There bound to be some of them. They either refuse to put in the effort or tried their very best, but just can’t get the concept across.
There was a certain senior instructor at a certain school entrusted with the task of teaching Visual Basic. My cousin, who was under him, had a problem and asked the instructor for help regarding a certain programming concept. The instructor’s helpful reply? “Press F1 for help”
Dear lecturer, when teaching mathematics, it is very much appreciated if you go through the simplification of a complex equation, instead of repeating “through certain manipulations, this becomes that”, as if it magic. This may be a school, but it is not Hogwarts, and you are not teaching magic.
It takes me only 15 minutes to read the lecture notes, while it takes you one hour to repeat everything you have on the notes, word for word. It will be great if you provide additional information. Failing which, reading it like a radio play and turning it into a work of entertainment could work too. But you are contended just to follow your script like a drone. Darned it, just listening to you orally performing the lecture doesn’t make me understand it magically.
Dude, this is a programming module, and the scoring critera specifically states scoring is by the following crtieras - whether the program works, does it crash and what are the added functionality. Yes, I know the dull and uninspired interface wants to make you puke repeatedly until you are dehydrated thoroughly and needed to be put on a drip. What are you telling me – You are a 3d studio max lecturer? So what are you doing, teaching and judging, a programming module!?
To the abovementioned dude – Yes, you are one darn good modeller, being able to replicate a spoon, a knife and a fork under 15 minutes in 3d Studio Max. I will appreciate it, however, if you slower, stop showing off and explain your steps.
On the first day of Grade 9 math, I walked into a room with three walls of blackboard, covered in algebraic notation. The teacher said, “Do this.” I didn’t even know what it was. He never explained the concept of algebra, what it was for, how to work with it, nothing. In Grade 8 we had been doing fractions and long division. I got zero on every test and assignment for a whole year, because I had no idea what I was supposed to be doing, and was never told. At the end of the year, he gave me 51 on my report card so I could pass the course and not have to take it the next year.
Econ professor, senior year of college. 9AM class, MWF. She’d get up in front of the classroom, open whatever chapter we were on, and read, for 60 minutes, in a slow, monotone voice. Each Friday, we’d have a quiz to complete over the Internet on the chapter; she said she “didn’t care” if we used the book to help us with the quiz.
Oh, and she docked you serious points on your final grade based on attendance. :rolleyes:
I had a professor in grad school about whose classes I said the following:
His classes remind me of the story of what supposedly happened when the Muslim invaders of Egypt found the Library of Alexandria. They wrote home to their religious leaders to ask what to do with the Library. The answer came back: “Burn it. Either it contains what is in the Koran, in which case we do not need to read it, or it contains what is contrary to the Koran, in which case we must not read it.”
Classes were like that. Either they contained what was in the textbook, in which case there was no need to come to class, or they contained what was contrary to the textbook, in which case the professor had made a mistake and would later take back what he had said.
Now, maybe I just had a brain block when it came to physics, but I swear to Og, the guy was horrible. I remember learning about vectors in math the same time I was learning it in physics. I understood it completely in math. When I got to physics, and he started talking, it went away. Completely gone. He might as well have been talking in Swahili.
He also spoke one day at great length about how, as American citizens, we owed it to our country to join either the military or the Peace Corps. We had no choice, we had to pick one. Now, this is a bunch of college-bound kids taking an advanced science course who have no interest in joining the military or the Peace Corps, so most of us stared at him like :dubious: :rolleyes:
As an aside - the Library of Alexandria was apparently destroyed long before the rise of Islam, and the alleged Muslim destruction of the Library seems to be inaccurate.
Once, at age 18 a girlfriend and I decided to join Spa Lady (hey - I was 18, what can I say).
At the time I was THIN. I mean REALLY thin. As in 5’8", under 90lbs, BMI of about 13, thin.
So, I sign up, and pay my $$ and then I get my assessment with the Spa Lady “trainer.” She told me that all new members were put on the “weight loss” program first, and then moved to the “toning” program.
I suggested that weight loss probably wasn’t a major concern, and perhaps I should move directly to the toning program. She looked me up and down (In my requisit '80’s tight spandex outfit) and said “Oh, I think you could stand to lose a few pounds.” :eek:
Cripes. The only way I could have lost a few pounds and not died is if I had cut of one of my limbs. Dumbass.
First Year Psych at University: 3 hour night class every Tuesday. The Prof would walk in, lay his notes on an OHP projected on the screen, and spend the next 3 hours reading word for freaking word, in an incredibly dull monotone, said notes.
3rd Year Theatre class on lighting/sound design (something I’d never done before and of which I had no knowledge). I ask the professor a question, he answers it quickly and then says “Now do you have any more stupid questions?” Um, nope. In fact, that’s the last time I’m even going to bother opening my mouth in your class, jackass.
I had a riding instructor when I was more than a beginner but still quite unpolished who never gave me any critique. Her favorite phrase was “that was fine.”
Maybe she didn’t want to hurt my feelings but how can you progress on a (I kid you not) 3 year diet of “That was fine.” Come on! It wasn’t that fine! It was just barely passable and needed a lot of improvement! I would even prompt her with questions like “how can I improve my leg position” or “what could have been better?” Her response: “oh, it’s fine.” Aaaagggggg!
In case you’re wondering why I stuck around 3 years, she was the coach of my team and I wasn’t going to give up the team or the hours in the saddle that came with. I did get lessons elsewhere when finances allowed.
Unfortunately I feel I have to mention my Italian professor. He’s a really sweet guy, he just doesn’t teach. He puts some sentences in Italian up on the board and tells us what they mean. He goes over the work we were supposed to do in our workbooks, and when most of the class hasn’t done their work, he doesn’t really say anything. I think he’s too shy. So we end up sitting there, all sort of staring at each other. Usually only about 4 people show up to class (max). I try my best cos I feel kinda bad for the guy, but I have to admit, the time spent in class is not useful (I would learn more in an hour on my own time), and that’s certainly not a motivating factor to attend. (sigh)
Unfortunately, I couldn’t find an elegant way of disparaging my grad advisor.
([del]stolen[/del] adapted from a Usenet “review” of Mission to Mars by Greg Rea):
Don’t have S as your advisor. He sucks on a scale heretofore unknown to mortal man. His advising crosses beyond the metaphysical plane to reach new transcendental heights of suckfulness. It’s one small suck for man, one giant vacuum cleaner hose up the wazoo for mankind. I disliked him as an advisor.
I went to a Lamaze class taught by a woman who may have been the Lamaziest Lamazer who ever lived, but every other word out of her mouth–literally!-- was either “Um”, “Like”, or “You know”. I shuddered throughout the first hour because I wasn’t brave enough to just walk out, but I never even considered returning. That was torturous.
One did the thing with the notes, except as he read them aloud, he also wrote them out on the board, from which we were supposed to copy them. On about the 2nd or 3rd session, one of us suggested that he just give her the notes so she could photocopy them and save the trouble of everyone copying them longhand. Which he did. Thereafter class attendance mostly consisted of getting there reasonably on time and retrieving a photocopy of his (handwritten, not printed) notes. The really stupid thing about this was that it was a class on HTML. The classroom was provided with a computer set up to project onto a screen; he could have actually typed the code or used a floppy and showed the actual results of various coding changes. This was suggested, but he thought it would be too complicated. :rolleyes: The good part was that when he heard that we would all be reimbursed by our employer for our tuition, based on our grades, he simply gave all of us an ‘A.’
The other was a person who was not a native speaker of English. It was almost impossible to understand what he was saying. It was a class in the C language. Some of us had some prior exposure and could guess a little better than others about some of what he said. As some of you probably know there is a concept in C of a “static” variable. The teacher prepended an “e” sound to the beginning. About 9/10ths of the class heard this as “ecstatic” variables and that was how it appeared in their notes. My friend and I giggled over this and wondered what the opposite of an ecstatic variable was: a morose variable, perhaps?
The worst I ever had was my Crim Law teacher. She was not a native speaker of English, but she had what appeared to be an excellent command of the language – while she had an accent, she had a large vocabulary and was able to express things in subtle fashion. Fine. BUT, there was one problem. Her understanding of spoken English was only so-so. The problem being, since she spoke it so well, if you asked her something you never thought to simplify your own speech or go slowly. But then she’d never understand you. At least once a week she would ask a question about a complex legal issue, someone would give a thoughtful and detailed response, she’d shake her head and say no, and then explain what she’d been looking for by saying the exact same thing in her own words. And often, using the same words the student had! Oh, it was very frustrating.
I had a teacher in an army tech class who would put the word “essentially” in every other sentence. It got to the point that we would keep score; I think the most was around 25 in a 50 minute period. As was customary, the class gave him a small gift at the end of the course - a Zippo engraved with the word “essentially”. He was totally mystified as to why we did that.
A useless computers course that I had to take to graduate.
On the first day of class the teacher split us into groups, assigned us each a chapter and had each group present that chapter in front of the class; it had to be a 45 min presentation. Oh yea the class was only one hour long to begin with. She didn’t teach a single class, just sat at the back and took notes. Oh and she didn’t base the exams on the presentations, so if a group missed something, the entire class was SOL. I didn’t even bother to buy the textbook, (or go to the class for that matter) and still passed.
In high school, college and military schools I’ve had a lot of teachers. From the endless dronings to the word for word note readers to English not a primary language accent barriers.
Several years ago I paid $4700 out of my pocket for an intesive 40 hour a week 12 week technical school. The classroom instructor was excruciating. He was a retired engineer from a different disipline. He didn’t have a clue what the hell he was lecturing on, using somebody else’s notes.
I had to attend the classes or got docked points. It was so bad I started doing scratch off lottery cards while he babbled on. (There is a Bingo type sold in NY state that can take an hour if you take your time and savor them.) We mostly self taught each other from the notes or asked questions later to the lab instructors.
I wrote a scathing three page letter to the director most of the way through the course going on in detail about the poor classroom instruction we were getting. Mostly I was offended I paid a lot of money only to get this level of insruction from this cretin?
I didn’t do it sooner because the director was a petty SOB, and I needed to have the job references and interviews done, and had a job already offerend to me upon completion. Otherwise I feared I would have gone to the bottom of the list.
A year later the instructor was gone, and two after that the program folded, HA! The great joy, I went to the auction and bought some of the equipment.
I once took an undergraduate class in poetry writing. While the professor was crazy about my poems, and gave me an A, the course was nearly unbearable. The professor mostly just read his own poems to the class and asked us to guess what they meant. It was pathetic. He would read a line and then make beckoning gestures in the air with his arms, saying “And this reminds us of… what???” Then the members of the class were expected to read his mind and tell him what the poem reminded him of. Auggh.
:dubious: :rolleyes: