You’re welcome.
If I ever go to college, I’m going to major in Political Geometry.
That seriously just blew my mind.
If you do that, you’ve got a brilliant future working for the Texas legislature.
Robin
Brilliant.
As to the issue of recording the lectures: Recording poor teaching in order to have excerpts to serve as examples of such when complaining to the powers that be sounds like it ought to be fair use to me.
I would think so too; fair use for the purposes of criticism, and all that.
BUT…
First, the university itself might have some rule against recording lectures on university property without the express permission of the lecturer, which may over-rule the fair use issue.
Also, recording conversations without the consent of both parties is illegal in some states. I’m not sure whether a university lecture might qualify under such laws.
Is any of this BS on the exam?
I doubt if I’d make an issue of it unless some of the stuff you posted is on an exam and your answers are graded wrong. Or say something at the time to him. If you go to the dean it’s your word against his. If you record him just to point out errors it’s going to come off as a little creepy. It is annoying though.
I would say something during evaluations.
Once I needed an elective and took a natural resources class that was for non-science majors. The instructor was an adjunct and what he didn’t know about science could fill a book. In the beginning I used to question some of the things he said but finally gave up. No one cared or paid attention anyway, and his exams were usually based on the text.
I graduated college in what is rapidly becoming another era (it was only seven years ago, dammit!) so we didn’t have this Back Then, but I believe that a lot of lectures Nowadays are recorded anyway, so students can download them and listen to them as mp3s. Perhaps this is the case here?
I had a teacher like this in middle school who’d rattle off nonsense as fact and lacked even a general knowledge of his subject. I made it my personal goal to be the biggest PITA and point out each and every factual inaccuracy. I tried to make his life a living hell, even to the point of creating situations where he’d look like a dumbass in class.
He taught Social Studies, but knew practically nothing about it. When we started reading The Diary of Anne Frank in my English class, I decided to have some fun with him. (You’re talking to the girl whose father is writing a book about World War II and whose friends in school used to think I came from a family of neo-Nazis because of the huge stack of books covered in swastikas next to my dad’s favorite chair) My knowledge of WWII is pretty damn good considering I’ve never made an effort to study the subject. I had a whole list of questions to ask (Who was the Supreme Allied Commander, where was that famous picture of Marines raising the flag taken, etc) but only had to ask a single question to make him look like the biggest idiot of all time-
Me [innocently]: We’re reading Anne Frank in Mrs. A’s class, and I just had some basic questions, you know, for background info… When did World War II start?
Mr. F [obviously trying to buy some time] Well, uh, let’s see… When did it start, or when did the U.S. enter?
Me [feigning surprise]: Oh! The U.S. didn’t get involved immediately?
Mr. F: No, uh, they didn’t get involved for a few years. Let’s see, the war started in… 1941, so the U.S. didn’t get involved until, say, 1943 or 4.
I hate teachers like this. I encountered another, not nearly so bad, who had a good grasp of history, but often liked to repeat those urban legends and false etymologies that trivia fans are so fond of, that are often dealt with here. I commented on his evaluation that he might want to check out the Straight Dope. He was too nice and too good of a teacher that I didn’t want to interrupt class for an argument about the origins of the whole 9 yards or something.
This is different though. I’d definitely go to a higher-up about this. And as for the recording issue, professors frequently deal with the policy about taping lectures in the syllabus, so check there first. If there’s nothing, the student handbook should have the policy somewhere. I doubt it will be an issue. My school just has the policy that students aren’t allowed to sell tapes or notes from lectures.
When I saw the thread title I thought it was going to be another Dubya thread.
Just had a cruel bit of inspiration strike me. While noding in silent agreement to the many saying, “turn him in!” I thought to myself, there’s an even safer way to get him tossed.
Get him quoted by local news (paper or TV). Public outcry will get him booted faster that anything, and you won’t have to talk to a Dean. It’s hard to challenge your own words in black and white.
InkBlot
I’m not sure that makes things all that different. I graduated from UT over twenty years ago, and even then it was common for students to record lectures on portable tape recorders.
In other words, Caridwen, I don’t think recording the lecture is “creepy” at all.
But whether or not it’s on the exam isn’t the issue. Teachers should do their best not to give their students patently false information, whether or not that information will be used in assessing their written work. Also, the recording would not be simply to “point out errors.” It would also be to highlight inappropriate behavior.
There are two separate and largely unrelated problems with the OP’s professor.
The first issue is the professor’s ignorance of material that falls well within his alleged scope of expertise. For a political science teacher to be so ignorant of some very basic aspects of the American political system is worrying, to say the least.
But there’s also the issue of the professor’s dismissive and arrogant demeanor in the face of questioning from his students. To tell a student that “I don’t have to listen to you” is completely unprofessional and inappropriate behavior from a teacher.
The two issues discussed above need not be at all related. It is entirely possible for a teacher to not know his material, and yet still be a kind and engaging and considerate person. And it is equally possible for a teacher to be an absolute expert on the material, but still be a complete and utter dick. Unfortunately, this guy appears to have covered all the bases.
I’m not interested in offering any amateur psychologizing, a la DiosaBellissima, about whether there is some connection between power, weakness and reason that leads to this type of problem. Such armchair diagnoses are barely worth the electrons they’re posted with. But, whatever the reason, Doors’s professor has shown signs of incompetence, and has engaged in some very unprofessional behavior, to the detriment of his students. I think recording his lecture, if possible, is not at all creepy.
I agree with that. In my case the instructor was fine when he seemed to be teaching from his prepared notes. Occasionally he’d ramble or pull something out of his head that wasn’t quite factually correct. Sometimes it would be an opinion he had the really wasn’t accurate. When I realized his asides weren’t really relevant to the course I just ignored it. If he was teaching ‘wrong’ information I would have had more of an issue with it. I’ve encountered this sort of thing more with adjuncts than professors.
I agree with you 100% about this. I had a chemistry teacher that would say things like that. You’d ask her a question, and she’d say it was too late at night to answer that question. (WTF, it was a night class).
Your probably right, recording someone like that might not be a bad idea.
Alright, this is seriously making my head hurt. Can someone please explain how this is working?
I had a TA teach my logic class who wanted to teach the class without the use of a book. Fine with me, I was only taking the class because it 1) fit my schedule; 2) covered an elective; and 3) no book meant less shit to carry.
However, when all the first years started asking questions. He wouldn’t answer in a coherent manner. He’d basically reiterate the same thing they didn’t understand in the beginning. When they still expressed confusion, he would say go to the library “and look it up yourself.” I think he wanted enough people to drop so the class would cancel.
Midterm he gets into something I didn’t understand and asked for further explanation. This was my first question in that class. I get his standard “I don’t have time to answer that, we have too much material to get through tonight, go to the library” answer. I refused to let it drop and the conversation quickly devolved into him saying he didn’t have to answer any question and me announcing that I paid for the damn class, and he’d answer any question on the material I posed.
A couple of days later in front of the dept. head prof calls me a bitchy c___ and again said if I needed further help I should have gone to the library. The dept. head taught the class the rest of the semester. The dept. head tried to re-grade our midterms, but eventually we just took a new one.
Time for a serious chat with the dean.
The two shapes are not triangles but rather four sided figures. Notice that the “Roberts” right triangle is 2u high and 5u wide, while the Scalia-Kennedy-Ginsburg triangle is 3u high and 8u wide, therefore the slopes of their hypotenuses (is that the right plural?) differs and the resulting shape is actually concave in the top version and convex in the bottom version.
I’d say its the norm, however, I wouldn’t say the exception is rare. I’ve seen teachers abuse entire classes with “that’s a stupid question.” My favorite was the instructor who was explaining something poorly to a room full of blank faces - all who’d been working their ass off to try and understand the material. She said “did you not read this or are you not listening” - hey bitch, I read the material and I’m listening and I’m STILL confused - maybe the problem is that the material is being poorly presented since you have 30+ students who aren’t understanding.
Plus any number of instructors who thing their job is to read the textbook supplied powerpoint presentations to the class.
One of my current professors method of teaching is to tell anyone with a question that “you should expect to spend four hours of studying for every hour in class” - like reading the book repeatedly will suddenly make a difficult topic clear.
BayleDomon you are correct. I should have expanded on audio recording. I was told in school that teachers had to give consent before you could record the lectures. So this is why I suggested the actual lecture notes as evidence. I mean, don’t reporters write down the facts in their little notebooks when talking to people on the phone or out on the street?
I don’t buy the idea that an entire class would conspire to make up a bunch of lies about a teacher. A small class of 10 maybe, but beyond that I would think they would be one or two in the crowd who would be quite outspoken in attacking the allegations the other students made.
I think they don’t get away with this as often if there are older students or returning students in the class. I know when I went back to school and I was paying for it, I didn’t have a problem asking a question until I understood it. I had professors make remarks but I didn’t particularly care. When I 18 I never would have asked a question much less challenged a professor. One of the benefits of getting older, you stop caring what people think.