<p>Curm--that happened to my Son, but it was fifth grade. H was by far the best writer in the class (I know because i was a volunteer tutor, though never assigned to him) but after first marking period, he got his first B+ ever, in English. He asked the teacher, and she said she didn't think he was really trying very hard, and she knew he could do better. Well, after that, his writing just took off. Years later, at an Honor Society lunch, each student chose one teacher from the past, any year from K onward, to be their guest. He invited her.</p>
<p>Isn't the "helicoptering" about grades and professors supposed to stop once the kid goes to college? ;)</p>
<p>I missed the helicopter moments here. Don't recall any interventionist posts in this thread. (Heck, I even let S deal with his fifth-grade grade question himself.)</p>
<p>My son had mainly bad teachers at Penn this year. He couldn't understand a word his foreign economics teacher said, so stopped going to class. His writing seminar teacher was so bad that 6 of the 12 original students immediately transferred out (son wishes he had done so....) </p>
<p>I had a Statistics teacher at IU who was dreaded and considered to be really hard. I could not schedule the class at any other time. He did everything in terms of bridge hands (cards)- probabilities etc. I didn't play bridge, so this was a problem. I was really trying to get good grades for getting into law school, so I went into his office for extra help. We wound up really "clicking" and I told him that if the final was easy I would buy him a drink. I worked really hard, got an A, went out with him and married him a year later. It only lasted a few years, but we're still friends.</p>
<p>The only comment at all that I have heard from S so far about ANY professors had to do with their political (liberal) views. It had to do with a "group" of teachers, not just one! I think the number was 88, if I recall. ;)</p>
<p>I know nothing at all about any grading policies, nor should I (imho) ! If he can't figure it out by now, he never will.............. :eek:</p>
<p>So, a son or daughter discussing a classroom experience equals a kid who can't figure out grading policies.</p>
<p>I am not following your logic at all.</p>
<p>Never mind Garland. It was a joke. Have a good day. :)</p>
<p>(Didn't mean to get you so worked up. I don't quite understand your reaction either.
C'est la vie....)</p>
<p>I had a History professor in college who was blatantly misogynist - he would only answer questions asked by male students, he called the women in the class "the girls" derisively...he was completely obnoxious. Oh, the other thing he did on more than one occasion is he would leave the women in the classroom while he took the men to the library to look at original source documents. He said it was the girls job to stay on the homefront. I dropped the class.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Guess what? He still ranks as number one in my book and I took the crusty b#@$%$# probably 5 more times. He wrote my rec to law school.
[/quote]
LOL. This strikes me as terribly unfair, but I've known others with the same experience who feel exactly the same way. My best friend from high school is still grateful to the English teacher who gave her a "B" because she knew she could do better - no matter that her work was better than the rest of the class. (And she did after that.)</p>
<p>I'm hoping my son will tell us ANYTHING about college at all! We hear very little detail about hs.</p>
<p>
[quote]
My son's chem teacher told them they were responsible for over 750 pages of text on the cumulative final and that he would provide no study guides as they should learn it all!
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I am sorry, but if the Chemistry Teacher said from the very beginning that the final was cumulative, then that is just it. It is not the most fun thing to study for, but if everyone in the class knew of the final being cumulative from the beginning, then they all had an eternity to do a good review. No Teacher is obligated to give out a study guide or anything like that at all. I am not trying to be mean. I know from personal experience that a cumulative final is not fun at all, but you can study a little bit at a time all semester long. </p>
<p>
[quote]
Same prof also retroactively changed his grading policy after the midterm to up the weekly quizzes from 10% of the grade to 25%. And he has complained to the class that teaching takes him away from his lab.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Well now, if the Professor (I thought you said Teacher earlier, it is all cool) changed their mode of grading without it being made mention of in the scedule of readings and everything, then that is just bad. Was it not made mention of at the beginning of the term?</p>
<p>This has been my grading rant for over 30 years.</p>
<p>I took a class second semester of senior year that had "contract" grading, i.e. so much work for an A, so much for a B and so on. I did all the work for an A, but never attended my discussions sections after the 1st one (which had about 1/2 the football team in it). Attendance in the discussion sections was not a part of the contract. I did go to the once-a-week lectures, which were very interesting.</p>
<p>I went to the TAs office on the final day of class to turn in my work (5 or 6 papers) and he then told me that I was going to get a C because I never attended his discussion section. We argued the point extensively re: the contract requirments and attendance.</p>
<p>I got the C, graduated and moved on.</p>
<p>What a slacker I was!</p>
<p>UMDadi same here, I took Calc w/ an average of 98% over 4 exams, but got a B because I did not attend class- what would have been the point in attending? Nothing in the syllabus said that attendence would count and I did attend some, just not all the classes, it was an evening class and as a commuter, I had to drive back to campus, sometimes I worked instead :) I stil hate that B, I earned an A, I mastered the material, but his ego gave me a B by changing the terms after the fact</p>
<p>D at Reed has no complaints -- excellent profs. I, however, took a journalism course at the local junior college this semester, and now have the material for an expose. The adjunct instructor was filling in for faculty on sabbatical. She was, for this one year, department head and adviser of the school newspaper. OMG. What a fount of misinformation! Worse yet -- she actually wrote a warning letter (copies to admins) threatening to suspend a student if he continued to express his opinion, either orally or in writing.
I questioned her regarding the student's First Amendment rights (recall, this is the newspaper's adviser) and she asserted that any student enrolled in her class was under her jurisdiction night and day, in and out of class, and could be sanctioned for disobeying her directive.
The matter was brought to the attention of the admins, who forced her to retract the warning, but I wonder if she will be teaching other future journalists next year.</p>
<p>Celloguy--you have really topped my story! That instructor was a whack job!</p>
<p>1sokkermom--my kids think of my cellphone as Venting Central and call with a variety of complaints, I make sympathetic noises, they complain some more, then I say I am sure it will all work out. If that is helicoptering, so be it. I'm just glad to hear their (whiney) voices.</p>
<p>After his sister went off to college, my ds decided that homeschooling as an "only" wasn't as much fun, so he enrolled in a few community college courses. There he experienced both his best and his worst professors during his first semester. </p>
<p>The calc. instructor was wonderful. She was very tough on ds and he rose to the challenge. The next semester he arranged his schedule to take another class from her. It was a more advanced course than he needed for his accounting major, but he'd enjoyed the prior class so much he just wanted to take it. OTOH, ds dropped a computer science class after the first day because the 30-something instructor made it exceedingly clear that she was more than willing to give an A to the few young men in her class. At first, I didn't quite believe my ds had really understood her correctly. It turns out that he didn't think he had either, so he actually asked her after class just what extracurricular activities she had in mind, and she was pretty explicit in her reply. Keep in mind this was a 16 yr. old, devout RC, homeschooled kid (who did look older, but not that much older.) His reaction to her was, "Eeewwwwww!" (mostly because she was "old.")</p>
<p>Ewwww
Not Ok!!</p>
<p>From what I have heard from my kids their worse professors are always those they cannot understand because the dont know English.I can see the point of universities hiring bright people but a basic knowledge in English should be required.Also, my kids dislike college teachers who do not teach.</p>
<p>Can I share two high school teacher stories? My son, a sr, was signed up for Intro to Calculus. His teacher was also assist baseball coach at a nearby college. Son received a calculus text that he never used. Whenever I asked what he was learning in Calc, the answer was some topic other than calculus. Then in mid-January, the teacher died of a heart attack (he had called in sick the day before, turns out he wasn't sick- he went to Florida for a college coaching convention. He died in Florida). When the dept head went into the class, she found out the teacher wasn't following the Intro to Calc curriculum at all - he had been reteaching Algebra 3/Trig. Son took that last year - no wonder he was cruising with an A. Of course, the school had a problem finding a qualified math teacher in January, so son had a sub for 6 weeks who didn't know math, finally in March they hired a girl straight out of college who FINALLy started teaching the Calculus that should have been introduced in October. </p>
<p>HS freshman daughter had the dept head for honors geometry (same woman who discovered the curriculum problem in son's class in January). Dept head had to have back surgery in Feb, there were complications and she's still not back. Daughter got the same sub son had (after son's class got the new hire), she has learned nothing since Feb and should be in for some real fun next year. Not to mention that all the honors geometry classes take the same tests, although the others have "real" teachers and daughter's class has had to resort to teaching themselves.</p>
<p>Obviously, no one to blame when a teacher dies and another has to have back surgery, but somehow both my kids got the shaft in math this year.</p>
<p>oh yeah, we have a h.s. story. S2 gets a math teacher this year (jr) who was on some kind of teacher exchange program for 2 years to our school. She was from an Asian country and spoke with a thick accent. She taught nothing. S said she spent a lot of time educating them on the culture of her country. The students entered the room one day to find her sitting at her desk and a note written on the board explaining that in her culture/religion it was a day of silence and so she would not be speaking to them at all that day. </p>
<p>The kids spent a lot of time sleeping (1st period class), eating and joking around with the teacher. She gave S B's every quarter. The final exam was written by another teacher and all the kids in S's class failed so he got a C for the class (his first math C and this was a non-honors class!). All of this was of no consequence to the teacher because the school is starved for a warm body to serve as a math teacher and because she is returning to her country at the end of the semester. I guess she had a great American experience but it was a really bad experience for the students unlucky enough to land in her class.</p>