Well, on my iPod and bored in a class with a crappy teacher, so I'm inspired. Describe the worst teacher you've ever had. Not gonna talk about mine cause she's right in front of me.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Worst teacher you've ever had?
- Thread starter iMpathetic
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
I had a college professor curse at me because I asked a question about something I didn't understand, but had managed to memorize well enough to answer a test question.
"What the f- do you mean you don't understand it?"
"What the f- do you mean you don't understand it?"
Sigh. Pay attention. Your teacher is probably crap in your eyes because you never pay attention to what she says. As a teacher, I can't bear students who p@#s around all class, mess up on papers/ exams and then have the audacity to complain on teacher evals. Anyway, unless yours is a class of 100, I'm sure she knows what you're up to anyway and it will reflect in your participation grade...
I've had bad teachers - the worst was probably an uni prof who taught a postmodernism class and spent most of the lecture debating with herself and then changing her mind midway through. Still, I did the reading and could come out having learned a tiny bit... though I had to go through a reeducation program before I could get into grad school
.
The professor I had for property in law school. He spent half the class talking about administrivia and the other half relaying personal anecdotes, which, while amusing, had nothing to do with the law of property.
He was so bad I led a campaign against the next year's students having to take him, and he wound up "retiring." The tough part of that is that he is an absolute delight in a one-on-one conversation or a small group gathering--he is one of the first people I'd invite to a dinner party of "interesting" people. Let us just say that the '60s were not kind to him.
He was so bad I led a campaign against the next year's students having to take him, and he wound up "retiring." The tough part of that is that he is an absolute delight in a one-on-one conversation or a small group gathering--he is one of the first people I'd invite to a dinner party of "interesting" people. Let us just say that the '60s were not kind to him.
I know how you must feel, but believe me, there is such a thing as bad teachers. I've had my share of them. Actually, I believe I've had 5 guys' share of bad teachers. I don't think I could pick a "worst teacher ever", though.
I swear we've done a thread on this topic before, but I can't find it.
Anyway, worst teacher was a college prof. I had who has brilliant in her field, but she couldn't figure out how to teach very advanced concepts to undergraduates who had little or no experience in the field. You could tell she really knew her stuff, but she didn't know how to talk about it with non-experts. And it also didn't help that she talked really fast when she lectured, making it even harder to keep up and take notes.
Anyway, worst teacher was a college prof. I had who has brilliant in her field, but she couldn't figure out how to teach very advanced concepts to undergraduates who had little or no experience in the field. You could tell she really knew her stuff, but she didn't know how to talk about it with non-experts. And it also didn't help that she talked really fast when she lectured, making it even harder to keep up and take notes.
Sigh. Pay attention. Your teacher is probably crap in your eyes because you never pay attention to what she says. As a teacher, I can't bear students who p@#s around all class, mess up on papers/ exams and then have the audacity to complain on teacher evals. Anyway, unless yours is a class of 100, I'm sure she knows what you're up to anyway and it will reflect in your participation grade...
I've had bad teachers - the worst was probably an uni prof who taught a postmodernism class and spent most of the lecture debating with herself and then changing her mind midway through. Still, I did the reading and could come out having learned a tiny bit... though I had to go through a reeducation program before I could get into grad school
First of all, you teachers can't seem to comprehend the fact that you might occasionally be at fault. The only reason why I am pissing around is because the sub, who is senile, I swear, is obsessed with turtles, and she was talking about her turtles. Firstly, turtles have nothing to do with social studies. Secondly, I was actually the person with the highest participation grade in the class.
I am too scared of my normal teacher to not pay attention in class. This is the 8th grade, by the way. Not to mention I currently have a B+ average overall.
Also, I really didn't need another lecture, I've had plenty in my lifetime.
I've had plenty of those professors, and it's worse when they have a strong Indian accent
Not true. Most teachers - at least the ones who care - are quite hard on themselves. A lot harder on themselves than students are on their evals.
Well, it doesn't sound too good, but whatever happened to enjoying the sub whose completely off topic - it used to be a welcome relief. I remember that in classes like that we'd try our damnedest to keep the conversation going until the end of the period. Kids these days!
Wow! With an ipod and wireless etc. I never could have imagined you were that young. Your parents must trust you a lot with tech. that expensive... anyway, go for the A!
Expect plenty more.
Well in the 4th grade I had an old mean teacher and she would always yell at me even if I did not do anything
My torts professor was the same way. She used to work for the UAW and had stories that were incredible. If I remember right, she helped work on Poletown (remember that one?). I can't for the life of me remember what it has to do with torts, but I remember the discussion. Like someone else mentioned, she also had trouble teaching 1st years. She would have been great in a later seminar, but for the large class lecture, it was tough to learn anything. Really nice lady though. Not a bad teacher - just not right for the class.
But, my worst professor may have been a lady named Ms. Quinn (or was it Quint). I just remember that I had her for my last semester of English at Blair HS. I detested that woman, and still do. Right below (maybe above, depending on the margin of error) her was Ms. Walker. The purple haired demon I had at Washington Grove Elementary for sixth grade. Utterly useless waste of cellular activity. And just because I'm in the mood, I'll throw in a third - Ms. Sandoval, my Chem teacher at Blair. Again useless, deceptive, and utterly useless. As difficult as it was to understand the accent of the other chem teacher, I preferred dealing with him for later chem questions.
Just because I can, I had the above teachers in 1997, 1990-1991, and 1994 respectively. Please note that the above are only my opinions and can in no way be construed as, and do note present any, statements of fact. The only exception are the dates and schools where the named teachers taught, which can be defended as absolute truth.
Well, the fact that I hated them is true too.
Not true. Most teachers - at least the ones who care - are quite hard on themselves. A lot harder on themselves than students are on their evals.
Well, it doesn't sound too good, but whatever happened to enjoying the sub whose completely off topic - it used to be a welcome relief. I remember that in classes like that we'd try our damnedest to keep the conversation going until the end of the period. Kids these days!
Wow! With an ipod and wireless etc. I never could have imagined you were that young. Your parents must trust you a lot with tech. that expensive... anyway, go for the A!
Expect plenty more.
I am really sorry, I was b*tching too much in that post. Just got home from school and with the exception of social studies
D), it's been a reeeeaaaallly long day.Seriously, though, my real social studies teacher is evil. In 1995, she gave her entire class detention- ON THE FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL.
She also wears a wig, and will give you -5 points if you staple your paper in the wrong direction.
EDIT: Oh yeah, "that tech" is how I'm saving up for a car and kewl stuff. We managed to keep the conversation going for 25 minutes. We talked about things like shell patterns and why the turtle food companies were out to get her.
My Algebra II teacher last year.
Couldn't control a classroom of honors students. Couldn't hold our attention, people would just play pranks on her. Additionally she frequently messed up with equations and people always had to correct her. Overall it was questionable if she knew what she was teaching, and it was obvious she had no classroom management skills.
She also got into this cycle where we'd spend the entire class going over homework, and then she wouldn't have time to teach the lesson. She would assign new homework that she had not yet taught. Then since no one understood the homework we would again spend the entire class correcting it and wouldn't be able to learn what we were supposed to that day. It sucked. So did the book, it was this reprinted book from like the 80's that was not good at explaining things at all.
Couldn't control a classroom of honors students. Couldn't hold our attention, people would just play pranks on her. Additionally she frequently messed up with equations and people always had to correct her. Overall it was questionable if she knew what she was teaching, and it was obvious she had no classroom management skills.
She also got into this cycle where we'd spend the entire class going over homework, and then she wouldn't have time to teach the lesson. She would assign new homework that she had not yet taught. Then since no one understood the homework we would again spend the entire class correcting it and wouldn't be able to learn what we were supposed to that day. It sucked. So did the book, it was this reprinted book from like the 80's that was not good at explaining things at all.
The ones on my "hit list":
8th grade science: He claimed the Moon was 3x farther away than the Sun, and a kilometer was longer than a mile. Refused to admit he was wrong.
10th grade English: A sexist witch with a capital "B" who wouldn't give any male an A on anything that was qualitative (like essays), but of course had to on quantitative stuff (like vocab quizzes). She accused me of plagiarism in an in-class essay (even though mine was nothing like anyone else's) because she said I was too stupid to come up with the idea on my own (yes, she called me stupid). She also, at the end of the year, refused to recommend me for honors English for the next year because, "You're too stupid to do well."
11th grade math: Was hired for her soccer coaching "skills" rather than math skills - her room had more soccer stuff than math. I wish I could put down the name I gave her but that would give away her actual name. She was just evil, and she hated me (and most students acknowledged that while I would usually be the first to hate a teacher, she actually started the hate-fest in this case).
There's another teacher, but he was never mine, I just had to TA for him two years ago for the intro astro classes. He was incredibly unorganized, would not accept responsibility (as in sent out e-mails about an upcoming lab saying that it's not his responsibility to write it ... um, even though he's the teacher? WTF), gave us untested re-written labs the day before we were supposed to teach them and they were full of spelling and grammar mistakes, along with just plain ol' wrong "facts" because he had an undergraduate journalism major writing them. I could go on about this guy, but you get the idea.
8th grade science: He claimed the Moon was 3x farther away than the Sun, and a kilometer was longer than a mile. Refused to admit he was wrong.
10th grade English: A sexist witch with a capital "B" who wouldn't give any male an A on anything that was qualitative (like essays), but of course had to on quantitative stuff (like vocab quizzes). She accused me of plagiarism in an in-class essay (even though mine was nothing like anyone else's) because she said I was too stupid to come up with the idea on my own (yes, she called me stupid). She also, at the end of the year, refused to recommend me for honors English for the next year because, "You're too stupid to do well."
11th grade math: Was hired for her soccer coaching "skills" rather than math skills - her room had more soccer stuff than math. I wish I could put down the name I gave her but that would give away her actual name. She was just evil, and she hated me (and most students acknowledged that while I would usually be the first to hate a teacher, she actually started the hate-fest in this case).
There's another teacher, but he was never mine, I just had to TA for him two years ago for the intro astro classes. He was incredibly unorganized, would not accept responsibility (as in sent out e-mails about an upcoming lab saying that it's not his responsibility to write it ... um, even though he's the teacher? WTF), gave us untested re-written labs the day before we were supposed to teach them and they were full of spelling and grammar mistakes, along with just plain ol' wrong "facts" because he had an undergraduate journalism major writing them. I could go on about this guy, but you get the idea.
Hmm...I've liked all of my college teachers thus far, although I have a teacher in an online class who stated in the syllabus that we're not to use the word "alot/a lot" in our assignments.
Well, "alot" is not a word. "Allot" is, and "a lot" is correct if almost always vague. The teacher may just be trying to prevent you from ever using "alot" as a word, and to encourage you to be more precise by banning "a lot." Just a thought!
had a teacher who anytime you disagreed with her point of view, rather than defend hers would just shrug you off and ignore your points.
mind you this was for a disscussion/lit class. it was bad.
also if you didn't get creative enough with your projects you got worse marks than someone who was more creative, but made no sense.
mind you this was for a disscussion/lit class. it was bad.
also if you didn't get creative enough with your projects you got worse marks than someone who was more creative, but made no sense.
I had a 7th grade science teacher who would teach every class by having us take turns reading a paragraph from the text book. That was it. No chalk talk, no experiments, just taking turns reading. The worst, most boring class ever.
In college most profs knew their stuff but the bad ones were the ones with poor people skills, who would be rude or argue over nothing and just seemed hostile towards students in general. I did have a couple of grad student assistants who seemed to have little idea what they were doing, though.
In college most profs knew their stuff but the bad ones were the ones with poor people skills, who would be rude or argue over nothing and just seemed hostile towards students in general. I did have a couple of grad student assistants who seemed to have little idea what they were doing, though.
My professor for Calc III and Differential Equations... He's this old guy who just drones on and on and continually writes equations on the board without pausing or giving examples, so that by the end the board is a sea of variables.
Also the way he talked reminded me very strongly of that professor in Harry Potter (Binns? something like that) who was a ghost and had died like 20 years previously.
Plus it doesn't help that those two classes were the two lowest grades I've received in my two years here...
Also the way he talked reminded me very strongly of that professor in Harry Potter (Binns? something like that) who was a ghost and had died like 20 years previously.
Plus it doesn't help that those two classes were the two lowest grades I've received in my two years here...
Man, teacher horror stories... I remember My physics teacher in about 9th grade accused me of 'consistently not turning in' my homework. Of course, I did. One day he pulled me out of math or english or something like that and started yelling, yes yelling at me. but me being the fearless up-yours teen that i was, shouted back and caused a big school incident that the head had to 'investigate'. oddly, all that homework that i never did suddenly showed up - within hours. what a pr$#k!
Yeah, i know some teachers who like to be really anal with their students because they think it will 'prepare them for the real world'. personally, i think that's a load of bs - it's usually teachers who've never been in the 'real world' who are like that... you know, the ones who went school-college-teaching... wait till they see the slack offs in the private sector! ... some also do it as a way of 'maintaining control' but i figure if you can't interest enough students to 'maintain control' then you aren't doing something right...
To op: no worries. i was just messing about anyway.
Yeah, i know some teachers who like to be really anal with their students because they think it will 'prepare them for the real world'. personally, i think that's a load of bs - it's usually teachers who've never been in the 'real world' who are like that... you know, the ones who went school-college-teaching... wait till they see the slack offs in the private sector! ... some also do it as a way of 'maintaining control' but i figure if you can't interest enough students to 'maintain control' then you aren't doing something right...
To op: no worries. i was just messing about anyway.
Man, teacher horror stories... I remember My physics teacher in about 9th grade accused me of 'consistently not turning in' my homework. Of course, I did. One day he pulled me out of math or english or something like that and started yelling, yes yelling at me. but me being the fearless up-yours teen that i was, shouted back and caused a big school incident that the head had to 'investigate'. oddly, all that homework that i never did suddenly showed up - within hours. what a pr$#k!
Yeah, i know some teachers who like to be really anal with their students because they think it will 'prepare them for the real world'. personally, i think that's a load of bs - it's usually teachers who've never been in the 'real world' who are like that... you know, the ones who went school-college-teaching... wait till they see the slack offs in the private sector! ... some also do it as a way of 'maintaining control' but i figure if you can't interest enough students to 'maintain control' then you aren't doing something right...
To op: no worries. i was just messing about anyway.
Well, as the OP, I can say that that is wonderful. What do you teach, and at what kind of school? Age range?
Not a teacher but a guidance counselor was the worst I ever ran into.
In my junior year of high school, I was interested in finding out more about pre-med and wanting some info on medical schools in Michigan and Connecticut. I stood 10th in my class of 310 students at the time.
The guidance counselor, a math teacher and sports coach, told me that becoming a doctor was a very long row to hoe, and why not "just" become a nurse because then when I got married and had babies I would not have "wasted" as much time on my education. He also said since I showed talent for art, why not maybe "just" do that, as it wouldn't take up a "serious" student's place at a university that offered pre-medical studies.
Seriously wacked, that guy!!! In a couple of ill-chosen sentences, he managed to insult aspiring women, the teachers who had helped me get to where I had got as I stood before him that day, the registered nurses who cover the *sses of doctors every day all over the planet, the whole field of art studies, the few universities that then made it a point to offer a few places to female physicians-to-be, and of course me personally. Not bad for a hack wannabe football coach and so-so algebra teacher.
Of course that was in the 1950s when it was still apparently okay to put down women just for being women. Today if some guidance counselor said something like that to my great-niece, she'd probably kickbox him into a nice long nap. My grandma was great back then, she told me never mind that guy and I could do anything I wanted to do if I put my mind to it, and she then helped me out a lot with the tuition for my college education.
Anyway I found something more fun to do: software engineering. See in that scenario when your patients get real cranky, you don't have to polish up your bedside manners; you can just unplug the so-and-sos.
In my junior year of high school, I was interested in finding out more about pre-med and wanting some info on medical schools in Michigan and Connecticut. I stood 10th in my class of 310 students at the time.
The guidance counselor, a math teacher and sports coach, told me that becoming a doctor was a very long row to hoe, and why not "just" become a nurse because then when I got married and had babies I would not have "wasted" as much time on my education. He also said since I showed talent for art, why not maybe "just" do that, as it wouldn't take up a "serious" student's place at a university that offered pre-medical studies.
Seriously wacked, that guy!!! In a couple of ill-chosen sentences, he managed to insult aspiring women, the teachers who had helped me get to where I had got as I stood before him that day, the registered nurses who cover the *sses of doctors every day all over the planet, the whole field of art studies, the few universities that then made it a point to offer a few places to female physicians-to-be, and of course me personally. Not bad for a hack wannabe football coach and so-so algebra teacher.
Of course that was in the 1950s when it was still apparently okay to put down women just for being women. Today if some guidance counselor said something like that to my great-niece, she'd probably kickbox him into a nice long nap. My grandma was great back then, she told me never mind that guy and I could do anything I wanted to do if I put my mind to it, and she then helped me out a lot with the tuition for my college education.
Anyway I found something more fun to do: software engineering. See in that scenario when your patients get real cranky, you don't have to polish up your bedside manners; you can just unplug the so-and-sos.
My guidance counselor told me that I didn't have to pay to have my ACT nor SAT scores sent out to colleges, that they were on my school transcript and that everyone was fine with that.
February rolls around and I get a letter from Cornell saying that they never received my test scores, they don't accept them on transcripts, and that they'd still consider my application but it would be without test scores. Needless to say, I didn't get in.
The instructor I had for both Database Management and Computing Internals/Operating Systems. Horrible, horrible teacher. He was a nice guy and he knew his stuff (he was in the industry for quite a long time and had the experience) he just did not have teaching abilities whatsoever. He couldn't get a point across if his life depended on it. Test questions would be very vague and poorly written, and there would be stuff on the test that we barely covered in class and in the book. And he was generally unwilling to help students.
I did get an A in both of those classes though. I got the A in Database because I had years of experience with MySQL (the class was Oracle, and all SQL is very similar) so even without his help, I did fine, and I got an A in Internals because of a huge curve on the final exam. So I don't have much to complain about myself, but he's certainly one of the worst I can think of.
I had a couple other ones I would consider the worst, but that's solely due to the fact they barely spoke English. I couldn't actually understand them enough to rate their actual teaching abilities. I've got nothing against foreign professors, but if you're going to be teaching at an American university with huge numbers of students who speak English, then learn the freaking language.
I did get an A in both of those classes though. I got the A in Database because I had years of experience with MySQL (the class was Oracle, and all SQL is very similar) so even without his help, I did fine, and I got an A in Internals because of a huge curve on the final exam. So I don't have much to complain about myself, but he's certainly one of the worst I can think of.
I had a couple other ones I would consider the worst, but that's solely due to the fact they barely spoke English. I couldn't actually understand them enough to rate their actual teaching abilities. I've got nothing against foreign professors, but if you're going to be teaching at an American university with huge numbers of students who speak English, then learn the freaking language.