Apologies if this isnt completely college related, but I am a Freshman this year and my World History teacher has been very bad at teaching and even attending class. For this reason, my grades have flunked in his class and I solely blame the teacher on this one. Obviously he wont recommend me to go to honors if my grades aren’t worthy of it. If the supervisor and the board of education are responsible for placements, can I go complain to them about this situation and maybe they can put me in observation or something like that. Anyone else with this experience?
Wait, so every kid he teaches is failing?
There was an appeal process at my D’s HS but it involved lengthy placement tests and LORs from other teachers in related coursework. For history, that would have been the recommendation from the english teacher.
I have a word of unsolicited advice - your academic career is going to be dotted with subpar teachers, even at the college level. It’s YOUR job to figure out how to succeed in each and everyone of your classes, regardless of the teacher/professor. As soon as you start struggling, you need to find extra help.
“Solely blaming the teacher” is simply not an excuse that is going to fly anywhere and I would highly doubt that will work with your board of education.
Sit down and figure out what you could have done differently in this class, how you will proceed if you struggle again in another course, and take the non honors version of history next year. If you can ace it, then move on to honors or AP junior year.
Trust me, the teacher is the root of the problem. Many of the students in my class agree with me on this aswell. Im not saying it as an excuse, im saying it as one of the reasons I didnt do well in the class. It seemed like he didnt even know what he was teaching. I hope the board of education complies.
You need to discuss this with your HS guidance counselor as the policy in every HS is different. That said, complaining about a teacher is unlikely to get you moved into honors.
In another thread http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/2145166-not-doing-so-great-on-my-freshman-year.html#latest you said “I recently moved to a new highschool and have had a lot of personal problems that have been dragging me down, and as a result I am doing very poorly in my Freshman year in all CP classes…” I suggest you follow the advice on that thread and focus on handling your personal issues and improving your HS performance – you don’t need to get into a history honors class to do that.
Unless you are being melodramatic, flunking means F. There is no way in god’s green earth that any appeal for a student with a F will result in the student being bumped up into an honors class.
in your other thread you say that you have had a lot of “personal problems”. That may be the reason for your poor performance and not your teacher.
Let’s assume you’re right. He’s a horrible teacher. Every kid in the class is failing. He’s never even in class.
Then: a) Administration is aware. They know what his attendance is. They’ve seen his grades and know he’s failing every kid he teaches. He’s been observed multiple times this year. This is obviously his first and last year-- that sort of teacher doesn’t get a second chance.
b) What are you going to do about your grade? It’s history. World History. There’s a textbook. The majority of questions on the tests are facts. You can absolutely teach yourself a good amount of the material, even if some of the nuances escape you. It’s May-- what have you done since September to master the material in this course?
I’m not pretending that all teachers are good teachers, or that teaching History or anything else well is easy. But at the same time, at the end of the day your grade is your problem. If the quality of the teaching isn’t making that easy for you, then I sincerely sympathize.
But you’re asking to be bumped up to honors. Pretty much the definition of an honors kid is one who is not only bright but one who goes the extra mile. If you’ve been pulling F’s for 9 months, you don’t appear to be one of those honors kids.
My kid tries telling me the math teacher is horrible etc. I tell her okay so rather than complain how can you still do well. Personally I like the teacher but I agree the current teaching method the school is using is not a good fit for my daughter. That doesn’t mean it is an excuse not to do well. Most of the time they are given a packet of work with one or two examples and can work as a group. The teacher doesn’t do things the old way of standing at the blackboard and writing examples step by step (may be old fashioned but would work better for my daughter).
My daughter has done a mix of things to help. For instance she is part of a group chat that works together to answer occasional harder homework problems (no idea if it helps I’ve never seen the chat), talks to friends in the same math class other periods or have other teachers etc. My daughter knows she can go to free after school help though she refuses. She knows she can look up similar math problems on things like khan academy, try to redo an example problem to see if it helps etc. She isn’t the top student but does well enough to stay in honors and managed to get a 100 on the midterm even with her horrible teacher.
I’m not sure who the supervisor is. If it is the math department leader they probably go by the teacher unless they can verify an true issue. If it is the principal at least here they don’t get involved with grades (unless it is an issue of gross misconduct vs struggling student). The school committee would also not have any involvement in student placement.
Also if you actually flunked you may need to retake the class you are in now in order to graduate. Talk to your guidance counselor.
If it is the teacher, the school will not let this continue since their various ratings will go down if students aren’t learning and able to move forward. If it is your adjustment, get help and see what you need to do over the summer to keep from losing ground.