What? What?!? WHAT?!?!?!

The BBQ Pit
1

And now, for your reading displeasure, I present an account of my flaming, fiery wrath directed at two persons: my asshole Spanish professor and my stupid, asshole self.

Part the First.
First, a quick background. I am taking four summer classes: American History, Ancient History, English and Spanish this summer. From the beginning, Spanish has been the thorn in my side, but it was a small, easily ignorable thorn. Yes, it’s difficult, and the professor does some things that annoy me, but BFD, right? I saw on the syllabus that an A is a 95. I’ve never been in a class where it’s higher than 93 before, and since I have a GPA I’m very proud of, I’ve been working my ass off to get an A in Spanish. I study like a motherfucking fiend. Day, night, while I’m at work, while I’m in the car. I’ve enlisted my boyfriend to help. I’ve started writing my journal entries in Spanish, reading Spanish sites, studying ahead in the book, anything to get this A. I didn’t study like this for Calc III!

I forgave her for the fact that the syllabus is terribly fucked up: homework is described on the day it is due, not the day it assigned, so that reading the syllabus leads you to believe it is assigned on Tuesday and due on Wednesday, not due on Tuesday. Of course, her chosen method of explaining this was just to get mad at the people who didn’t have their homework. (Fortunately, I did; I was lucky enough to have done it early.) So I was mildly pissed, but some of my friends told me that their other professors do it that way, too, so I stopped caring. No harm, no foul.

Her second transgression pissed me off more. The syllabus described our writing assignment as being a 100-word essay. I wrote a pretty darn good 110-word essay, and handed in the rough draft. She informed us the day we handed in the draft that the more we write, the more she likes us. What kind of bullshit is that? If we write more, you’ll like us?!?!?! Okay…if you want more than 100 words, assign more than 100 words. I get the draft back tomorrow and I will add more to it. Again, no harm, no foul.

Then she drops the shit bomb of all time on me. We had to write a 50-word paragraph describing our families. Again, “the more you write, the happier I’ll be.” I, of course, went hog-wild. My family consists of me, my mom, and my dad. (My dad is really my stepdad but I consider him my father. This is will be important.) In an effort to fit more words in (yes, I’m a greedy bitch when it comes to grades), I resorted to describing my cat, my boyfriend and…my (step)dad’s neice and nephew, whom I see only on holidays. I know enough about them to describe them well enough for the essay: their ages, jobs, state they live in and…nationality. This is where I have a problem.

Today she asks me, “Dia, your family is Puerto Rican?” (I had clearly outlined that my mother and father are Irish in the essay.) Not knowing how to explain it in Spanish, which is what she prefers we use, I said “some” thinking it was no big deal. She lets loose with a string of rapid Spanish while I stare boggle-eyed and try to catch a word. She then explains that I shouldn’t be in this class, the class is not for heritage speakers. I resort to English and clarify the relationship: they are the children of my stepfather’s sister (who is dead). She tells me it’s not fair because I might have heard Spanish growing up.

BULL-FUCKING-SHIT! There is no curve in this class. My being there would only be unfair if there were a curve, if I were monopolising her time, or if I were duct-taping the other students’ fucking mouths shut. I shouldn’t be in the class because I might have heard Spanish growing up??!?!?! Is she going to throw me out because I’m from New York? Because my best friend, boyfriend and step-cousins are Puerto Rican??!?! Yes, I’ve heard Spanish growing up. Was I supposed to walk through Manharttan with earplugs?? She changed the subject, but now I have no idea where I stand.

Now, I have a problem. I am doing very well in this class, as a result of my ridiculously hard work. She knows I do my work early, she knows I have a tutor. But now I am worried: there are nine people in the class so I can’t hide. If I do extremely well, I might get kicked out for knowing some Puerto Ricans. If I stop working hard I’ll get a grade I neither want nor deserve. Should I throw the mid-term this week? Make some errors in my composition? Also, since I have taken Italian class before and since I’ve watched Spanish TV my accent ain’t too shabby, either. Should I worry about that?

Part the Second.
ASSHOLE! You couldn’t keep your mouth shut, could you? Couldn’t take a B, if that’s what it comes to. Now you might get kicked out, and not graduate on time, you stupid fucking grade-whore. And you’ll deserve it, because it will be all your fault. Something this easily avoidable…and you walk right into it.

Dia, you are a jackass. I hate you.

2

What? How can she kick you out because you happen to know some people who are Puerto Rican?

3

Dia, you’re not. Stop kicking yourself. Your prof is a passive aggressive control freak.

She is probably pissed off about having to teach this summer and is taking it out on students. I’m sorry you have to deal with her. She more than likely would have found something else to ride you about if it wasn’t that. Can you submit a complaint to the dean’s office if she does oust you?

4

Does the same thing apply to other language classes there?

Would having an Austrian grandmother prevent you from being credited for a German class?

This just seems so arbitrary and moot. It’s not like you were betting on baseball games in which you played or anything like that.

It wasn’t a college course, but i took honors Spanish in HS and I had quite a Spanish language background, my parents and several other relatives being fluent in Spanish. It was never prensented to me as a point of contention. In fact, I had some ethnic Hispanics in my class, too. No harm, no foul I say.

Talk to a school counselor or whatever they’re called nowadays.

And if my outrage is ill-informed and the teacher is in the right, I really want to know the reasons why.

5

Continue to work in this class as if that incident had never happened. Classes aren’t just about grades - don’t forget that you’re learning something as well as having tests and assignments. Don’t rob yourself of the opportunity to get as much out of this class as you can, never mind your very odd teacher. And if she does kick you out, protest to whomever you can.

From what you’ve said, she doesn’t have a leg to stand on. If there was indeed a policy of no heritage speakers in class, that should have been established before classes even started.

6

If worse comes to worse, you might have to go to the head of the Department, or some other higher-up person. If i were you, i’d just keep my head down, work hard, and hope that it’s enough to get the A.

[related story hijack]

I took Spanish as a second major for my undergrad degree. I was starting from scratch, not having done the language before. The university where i did my freshman year (i transferred after that) only offered Beginners Spanish, which was fine for me because i was a beginner.

In the first class, the professor told us that grading would be done on a curve, suggesting that not everyone could get an A even if everyone deserved one. This didn’t worry me unduly, as i had heard that such things happen. I did get worried, however, when it became clear that not only were two of my classmates from Spanish-speaking backgrounds, but they knew enough Spanish to hold rapid-fire conversations with the professor during the break in class. Given that the class only had 15 people, and only a few A grades were going to be given out, this was a little distressing. Especially since it had been very clear in the course guide that people with prior knowledge of Spanish were not allowed to take the course.

I didn’t take it up with the professor, but went straight to the director of Spanish studies. I explained to him that if his department did not grade on a curve, and that everyone who deserved an A could get an A, then i would be happy to have more Spanish-speakers in the class so i might learn from them. However, if good grades were going to be restricted to a few people, then i thought that the department should enforce its rule regarding those with prior knowledge, as it was not fair to other students in the class to have to compete with fluent speakers. The director was sympathetic to my complaint, and when i came to class the following week, those two students were gone.

I sort of felt bad for a while, but then i thought “Fuck them.” What’s the point of taking introductory Spanish when you already speak the language? The only motive i could think of was to get an A without doing any work.

Oh, and i got an A for the class. :slight_smile:

[/hijack]

7

Why do I picture you as Mrs. Broslofski from South Park?

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Fortunately, it seems to have blown over. She didn’t throw me out, and she was more than happy to give me the quiz today. So I think everything’s cool. Thanks for all the support.

Eve, I was totally Mrs. Broslofski. Arms waving in the air and everything.

9

MIGHT have heard Spanish?? Jigga puh-lease. My mom has her masters in statistics; she MIGHT have taught me calculus when I was 5. They’re not going to kick me out of a math class for that!!

Talk to whoever’s above her. I don’t want to cry “discrimination!,” but that does indeed sound like discrimination if she’s making assumptions based on your relatives and/or heritage. As far as I can see here, you did nothing at all wrong. Don’t censor yourself or blame yourself because of someone else’s problem. I never understood how people could do that.

I totally turn into Mrs. Broslofski when I’m mad, too. In HS I once got sent to the dean for something I didn’t do, and my friends could tell something was going down from all the way down the hall because of my huge arm gestures. It’s only so much funnier that I’m very small and have blonde hair, blue eyes, delicate features–I look like I couldn’t hurt a fly and then I GO OFF.

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Little background here - in some schools, there’s a problem with people who already speak the language signing up for class in order to get an easy A. Or to knock off a language requirement.

Obviously, this prof has figured out that you don’t fall into that category.

11

Shoudn’t the title be ¿Qué? ¿¡¿Qué?!? ¿¡¿¡¿QUÉ?!?!?

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Well, I took the midterm today, and I think everything is okay. If she planning to kick me out, I don’t think she’d let me take it. Sometimes she tries to test me; she’ll use a word we’ve never used that’s not in the book yet, and when everyone’s confused, she asks me what it means. Even if I know, I don’t tell her.

LauraLittlePony, I look just like you! (Well, if you replace blue eyes with green, I do, and I’m the same way. My friends are always telling me that I take everything so well and I never get mad, but when I told them this story they were all like “Chill, it’s not that bad.” lol, nothing comes between me and graduation!

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I was expecting a thread about this bitch!

'Cha!

“Ask all the kids around the world, it might go a little like this…”

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Find your school. Find Senora Puta’s name on the list. Have a field day.

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And if you receive an unfair mark, you have limited time to take it to those over her, but you still have that option.

Slight hijack- I was late with an assignment because we were witnesses to a murder, and up with the police for a heck of a long time, and the teacher wouldn’t let me hand in my project late, and said ‘I’ve never heard that one before’. Since then I found there is a period to file complaints, and if needed, the school can make sure you aren’t treated unfairly for it.

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Because it is possible to speak a language without being able to read or write in it. I imagine written Spanish may be as different from spoken Spanish as English is.

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My beginning Spanish teacher was kinda the opposite. He really only wanted Spanish-speaking kids in his class so they could get better at writing and speaking correctly. The rest of us could go jump in a lake, as far as he was concerned. We heard that daily.

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No, it’s not. Written Spanish has VERY regular rules of pronunciation, spelling, etc.

19

Exactly what Lynn says.

In fact, it’s more likely that one’s abilities/inabilities would be the other way around, at least with Spanish.

That’s how it is with me. I read Spanish fairly comfortably, although i need a dictionary occasionally for words i’m not familiar with.

But because i’ve never lived in or even visited a country in which Spanish is the official language, i get very little practice at speaking the language. In fact, the only time i really speak the language at all is on occasional visits to places with large Latino populations, like California and Texas. And i’m sure i make a bit of a fool of myself at times.

20

In my experience, people trying to speak Spanish are looked upon with forgiving favor. I used to work with (mostly Hispanic) English-as-a-second-language students, and many of them seemed to be illiterate in Spanish. That’s why I assumed it must be difficult to learn written Spanish than spoken.