Nope. And like I said, he taught math. Well, maybe "taught" isn't the best word.
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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quote:He ended up giving me a B+ for the semester. It basically screwed up my GPA and now getting into a better school just seems that much harder.
A B+ screwed up your GPA?
Yes I was counting on straight A's that semester, I am desperately trying to make up for 4 years of High School slackage. Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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posted
I had a highschool creative writing teacher show our class A Clockwork Orange. It was awesome. Though by the time half of the class got offended and decided they would rather sit out in the hall than watch the movie she decided to turn it off. She also suggested a good book we could check out of the school library that would show us what psilocybin mushrooms look like. Other times someone in the class would write a wildly inappropriate story and she would say "Well, I'm supposed to report that and have you suspended, but it was a good story, so your alright." She pegged three of the kids in my class as stoners on the second day and thought it was hilarious.
Man, I loved her...
Posts: 2596 | Registered: Jan 2006
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posted
I haven't had one aside from the professor who showed up for grad-level classes drunk, when he hadn't cancelled them so he could say home and drink.
Posts: 3932 | Registered: Sep 1999
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And while I agree that he was unreasonable in a) not assigning the papers til the end and b) not taking into consideration his own directions, a) five pages is really not much at all, and b) if you said in the paper that you were writing on the whole southern campaign, he has a point. I don't know about how it was graded, or the criteria he used, but a lot of times writing quality influences how I grade papers (i.e., correct spelling, grammar, capitalization, and coherent paragraph structure).
Posts: 4077 | Registered: Jun 2003
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quote:My most innapropriate teacher did a handstand in a skirt on the first day, offered kids to help her come move out of her husbands house, gave us A's if we tried, and offered methods for guys to score on Valentines. This was a high school class and yes she's still there.
This teacher would be very popular with my crowd.
Posts: 5600 | Registered: Jul 2001
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quote:Originally posted by Carrie: I haven't had one aside from the professor who showed up for grad-level classes drunk, when he hadn't cancelled them so he could say home and drink.
Sounds like a precedent I could get used to.
Posts: 2596 | Registered: Jan 2006
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posted
The Shakespeare professor at my college was a known mysogenist. We had to take his class, though, for an English degree, and he never gave women an A. He would "groom" young men who were good writers/students. Long story involving some friends, bla bla. Anyway, he was finally fired, a few years after we graduated.
Posts: 10890 | Registered: May 2003
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I am not sure if his wife stayed with him.
