Wow. Never have I been so astonished at a professor. Not good astonished, very very bad astonished. First, a little background.
So Aaron's school offers a Masters in Public Health along with the DMD. Aaron was excited to start this Masters, since it would potentially give him a better starting salary along with some other benefits. It seemed like it wouldn't be too much additional work: all he has to do is write one 2-page paper a week along with participating in an online discussion. Little did he know that the teacher would be a man who seems to have come from the Underworld itself. Because that's where he is dragging his students.
I really can't believe this guy. He tells the students what he wants, very unclearly. The students spend hours trying to write a good paper, sticking to all the rules of APA format, which the teacher wants. The students have the opportunity to turn in the paper a couple days early for his critique, but that is pretty difficult to do when you already have a TON of homework.
So Aaron wrote a good paper, in APA format, and turned it in on Sunday night just before midnight, the deadline. The next morning, bright and early, the teacher walks in, the papers already graded. That was pretty quick to grade those papers! How closely did he really look at them? He has marked half of the class's papers down to a D level because they apparently didn't give him what he wanted, although he never really told them. But if you were so smart as to turn in your paper early, even if you wrote a terrible paper, he will give you a good grade because he probably doesn't even look at it again.
I can't even describe all the unfair things this teacher does. He wrote on Aaron's paper that he 'was very disappointed' in his paper and doesn't think Aaron can begin to gain a basic understanding of Public Health. But Aaron spend HOURS researching and writing his paper and had me go over it with him several times to make sure everything worked. The teacher also singled out one of Aarons cited references as false, but it was not, since it was cited clearly, but the teacher didn't want to bother to look it up. And he has his own understanding of APA style, since he marks students down for that, even if they follow the style guides to a T.
He loves to pull out these insulting phrases that make it seem like you are the only stupid person in the whole class, such as saying, "Why are you the only person who didn't understand this assignment?" But when half the class failed their paper, that clearly isn't true. This guy did this to about 30% of Aaron's class, A students who are now failing his class. Apparently he is so hated among his students that he has had several death threats in the past, and for awhile stopped appearing publicly. Now I understand why.
Lessons learned from this:
Turn in the paper on the optional early due date and you will get a good grade, even if your paper is terrible.
8 comments:
heidi! you have an etsy shop! how exciting!
I'm so sorry. I had a teacher like this, well maybe not this bad. He'd call me into his office and tell me to drop out of the degree program, like on more than one occasion. Luckily nobody asks for your grades in the 'real world'. I'll be thinking of you guys this semester though.
Oooohh. That makes me mad and I wasn't even there. Any paper written by Aaron and proofread by you would never deserve a "very disappointed". What a jerk.
How insulting.. seriously. It insults both of you because you proof read and he wrote it. I hate teachers I think the old ones are just to bitter to retire and decide to take it out on students. I'm sorry... that's so frustrating.
Aaron should bring an audio recorder to class and shed some light to the administration about what is actually going on in that classroom.
I love the tape recorder idea. I hate when teachers like this are allowed to mess with people's futures like that all to maintain their power fix! I hope playing the game works out- sometimes that's all you can do.
Your story made me angry. Nothing worse than when people abuse their power. As I recall, isn't a teacher's job...to teach? If you're giving all your students bad grades, doesn't that mean you're failing as a teacher?
The only problem w/ the tape recorder idea is that I think legally you have to have someone's permission to record them and then use it again...so this guy would most likely make it sound a lot better knowing he was being recorded. However, maybe that would still be a good thing- even if he's being fake, his fake self is better than his real (jerk) self.
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