<p>The saying goes, "You have no one to blame but yourself".
The other saying says, "A teacher is only as good as his student" (spin off of "a chain is only as strong as the weakest link").</p>
<p>So my question is: Do you think it's ever a teacher's fault if the student performs poorly?</p>
<p>I've had some really horrendous teachers that make me question their teaching credentials (we were told we'd bought the wrong textbook at the END of the year, ***?)</p>
<p>Not entirely. It’s the students responsibility to get the help they need to succeed. But it’s possible that the teacher’s method of teaching does not fit the student’s learning methods.</p>
<p>Sometimes, yes. I have three specific examples in mind:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>A middle school math teacher who bullied students for their math weaknesses. At least one student left class crying each week. Half of the class failed math that year.</p></li>
<li><p>My data structure course [computer science]. We spent half of the lecture time playing video games, a third on philosophical or sociological discussion, and only a tiny fraction on technical core material. Everyone did well in this class (I’m still not sure what we were graded on…) but many students struggled in the follow-up classes.</p></li>
<li><p>My multivariable calculus class. The professor assigned plug-and-chug exercises for homework and then tested us on our ability to write proofs. Most students had never written a proof in their mathematical life.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>I had a college professor who was super lazy about grading papers. It would take over a month to get even short essays back. This would really hurt us because then we couldn’t know what she was looking for in these papers and what we might be doing wrong. We also never knew how our grades were, so you might think you in the A or high B range but it turns out you’re hardly making a C. It was just a really unpleasant class to be in because the professor seemed like she didn’t care about teaching the class at all.</p>
<p>Yes, I do believe there are times when it’s a teacher’s fault. I took a course at a university (not the one I attend) that was a basic course with no pre-reqs. The prof would throw around terms that one would only know if they had a background in the subject AND were very hard to figure out if you didn’t have that background. When we would ask her to explain, she would get annoyed and talk to us like we were little children. There was no rhyme or reason to the class and there were no real readings (at least not that we were ever quizzed on- they were just there for some “discussions” at the beginning of each class). Everything was based on her lectures which were so disorganized and scattered that no one had any idea what was going on. People would go to her office hours and they were a total waste. I did well in the class, but the class average was terrible. I also had another experience with a Spanish prof at my current U. She only lasted a year (unfortunately, I was unlucky enough to happen to be in one of the 6 classes she taught).</p>
<p>Most times it is the student’s fault. But there ARE definitely some times when it’s the prof.</p>
<p>It isn’t always a teacher’s fault, because there is always at least on that has a student just bum through the class and not do anything all year. But you also have the teachers that will not work with the students to help them succeed in the class…like not getting papers in a timely manner.</p>
<p>Teachers have a lot less to do with student success than many people think. The best teacher in the world is useless in the face of an unreceptive student.</p>
<p>I had a Pre-Calculus professor who assigned even-numbered problems for homework and then never passed them back until after an exam, or sometimes not even at all. He always said he would post the answer key to the even-numbered homework problems and the exams online, but he never did, so we didn’t know why we got something wrong. If you tried to ask for help, he’d skirt around the question and never really answer it. He makes up the scoring on the tests as he goes along–the 1st exam, for example, was worth 150 points. The syllabus mentioned it was only worth 100 points, and the only part of the syllabus that mentioned the professor could change at will was on the page with the class schedule. No one got above a 50% on the 1st exam, not even the few guys in the class who already had a bachelor’s degree and were just taking the course as a refresher (this is at a community college, btw), or the straight A students. His test was just terribly insane and he docked points off if your graphs weren’t perfect. </p>
<p>Needless to say, I dropped that class when I learned the class average was a 50%. There were only 13 people in the class when I dropped, too.</p>
<p>Define “performing poorly.”</p>
<p>If the goal is possession of knowledge or wisdom, than no (unless the teacher physically restrains a student from seeking outside resources), if it is getting a good grade, then yes (the teacher can fail or pass everyone for any reason).</p>
<p>Yes and no. Students need to ask for help, but some teachers totally suck at explaining stuff. Also, if teachers don’t actually teach and goof off all class, and then pull a test, that’s not fair.</p>
<p>
Ha, that would be like the Honors Algebra 2 teacher at my HS. Teacher who actually told kids they were stupid, got mad when they took too long on a problem, mad because they couldn’t finish tests (and she thought she gave them enough time because she could do the whole test in 15 minutes), called them “stupid Americans” all the time (she’s Japanese),etc…Kids don’t do well in that class usually. Kids have cried in and out of class about it.</p>
<p>As a prospective teacher I can safely say with confidence that… it depends, but certainly yes the teacher can have a lot to do with it.</p>
<p>Disagree, Yankees20. I had a dreadful experience with a Graduate physics course where the professor </p>
<p>a) chose a book beyond the level of the (intro) course
b) lectured from a mass of handwritten, barely legible notes whipped past on the overhead
c) assigned the class ALL the problems at the end of each chapter
d) didn’t grade any of the homework until November
e) gave an intractable mid-term and didn’t grade it until Thanksgiving
e) told the class they couldn’t have any notes or equation sheets for the final and then AT THE FINAL said he changed his mind and they could have notes and books. </p>
<p>I ended up taking an incomplete on the day of the final and trying again the following year with someone else. It was the single worst experience I have had with ANY course.</p>
<p>It’s always the teacher’s fault.</p>
<p>possible. not very often, but possible</p>
<p>Yes .</p>
<p>Yes it can be the teacher. Yes it’s up to the student as well to take intiative, but sometimes that isn’t enough. My Econ prof. wasn’t a great teacher. I felt like he was rushing through everything. Instead of teaching us a lot about enough, he wanted to teach a little about a lot. And then there was reviews of this math professor who was (thankfully he’s gone now) unsympathetic and was a horrible teacher. </p>
<p>It sucks because some of these professors suck, but they have tenure, so they’re not going anywhere.</p>
<p>sylvan, I want to reach backwards in time and punch that physics professor for you.</p>
<p>yes, most definitely. My AP Gov teacher would:</p>
<p>A) Give us blatantly biased articles all the time, pretending they weren’t biased at all
B) Force his opinions on the students
C) Claim other students’ opinions were wrong if they didn’t agree with his and his were not opinions, but facts
D) Get through less than half of the material in the textbook
E) Leave the classroom for 10-20 minutes at a time every day
F) Barely mention the AP exam, never telling us what was on it (not even the day before)</p>
<p>This man made my blood boil every time I got to class because he simply would not teach us any of the material and would just blather on about contemporary issues and barely stringing it back to the material we were trying to learn. He was the worst teacher I have ever had.</p>
<p>It can be, but its usually the students fault.</p>
<p>Or… ya know… you could have “ADD” or something…</p>
<p>I was pretty much told when I became a TA that “good teachers give good grades.”</p>