But when we have a quiz or test, she turns into fucking Big Brother. In this tiny little classroom in the corner of IRC, she makes us moves all the desks around so that no one is sitting next to someone else, makes everyone put their bags and coats in the front of the class, has eleven different versions of the test, and scans the room while everyone is taking it like she is standing in a lookout tower in Attica with a semi-automatic in her hand.
Last Friday we took our first test, and surprise surprise, it was one of the hardest tests I've taken in a long time. Why is it that all the teachers who act like they don't give a fuck always have the hardest tests? Anyway, so the test was much harder than she said it would be, blah blah blah. We come in Monday, and she goes into this tirade about how everyone did very poorly, and how we all need to study more than the night before, and how she refuses to 'dumb' the class down just so people will do good.
This made me snap. She asked the class before we were done for the day if anyone had any suggestions on how the class could be improved to e-mail her. During the whole class period, I was hatching a plan to deal with this lady, because I was sick of her thinking she was some superstar educator when in reality her role was to read us lecture notes.
I went back to my room, made up a fake e-mail address on Yahoo!, and launched into what ended up to be a two page stanza on what was actually going on in the class. I kept it civil, but I called her out on not making up the PowerPoint or test questions on her own and just taking them from the book publisher, on the fact she just reads the notes to us without really giving us anything to supplement it, and how she acted like she didn't even care when she was in class. It was anonymous for the fact that I don't think a teacher can stay objective towards a student when a student has voiced such opinions. I don't feel like having this lady be on my ass for the next two months. I hesitated to send it, but then finally built up the courage and clicked the Send button.
Today was the first day of class since I sent it in.
She came in, thanked everyone for sending in suggestions, and then talked about how she got an anonymous e-mail.
"In twenty-three years of teaching, I have never had anything like this happen before. It really creeped me out. "
But you know what? Right after she got done talking about it, she announced she was going to restructure how our tests were given (now we're having a "test/quiz" every few chapters instead of some gargantuan test every month), and also went through the notes today a lot less rushed, explaining the theories and concepts fully.
I guess it pays to have a big mouth every once in a while.
Go over the notes? Nah, I don't feel like it, just read your textbook.
I'm going to talk about the piece of apple skin caught in my teeth instead.
Now, it was a Thursday, and I was eating a Granny Smith...
No comments:
Post a Comment