<p>Because I enjoy doing community theater, I signed up to take an intro to acting class at my local community college. The first class was Weds., and by the end of it I was furious and had decided to drop it.</p>
<p>The instructor -- a fulltime faculty member at the college -- told the class that he is a professional public speaker and advises the school debate team, and will cancel class when those activities conflict with it. The class is also supposed to meet for 6 hours a week, but he told us he doesn't have enough material to fill up that much time, so it will meet about 5 hours a week.</p>
<p>All we did in that class was introduce each other while he took no notes and made no comments about how we presented ourselves. The only comments he interjected were about himself -- sports teams he likes, high schools where he has taught, places he has visited. He ended the class about a half hour early.</p>
<p>Afterward, I talked to a classmate who said she had taken a class before from him. She told me she enjoyed his classes because he's "relaxed," "easy," and "accepts late work." When I asked her what she learned in his class, she had no answer.</p>
<p>I am furious and disappointed because I had looked forward to taking the class. It also ticks me off that with all of the able, committed people who are seeking teaching jobs, my tax money is paying for that clown to "teach".</p>
<p>Does anyone think it would make a difference if I e-mailed the department chair about my experience?</p>
<p>Meanwhile, S's intro to acting classes at his LAC were excellent, and demanding. I wouldn't have expected a community college course to be as demanding as what S experienced, but I would expect that the teacher would teach, not seem to be trying to be in class as little as possible.</p>
<p>Does anyone think it would make a difference if I e-mailed the department chair about my experience?</p>
<p>I do think so- (particulary since now is budget writing time), I would also cc. higher ups as applicable- because he is not taking seriously his responsibility as an educator.
THat some in the class are those who are taking it for " fun" shouldn't matter. Their time is important & even if he is liked by some because he has low standards- he is putting at a disadvantage those students who want to go on, who now will be competing with those students in classes where they had better prep.
First I would probably also let the instructor know how disappointed I was.</p>
<p>CC classes vary as much as 4 year college classes do.
I took quite a few classes in urban community colleges and in about 1/3 I was really disappointed in the class. In the biggest example- an English 101 class that was required to go on, was an easy A ( only I didnt realize it at the time)- but as it was focused on reading poetry- the instructors field, I didnt realize that I didn't learn anything about writing other papers, which was what I needed to know to be successful in the next level required class.</p>
<p>On the other hand- about 75% of the classes I have taken at a different CC, are very challenging- even/especially the vocational ones.</p>
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Does anyone think it would make a difference if I e-mailed the department chair about my experience?
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<p>If it turns out that you are pretty much the only person to comment on this professor, your letter probably would not have much of an an effect. However, if you are among many others (past, present and/or future) making more or less the same comment, then imho it could help to make a difference.</p>
<p>Can you really ascertain the quality of this professor from the one class day given the fact that "first day" classes are typically administrative and was your classmate a credible measure of the quality of this professor? Those are the two questions I would ask you if I was the prof's "boss" responding to your e-mail. I don't disagree that you could write a complaint, but be prepared to back it up. As Adad said, if there have been numerous complaints your note adds positively to the situation, if you stand alone, and after only the first class, I think it will not have any influence.</p>
<p>I'm as disgusted as you are, based on your report. </p>
<p>I would hope that an email would have some effect, but agree with ADad about the likelihood.</p>
<p>I also think momofthreeboys makes an excellent point.... that I would attend one more class before deciding how I feel about this prof and class.</p>
<p>For an acting class, I don't get how the professor says he doesn't have enough material to fill up six hours, but only five. Acting classes are not lecture style (or should not be). They are hands-on. He doesn't need material to fill up time. The class would be doing exercises and demonstrations of scenes, etc. for one another which takes up a lot of time, and critiquing them. I have a child who studies acting and the classes meet for many hours and I just cannot fathom the concept of "material to fill up the time"!</p>
<p>Also, the number of schedule conflicts the teacher has is way too many. If he is obligated to another activity, he should not have scheduled this class to coincide. It is one thing to have a conflict for one or at most two classes and reschedule them but more than that would not be right. Imagine if a student said he/she was in an EC that requires missing classes each time they conflict. </p>
<p>It is hard to assess how good the teacher or class is after just one meeting but the first meeting surely would leave a bad taste in terms of the level of expectation. I may have given it a go for another session that wasn't the introductory session to fully assess the level of seriousness of the class expectations.</p>