Unprofessional behavior from professors

The BBQ Pit
1

Not an hour ago, I was sitting in Spanish class. The teacher was assigning people into groups of four, everyone, that is, except for me. I sat there for a few minutes, sans group, and she comes over and says “Teem, do you want to work, or do you want to talk?” Well, lady, if I had been talking, I would understand the question. But I hadn’t. This is also the third time such an incident (me being the only one not assigned to a group) has happened. I answered that I would work, if she would assign me to a group, and she walked away. Finally, I got up and went to a group that had some people I know in it. They were astounded at her gall, and asked me what she said, and what I had done.

We did our work that was assigned, she didn’t say anything about my inclusion, and all was well.

A few minutes later, she was talking to the class on pronunciation, and out of nowhere, she launches into a lecture on doing your homework, and turns to me and says “Teem, if you do not want to be here, that is fine with me. You can leave. I’m not making you stay. I don’t care if you want to work or not, just don’t disrupt the class.” I was sitting alone, near the back of the room, listening and following along in my text, when this was said.

Well, that is completely unprofessional, first to exclude someone from group work for a perceived slight, then to single them out in front of the entire class for no reason.

Fuck this cunt. I can’t decide if I should stay in the class and ace it out of spite, or just drop this whore’s class and be done with it.

Biznatch.

–Tim

2

Dude, I’ve been there. I had this crackhor of a German teacher who used to pull the same shit on me. She used to divide us up to do group work. But without fail she would either leave me out or put me in a group with the worst students. Not stupid people or anything, but people who didn’t give a rat’s ass about the class.

Before everyone starts calling me an elitist asshole, which I very well may be, let me point out that this teacher had been pouring abuse on me nearly the entire semester. Every German essay I would write would be handed back so we could make corrections. I would make the corrections, and she would lose the fucking paper. After I had made all of her inane little corrections for the jillionth time, I would get the same fucking grade.

So when she stuck me with the people who didn’t give a shit about the class, she knew my grade would take a hit. I’d prepare my part of the presentation, and the other people made it obvious that all they had done to prepare was watch some German bondage porn. So guess whose grade went down?

Tim, don’t make my mistake. Drop the fucking class. There must be dozens of other Spanish sections you can join if you are serious about learning the language. I was considering minoring or even majoring in German, and this class turned me off 100%.

MR

3

My speech teacher got an attitude and was shitty to me throughout a class because on the first day I challenged her. What I challenged her over was her statement that the Internet was not a good research tool because the information on it could not be substatiated. She was hopelessly shitty to me for the rest of the term and then gave me the lowest passing grade possible: C-

4

Homer:

You say that you were not doing anything at all to disrupt the class. Well, I hear that a lot from my students who chit-chat during class. “Who me? I was just sitting here.” Yeah right. BUT–if you were truly doing nothing to disturb the class, then you should go to her office hours and ask her what the problem is. If that meeting is unsatisfactory, drop the class ASAP.

She may be out of line, but she has obviously noticed your bad attitude. I’m not telling you that you should adjust your attitude or anything…I just want you to know that going to class with the kind of attitude that you have displayed in your other school-related threads is likely to have an effect on the way the professors view you.

In other words, she may be a bitch, but she ain’t stupid.

BTW, what does “biznatch” mean? You have been using this word an awful lot lately.

5

Man. I even hate it that I have something to post here. I’m sorry that your goal of education is being hampered by these people. It’s that old attitude of ‘Just TRY and learn. I dare you.’ What’s up with that?

I went back to college after years and found that I was much more serious about it. Something like wanting to drain all knowledge from the instructors…yeah, along those lines. Hell, I was PAYING for it myself, so I wanted them to earn my money.
Usually I didn’t have any problem. But one woman prof had a real problem with a kid in a class. He just must have SEEMED like a classic trouble-maker. I never saw any instance of it. One day when she had berated him–much like your Spanish teacher (God, I’m sorry about that)–she just happened to be standing next to my desk. She said something along the lines of get out if you’re not serious, this is a place for real students…blah,blah,blah.
Her final statement was ‘This information is important.’
She looked at me for support–I guess, since I was older–and I said very quietly, ‘Then teach us. All that kid is learning is that you don’t like him. It’s his job to sit there and pay attention. It’s your job to inspire him.’
I got the expected look of surprise. She never said boo to him again.
I pisses me off that I had to even say anything. He always looked so defeated. It’s a wonder he didn’t drop out. At the end of the semester, she and I were visiting and she mentioned that he had made it through the class–of course with a tone of surprise. I simply said, ‘Yup. It’s a wonder he didn’t drop your class. I would have. But I’m older, and I would never let someone I was PAYING talk to me that way. I’m glad you two worked things out.’
Obviously they hadn’t. She was looking for sympathy in the wrong place.
It’s hard work being a good teacher. I know that. And coming in every day to find that people don’t appreciate your effort has to suck. I appreciated my profs and all their hard work. But you can bet I expected just as much work from them as they got out of me.
Keep your collective chins up. There are great teachers out there. Suck the brain juice outta them. They live for that.

6

If you’ve talked to her like Green Bean mentioned and things don’t work out, you can always put in a complaint to her supervisor. We had one new Spanish prof who had expectations much higher than we could live up to, and even the best students didn’t get higher than a C in his class. But because more than one student had complained, and because the complaints had come in all through the semester and not just after the final grades went out, the department took it seriously enough to change the grades.

Talk to her first, though, and if you have to go over her head, make sure you’ve got evidence that you were doing the work and not giving her cause to pick on you. It will only antagonize her more if she finds out you’ve gone to her dept. head without talking to her first.

7

In a thermodynamics lecture, the professor was talking about mass flow through a system. He decided he needed an analogy. I can think of lots of non-offensive analogies, but apparently he couldn’t. He said “Mass flow through a system is like the ovens in the concentration camps; if you put bodies in one end, you have to take the ashes out at the other.” The entire class was silent. I wish I would have had the cojones to report him to the Dean and get his ass fired, but I was only 19 at the time didn’t have the courage to do it.

8

Tim, you might want to go ahead and drop. It might be difficult to ace a class and put up with the bullshit all semester long, if you’re having these sorts of problems already with her.

And I believe your story - I’ve seen the same thing in my college experience, where a prof would pick someone out and just dog them all semester long. When I taught a CAD lab at school, I would have to listen to other GTA’s saying shit like “Oh boy, I’m going to fuck with that loser all year until he quits. Who’ll give me odds on 8 weeks?”

9

Ask this twit for specifics, for exactly which of her criteria you are not meeting. Next, ask for examples, then ask her to quantify how your grade will be affected.

I had a speech teacher/control freak one semester (I don’t have time to give examples.) What finally got her to shut up about by being late was my offering to drop the class.

“But you’re getting good grades!” was her reply.

When I explained that I didn’t want to be screwed out of those good grades by an arbitrary grading system, we quickly came to an agreement, and she shifted her control shit back to the rest of the class.

10

Motherfucking teachers!

At least you are in college and can drop the class. Im in 10th grade and my Journalism teacher hates me for no apparent reason. Cocksucker. He is constantly interrupting class to make fun of my clothes, which are way better then his by the way. Today I was waiting for my girlfriend and standing near him and he just looks at me and says, “I don’t like you.” What the fuck?!? You’re a god damn high school teacher mother fucker, you don’t say that shit. I was fucking blown away, after a couple of seconds I was able to say, “The feeling is mutual.” So me and by GF go to the computer lab because she is the editor and the phone rings and its cocksucker. He says some shit and then my GF face gets all sour, but I couldnt hear her. She tells me he told her that he doesnt like me and that he hopes we break up. Jesus Christ! Listen you, you unprofessional motherfucker, are you a pedophile or some shit? You overweight geek, stay out of my fucking business!

11

BTW, biznatch (for whoever asked) is slag for bitch.

Add an ‘iz’ or a ‘natch’ and it’s a slang term, biznabyeeatch.

–Tim

12

The formula for academic success:

  1. Become a university teacher

  2. Get tenure (no teaching skill necessary, just apply for a lot of research grants and you’ll eventually find something that brings in a lot of money for the university and you’ll be indispensible)

  3. Make a completely arbitrary and irrational marking scheme. Add or subtract marks from everyone’s grade until 30% of the class fails. For example if you teach physics mark students on written essays which don’t actually help them learn anything about physics. Mark the essays based on the frequency of the word “the”.

  4. Do whatever the hell you want. As long as 30% of students fail your class you they won’t fire you!

13

I had a high school teacher that did this to me.

It was an art class. Art was my strong subject, and I did a lot of art on my own, even sold my art sometimes. But I was told that this teacher was very hard, and challenging, so I was prepared for that. I did not expect an “automatic A”, because of my existing art background.

I know I had no “bad attitude”. I was a nerd, and a geek, and didn’t have the guts to be a troublemaker. But the teacher hated me from the git-go. I could go on and on about the unfair and unkind things she did. I would re-do (without complaint) all tmy art projects, because she told me to. I saw her give students who tried half as hard, and did work half as good as mine an A, while I never got anything better than a C. I put in a lot of effort to please her, and never complained. But it never helped. She still gave me crappy grades, told me to “be quiet” when I wasn’t speaking, and belitted all my art projects in front of the class. The whole nine yards.

I just took it. Looking back, what I should have done is just given up. Not have been a smart-ass, or have a bad attitude, but merely given up. It was a high school art class - and if I was only going to get a C no matter how hard I tried, I might as well just do C work.

If I had been in college, I would have dropped the class pronto. It was NEVER going to get any better. I don’t know if this is your situation, Tim. Only you know. But if your teacher seems dead set on giving you crap, there is no point in tolerating it, IMHO.

Postscript: The mean high school art teacher never did finish the semester I had with her. The rumor was that she had to leave because she had a brain tumor. I have suspected that her tumor was the reason she was so crabby. Anyway, the rest of the semester I had a different art teacher, who gave me all A grades. (Which I worked for, as before.)

14

I was going to post some heartfelt bit of commiseration expressing my own disappointment with the behavior of some professors. But when I read the way you put it, Kon, I just thought, what a bunch of bull. How many professors do you know who operate like this? At how many institutions have you found this to be the norm?

Speaking personally, yes, I find it very disappointing that in higher ed, where intellectual ability is valued, and where the object of the enterprise is the “higher calling” of the generation and dissemination of knowledge, some of the professors have such pathetic problems with ego, self-esteem, and maturity. It’s astounding that such small-minded people can be found in the professorate. I found it very disillusioning. I had pretty high expectations and standards of people who choose to be faculty, and it’s a bummer to find they were unrealistic. HOWEVER, I’m talking about SOME of them. They’re not the majority.

I assume these three broad generalizations are offered as hyperbole because this is the pit. Yes?

15

Tim, drop the class. Switch to another section. As was previously said, there must be a ton of Spanish classes.

Similar thing happened to me in a Hebrew class. I was in Gimel, which is I guess is like level three (there are only five levels; Gimel is “advanced intermediate” or something like that) and my teacher usually taught Vav, which is the highest level, and she just expected us to be Vav-level students. She would go off on some lecture, entirely in Hebrew, and if anyone raised their hand to ask a question or for her to repeat something, she would scream at us for not knowing what she was saying. It was a highly effective way to teach. (Ha.)

One day, she wrote the word “yedu’a” on the board. I didn’t know what it meant, so I raised my hand and asked. Instead of answering me, she started screeching at me and yelling that I needed to have patience and all this crap. Maybe I DID need to be patient, and she would have explained, but her reaction was so over the top. AND she never defined what the stupid word meant! So a few days later, she uses the word on an an exam and a guy asks her what it means. And she goes off on the same rant about how we need to have patience and pay attention! And once again, refuses to define the word! I suppose I should have looked it up, but she was the TEACHER! She was supposed to help us learn, right? Sometimes that even includes answering questions.

Anyway, the international school was very small, and we couldn’t just switch to another Hebrew class, so we complained vociferously to the language administration, and actually managed to have her removed as the teacher! It was super. Our new teacher was shocked at how little of the prescribed curriculum we had covered so far - our evil teacher had just decided we were supposed to be fluent, and therefore refused to teach us anything.

BTW, “yedu’a” means “knowledge.” I had to ask my roommate.

16

If you don’t need the class, and can take a different one that will fit your graduation requirements, I would drop it also. If you do need the class, or don’t want to drop, have the talk with her.

I would also tell her that you don’t want to drop the class but are worried that whatever she perceives you have done, or whatever personality conflict you have, may affect the way she grades your papers/tests/presentations. Then I would tell her that if her attitude continues, that you will contact her direct superior or higher if necessary, to ensure that no prejudicial grading occurs.

I have never heard of anyone doing this, but what would you think of printing out posts on this thread and showing it to whomever you speak to about this incident? Do you think that might be useful, or muddy the waters and perhaps make things worse?

17

I’m a Hispanic studies minor, so I’ve taken one or two Spanish courses. In my last one, the teacher went through the first semester (it’s a 6-credit course, so it lasted two semesters) giving shit to people who were paying attention and trying hard, but simply couldn’t understand her explanation, because they’re not as good with languages as I am, and also because her explanations weren’t as clear as they might have been.

(I know this is true of them because I was talking with one of the other students and I was able to clarify indirect object pronouns in a way she understood immediately.)

Anyway, I wrote some tactful but direct criticism of this on the course evals we did, and she actually finished off the year being helpful to people. So it does work! Soldier on.

18

I’m not making generalizations at all. I’m not saying that all tenured professors work like this, but it does happen much too often.

Unfortunately this formula seems to be very common in physics departments. Because interest in university level physics has shrunk so much over the last couple decades physics departments are really struggling. That means that anyone who brings in money for the department by getting research grants is treaty very nicely no matter how badly they teach.

19

Read Homer’s other post about attendance-required classes. If I have a student who shows up irregularly, I don’t take the time to put him or her into a group. I automatically assume that he or she has a bad attitude.

Homey, I don’t buy that you weren’t sitting there talking. That sounds to me like “<Gulp>No, I wasn’t chewing gum.” I’ve seen too many of you over the years to even believe that you want an education. What you want is a degree so that you can go out and make 6 figures at an entry level job.

Welcome to the real world, Homer. After high-school nobody gives a shit if you work or not. Nobody gives a shit if you succeed or not. If you’re lucky enough to have a prof who tries to make you show up to class and learn, count yourself lucky and learn. Otherwise, drop out of college and try to convince potential employers that you were too smart to work the system and you deserve a great job just because you’re you. After all, you’re fucking Homer! You don’t have to listen to anyone! Hell, if an employer tries to make you show up to work, just post a Pit thread!

20

This is conclusive proof that you are an asshole. Further posts from you will be ignored. Thank you for speeding up the asshole identification process.

–John