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u/MildlyAgitatedBidoof asked:
What are some red flags for teachers that scream "drop this class immediately?"
Here were some of those answers.
Insensitivity
GiphyOver the winter break of my freshman year I was diagnosed with a degenerative bone disease in my knees which meant I had to use crutches for a while (then eventually a wheelchair for a time).
I was late to my philosophy 101 class (due to adjusting to my newfound limitations). I apologized for my tardiness and tried to find my seat without making a fuss.
As I was making my way across the classroom my philosophy teacher remarked "everyone, let's just patiently wait for the cripple here to get to his seat."
It's possible she had believed I was one of several skiing injuries that the student body had incurred over winter break, but either way after that first day I never came back to that class.
Unrelated Information
I had a lecturer that did that but it was compounded by the fact that she would have a whole page of text appear on the page letter by letter, with each letter accompanied by either the typewriter or laser sound effect.
At the end of each slide:
"So you can see by that example that clearly what was required was this:"
*click
Pew-pew-pew-pew-pew-pew-pew-pew etc for about 2-3 minutes of everyone just waiting for the pew-pew-pew-ing to conclude so the lecture could resume.
Also, for no apparent reason, she interrupted her own lectures about 3 times to inform us that if you take the glass plate out of the microwave you can cram the whole microwave full of hot dogs wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling and they will all cook just fine.
1: No they won't
2: The course was something to do with computers, and was not hot-dog/microwave related.
Plugging Your Own Materials
"These books are required for the class. I wasn't able to get the revision into the bookstore in time, so the only place you can get them is from me directly or from my website. I will warn you, if you don't buy the books you won't get the login information to be able to take the final, which is 90% of your grade."
"Oh, and no, I can't accept financial aid for them, but it's only $250 so it's not a big deal."
Never seen an entire class get up 5 minutes in and leave before.
Excuses
I had a professor that in hindsight I really should have dropped. It was a Western Civilization History class, and the first day the entirety of the class he spent talking about how he missed his old job teaching in Europe because "American students are more lazy and incapable of getting as high of grades."
Then he showed intro YouTube videos from his personal laptop hooked to a projector and all of the "Recommend" videos all had titles like "grinding with thong", "sexy college babe grinding", etc.
I thought he was just eccentric, but the guy was easily the worst teacher I ever had. He would expect you to totally memorize all the chapters-- he would quiz on material that didn't matter for concepts. (Ie: What was the name of Caesar's second cousin?)
When the information would be found in a huge family tree. The only students in the class with A's were women, and he would grade their quizzes differently and be MUCH more lenient. (The students compared quiz results.)
Someone in class called him out and he said that he was tired of teaching Americans and doesn't get paid enough. (Literally)
GPA Cuts For Their Ego
GiphyBack when I started college, I got straight A+s in a class, but when I went to check on my overall grade, I had a B+, found it odd and went to question my teacher about it, he said that he dropped down my grade because the class was a bit of a pain in the ass (he didn't use those exact words, but thats what he meant)
Then I questioned him again about my posture, asking if I did anything wrong, or disturbed class or whatever, he promptly said I didn't and that I was a great student, which made me ask again "Why is grade lower then", he told the same excuse from above, then I asked if he was planning on changing my grade at all, since I had only As, and he promply said he wasn't going to change.
Fast forward a few days, I ended up filing a complaint about him and his method of grading students, and the college made him change my grade. After that he approached me and said something like "Hey u/Phorcyss you didn't have to file a complaint about me, I was gonna fix your grade" yada yada.
Just Barely Passed
I've had teachers that I just simply couldn't understand due to a language barrier and in hindsight I should have dropped immediately. I learned that basically if you can't understand what the teacher is saying, be prepared to teach yourself a lot of the class.
I had an accounting teacher one time who was Chinese and I remember sitting in that class on the first day scratching my head because I had no idea what she was saying. I looked around and a lot of the other people had the same look on their faces.
The next week I showed up to class and what was once a classroom of about 40 people was now about 12. I should have known right there to drop, but I didn't.
I stuck it out and a few weeks go by and it didn't get any better. I got my first test back and completely bombed it. I told myself right then that I was going to have to teach myself the material and that coming to class was pointless.
So I taught myself accounting by using the textbook. Since I didn't go to class I missed all of her pop-quizzes but just told myself I'll make it up on the tests. I only showed up for tests and the final and lo and behold, I passed the class.
Not Thanking You
My main homeroom teacher/English history teacher/etc in middle school constantly returned my homework for 0 credit, unless and until I re-wrote everything to her standards of penmanship. I had wavy cursive, but not illegible writing, and also WTF mrs Eisner??
She once told me, "Someday when you're grown up you'll thank me for this."
And I thought, no I won't, you *ss.
Am now grown up. Still think she was an *ss.
There was this tiny little teacher's aide in my class, Carla. She was really quiet and nice and was just as bullied by the teacher as we were.
Right after college, I was teaching art classes and running field trips at a children's museum. Carla came in as a teacher with her own class of students, and we recognized each other and had a happy minute catching up.
I sort of roundabout brought up Eisner, not wanting to be impolite, and Carla goes "Oh! She was such a b*tch!" Yes, yes she was. Damn that was validating.
Seems Defensive But Ok
A prof who is clearly off his meds.
Over the course of my one month in the class, he was constantly rude and unbelievably condescending to literally everyone.
Example: We were on a section talking about multiple sclerosis and how its signals misfire from the brain. A student said "my cousin has MS and says this is how he was told what was happening. Is that correct?".
Prof gets red in the face and yells "I DON'T CARE ABOUT YOUR COUSIN WITH MS!" and proceeds to rant about how interrupting him with stupid questions is a waste of his time. He never answered the question.
During the second week, less that half the class showed up (or a noticeable chunk). He yelled at us that DID show up about how disrespectful it was, then said we would have to learn this section on our own and that we would be heavily tested on it, then stormed out of class. There was no participation mark in the class.
Also, he stated at the beginning of the semester that more that 50% of students dropped his course. Our grades consisted of a 40% midterm and a 60% final.
I took the midterm before dropping the class. It was the hardest test i have ever taken in my life. He expected us to answer questions that we hadn't been taught.
When confronted, he said "you should always be applying the course material to future study". Class average on that was 15%. Highest mark was 68%. Next highest was 32%.
He doesn't scale.Want to complain? Talk to the head of the department. SURPRISE! He is head of the department. HotD can only be held for 2 year. He managed to hold it for 4 due to a loophole or something (no department head wanted to upset him probably).
Yes, he had been required by the university to take meds to keep his job. I don't think he ever actually took them.
Well, Maybe Teach Instead
When I was 18 I took a Beauty Therapy and Science class. One of the units we had was business studies, I had previously sat an A Level in business so I still had notes and books left over.
We didn't have the usual business teacher because she was signed off sick (Cancer I believe) so instead of getting a qualified teacher in, the department bought in a beauty salon manager. Knew nothing about teaching but thought she knew everything about business.
First class we have, she's doing the "Introduce yourself" thing, then she asks "Who in this class is a Leo?" I raise my hand and its only me .... "Oh because in my star signs I ALWAYS clash with Leos. Sorry". Ok so we have a crazy b*tch, the class is sat in a stunned silence as I simply say "Ok cool"
The time comes to write the assignment for the class and me being savvy I used my old business class notes and books and hand it in with the biggest smile on my face.
Results day. Everyone passes with high marks all except me. She has me up in front of my head tutor for "Plagiarism" and "She's clearly copied and pasted all of this from the internet" my head tutor explained that I "has sat a A-level in business so she should know what she's talking about"
My head tutor re-marked my paper and passed it with a high merit. I later told her about what was said, regarding the star signs and how I felt attacked due to some insignificant fact about my birth sign.
Next lesson she announces she's "Leaving due to my teaching methods being questioned and having a complaint" whilst glaring at me, the rest of the class was relieved.
[username deleted]
Segregation And Racism
GiphyIf they segregate students
I had an American history class where on the first day the teacher told everyone that no one was to sit in the furthest left row of seats.
Those seats were reserved for the what she called idiots. Idiots were people who arrived late for class.
My class before this ended five minutes before this class did and was on the other side of campus. I took the safe route and dropped the class.
This was before the school made it a rule that you had to have ten minutes between classes, and the professor was an adjunct professor.
On an unrelated note I had an English teacher at this same school that thought when someone had a number on the back window of their car, a number the dmv makes you put there due to some issue with your registration, it meant they were bad drivers and essentially on notice.
She thought this because she said she had only ever seen Asian drivers with them. The girl who explained what it actually meant knew because she had had one, and was also Asian.
That last teacher I know for a fact no longer works as a teacher.
Mental Health
I had some issues with my schedule and wasn't registered for a particular course on the first day of class, so I registered and attended on the second day.
He had already paired up the class into groups of 3-4 on day 1 for a project that would span the entire course and count for a large part of our grade.
When I asked if I could be joined into a smaller group he told me no, that I could do the work solo for the semester. I was peeved, but needed that course as a prerequisite for something I needed next semester so I silently fumed.
After week 2 I had "failed" two reports because he just didn't like what I wrote. Not that the reasoning, research, or writing was unsound- he just didn't like the subject so he gave me failing grades.
I dropped the class, took it with another teacher the next semester, and graduated a semester late because of it.
I don't regret it. He was a horrible teacher and I'm sure my mental health would have suffered if I had continued in his class.
Flee
"We'll be doing 3 group projects this semester. I will assign the group and it will be the same group for all 3 projects." NOPE.
Call A Doctor
I had a sociology class where during the introductory lecture the professor went on a tangent about how since she has a doctorate if she was ever on a plane and someone asked "is there a doctor on board" she would say she was a doctor.
If you didn't call her "Dr." she would ignore you. She stated that holding a doctorate in sociology should carry the same clout as being an MD.
No disrespect to sociologists or anyone with a PhD but those are not the same things. She went on other rants about how nobody has ever gotten a 4.0 in her class and she was proud of it.
It was the worst class I've ever taken. She was just an insecure nutcase with a PhD on a power trip. I barely passed. Oh and the course text was of course her own book.
Up?
GiphySaw a course at my college called "Digital Media and American Culture." Sounds neat, I thought, I'll go to a lecture during the shopping period.
The professor is 10 minutes late, an 80-year-old man, who gets up and literally asks a student in the front to tell him how many Facebook friends she has and then "how many REAL friends do you have?!"
Was flabbergasted when he asked if anyone in the classroom had read "1984" and most of the class raised their hands. He was 100% convinced that millennials never pick up books anymore.
Yeah, no.
Christ. Was the class held on his lawn, and was he late because he had to yell at a cloud?
I once had a professor say "you get 2 absences this semester. More than 2 and you fail. It doesn't matter what the excuse is."
Sorry, with older relatives who were sick and dying... and not being a psychic myself to know whether or not I'd get sick or if I'd forget to set an alarm, or any number of unforeseeable things... that level of rigidity and unwillingness to compromise isn't worth it.
Had a class where we were allowed three absences. I got bronchitis and used them up about mid way through the semester but towards the end of the semester I got a concussion from passing out during an asthma attack and I wasn't allowed to look at screens, read, listen to music, draw, exercise (this included my 1.5mile walk to campus), or think too hard for a week and a half.
When I was able to go back to class, I brought him the paperwork from the hospital but he just told me to "read the syllabus" and wouldn't even look at my medical papers saying that i wasn't allowed to go to class.
My grade went from an A+ to a B-. And the thing was, it was a lecture hall with 200 students so it's not like there was any group participation or anything. And it was a 100 level class mostly for freshman.
I'll Stay In Bed Thanks
Professor was semi-retired. One of his conditions for coming out of full retirement was all his courses had to be done by 9AM so he could still enjoy his day.
No one passed his 7AM advanced calculus classes...
This is where the "office" part of office hours applies.
Doesn't speak clear English and doesn't hold office hours. (This is for a University in USA)
PS: Holding office hours but never being there doesn't help anyone. By appointment only... but having zero availability also doesn't help anyone.
Hey, you were warned.
GiphyI had a biology class with a professor who wore a fanny pack and had stains on his shirt. On the first day, he said that the class would require at least 4 hours of studying every day.