<p>Steaky - Uh, it says Irvine right below my name. Yeah, even rich school districts have poor teachers.</p>
<p>Northstarmom - It's not just one test. This teacher is in general a very poor teacher. He's almost like a college professor, what he lectures about is never on the exam and what's on the exam he's never lectured about. I could see his paranoia at an anonymous letter, but seriously, you have to agree that his own response was very immature. Being qualified doesn't make you good. This reminds me of my AP US history teacher last year. He was similar to this guy except a bit less boring and without such a bad attitude. He taught horridly. The pass rate on the AP Exam was around 50% (thankfully I got a 4). Now you may say, oh, that's rather high, but compared to the pass rate for AP European history when I took it the year before that which was ~88%. That class was taught well, the teacher cared about the students, explained facts in detail. Never did I hear a single complaint about her. And we're not picking on the teacher. The AP Euro teacher was a forty year old diabetic with a husky voice and a mean face. Before entering the class everyone thought she was a b1tch, but after the first day, everyone loved her, she was a great teacher. As for AP Gov we're not even covering material relating to the AP exam. The exam tests on factual information and everything he lectures on is conceptual and totally irrevalent.</p>
<p>And this man has not written any letters of recommendations for us, he in general is not a very helpful teacher. Certainly not nice. Certainly not caring. He just doesn't seem to enjoy his job.</p>
<p>I believe, as a theory, that he's bitter that he didn't go anywhere with his degree. I for one, would be very unhappy to end up teaching high school after going through college and graduate school. I guess he didn't have much of a choice since he didn't go for a Law Degree or an MBA after his degree in Poly Sci... </p>
<p>Maybe he enjoys teaching. But I'm pretty sure it gets stale after ten years. You can only push yourself forward so much saying to yourself, "I love shaping young minds." Especially how the class is when he lectures, completely and utterly bored. I don't have trouble paying attention in any class except his.</p>
<p>I could see how he's offended that nobody cares about his class. Unfortunately it's quite true, a majority of the class is going into Bio and Engineering and have absolutely no interest in the subject.</p>
<p>My AP Physics teacher is a prime example of someone who overcame his bitterness. He graduated with a Masters in Physics, went to work for AMD back when they made chips for planes. The chip they created was 0.5 nanoseconds slower than the competitions, so the competition got the deal. Well, whatever happened, he ended up getting a teaching degree and has taught for the last 17 years. Does he act arrogant with his degree? Not really. He has very difficult tests (this semester I failed 2/3 of them). But regardless of that, everyone loves his class. He uses humor, he talks about the Simpsons, he gives nicknames to all the students. But even with this, he still enforces a strict policy. Homework must be turned in with name, date, period, correct assignment number at the top, two lines between each question. You get ONE thing wrong, like writing 3/24/2005, instead of 3/25/2005 and he gives you a zero on the whole assignment. The tests are ridiculous because he tests us on problems that we've never covered, but are supposed to deduce how to do through our logic. Well, that's better than Gov where we go into a test blind without even basic knowledge to help us draw conclusions. In fact, my AP Gov teacher asked "Why do you care about this class less than Physics?" </p>
<p>Hm. I wonder why.</p>
<p>Well, I'll be going to class in about an hour and half, so I'll tell you guys if he makes any comments. I decided I'm not going to submit the letter, I don't want to screw up and end up getting a D in his class because he gains personal bias. But Starman is going to start an argument in class because the teacher already hates him (literally sleeps the whole period). Heh, this should be interesting.</p>
<p>Anyways, yes we must look at the teacher's perspective, but how about the student's perspective for a change. Is authority always right? Is there really no such thing as a bad teacher? I think not.</p>
<p>Spoonyj - Unlike the teacher, the student has much to lose if he causes any tension to build up between them. The letter was not immature. The teacher had the choice of not putting the letter up for all to see. He instead decided to put it on the door scrawled with his immature messages. </p>
<p>He has no justification for claiming the Anonymous is cowardly if he himself acts cowardly in not confronting the issue at hand.</p>
<p>And we have expressed concerns in class, but all he seems to do is say the reason we do poorly is because we don't care and that there's absolutely nothing wrong with his teaching.</p>