# Ignorant Teacher Rant



## OboeKnight (Jan 25, 2013)

Good day everyone. I apologize for this, but I need to impart my feelings regarding my AP (advanced placement) English teacher. I very rarely have issues with my instructors, and for the most part I can overlook things as long as it doesn't impede my ability to learn in the classroom . With this being said, I am officially at my wits end with the teacher in question. For those who don't know, AP courses are college-level classes taught in high school for college credit. At the end of the year, a test can be taken and if a high enough score is attained, college credit is awarded to the student. Since I will be attending a conservatory in the fall, this means I could get college English completely finished, for free! However, I am facing....aggravating circumstances.

On the first day of class, my teacher informed her students that she had just found out the day before that she would be teaching the class, and therefore had no curriculum planned out. Well, that obviously plants a seed of doubt in the minds of the students. I decided that, however unprepared she might seem, I would give her a chance. She started off well enough, and then came the first assignment. 3 weeks after the due date, the assignment had not been graded. In fact, it took her until the end of the semester to grade that one. The policy on essays in the AP English course is that once an essay is written, it is to be graded and given back to the student to make revisions, and then they may turn it back in for a final grade. This teacher's policy seems to be: collect the essay, leave it sit in a pile at school for a month, glance over it, and give it back. My personal favorite is the occasion that she assigned 2 essays, a month apart. The second essay was turned in before she had graded the first, and she had the nerve to only grade one of them,and then pass both back and say "I didn't feel like grading both, you can use the graded one to help you revise the other."

Another noteworthy quote from this individual is: "I don't believe in taking my work home. I grade what I can get graded by staying after school an hour everyday." .....Wow. thanks a lot for your HUGE sacrifice. As you can see, this teacher really does everything she. Can to make her students feel important.

The substance of a typical day in the classroom is watching her click through a PowerPoint (that was made by another person) and listening to her strictly feminist opinions about the literature we are studying. (Studying= her assigning a book and giving out questions to go along with it. The questions she winds up asking US the answers to because she hasn't read the books herself)

Normally, this joke of a class would be every teenager's dream. I, however, intend to pass the AP exam and she is standing in my way. We have done absolutely nothing to prepare for the exam. Our teacher didn't even know the AP grading scale. This is what the future has to look forward to...what a disgrace.

A few weeks ago, I reported this teacher to the principal of the school. While sympathetic, he told me that at this point there wasn't much he could do to help me, but I may have saved future classes from the same problem. I suppose I can live with that, but do any of you very intelligent people have any advice to offer on this matter?

Thank you for sympathizing with my rant.


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## Guest (Jan 26, 2013)

I teach AP English at my high school, and your story makes me ill. I assume she is a tenured "teacher," so indeed there may not be much that your principal can do this year. I certainly hope she doesn't "teach" the class next year! It's not likely that he could find someone who actually knows the material and have them swap classes. In the meantime, I guess your only recourse is take the easy A and study one of the AP English prep books on your own. I recommend Barron's books. (By the way, is it AP Lit or Language? I teach the AP Lit class.) PM me, as I'd be willing to read one of your essays and give you some feedback on it.


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## EddieRUKiddingVarese (Jan 8, 2013)

This sounds like most of the lecturers I ever had at Uni...

Good luck


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

If you are still at school' my suggestion would be to get your parents involved. Unfortunately there is not a lot one can do with bad teaching. Just to say I passed some of my exams at school with equally bad teaching. When I was a teacher I determined to give my students a better break than I had had. Unfortunately it does take years to become a good teacher. I think I achieved it at the end but some of my early classes did suffer from my lack of experience. However, there is one thing common to all good students which, given a certain ability, almost always guarantees a pass. Hard work!


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## OboeKnight (Jan 25, 2013)

Thanks everyone. And Kontrapunctus, thank you very much. Luckily, I do have a Barron guide to the test and I plan to use it! It is the English lit class. I will definitely send you the next essay I write. We just finished selections from Canterbury Tales a bit ago and will be starting Dubliners soon.


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## Guest (Jan 26, 2013)

You're welcome. I have some handouts on creating arguments and structuring paragraphs that I could send you, too. Do you know why this incompetent fool was asked to teach the class? Did the former teacher suddenly retire? Go insane? Surely they could have asked someone who had an inkling of how to teach the course. Or, the new teacher could do some research and make _some_ effort. I've been thrown into new situations with very little time to prep, but I certainly put more effort into it than this woman has done!


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## OboeKnight (Jan 25, 2013)

I'm confident you couldn't do a worse job than her haha. The reason she got the job is because the late AP teacher was promoted to an administrative position in the middle of last year. He was an incredible teacher. I had him for a semester of Pre AP English. My school transferred to doing dual credit AP courses through Sinclair Community College this year (which has been an absolute pain because neither side has any communication skills whatsoever) and this teacher was the only other English teacher in the school that met Sinclair's qualifications. I still can't believe the fact that she didn't even know the AP grading scale...she thought the scores were on a letter basis.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

It always seems sad to me when they promote a superb teacher to do an administrative job. The schools priority should be to have superb teachers and pay them accordingly. The problem is we pay administrators more than teachers. That is the nonsense of the system.


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## Guest (Jan 26, 2013)

OboeKnight said:


> I'm confident you couldn't do a worse job than her haha.


Gosh, thanks...


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## Novelette (Dec 12, 2012)

OboeKnight, I can totally sympathize with your trouble. I went to prep school and was lucky to have excellent teachers, but my university experience was ghastly.

I was appalled by how elementary the course material was! This is a verbatim quote [and was the topic of a full hour's lecture] from a particular professor of mine, from a course that was required to be take upon one's graduating semester [in the business school]: "Before we start a business, we have to ask ourselves 'what is it that we want to do?'"

My goodness, what a novel idea! This was at the same time that I was volunteering with Junior Achievement to teach second graders about business. When teaching them about production processes, the definition of "product" that I had to use was this: "A product is something that you make."

It hit me then and there that my Senior-Level University course taught material on the same level at which I was teaching second graders. It explains why I skipped three of every four class meetings and still managed a 100% in the course. It was a disappointing realization that most of my college courses were of the same nature as that one course. I emerged from college deeply dissatisfied.

Forgive me, I seem to have usurped your spotlight as the ranter.


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## OboeKnight (Jan 25, 2013)

Novelette said:


> OboeKnight, I can totally sympathize with you trouble. I went to prep school and was lucky to have excellent teachers, but my university experience was ghastly.
> 
> I was appalled by how elementary the course material was! This is a verbatim quote [and was the topic of a full hour's lecture] from a particular professor of mine, from a course that was required to be take upon one's graduating semester [in the business school]: "Before we start a business, we have to ask ourselves 'what is it that we want to do?'"
> 
> ...


You have my forgiveness. We need more than one ranter around here anyway lol. That sounds awful! I really hope my classes aren't like that next year. Your description sounds a bit like my Honors Chemistry class last year. One of the slides in a PowerPoint: What is Matter? Matter is a solid, liquid, or gas! .....wow, mind blowing knowledge, thank you!


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## Bone (Jan 19, 2013)

Devil's advocate here: as a teacher, I recognize the signs of a frustrated, underprepared public school employee in your description. Unfortunately, she happened to be your teacher this year, so you are absolutely within your rights to feel "cheated." On the other hand, please try to see it from your teacher's perspective: job full of precocious, eager learners dumped in her lap with probably no prep time and very little assistance in the transition.
I was transferred to an exceptional music program mid year when a teacher was fired. There was literally a line of parents complaining to the principal after the Christmas concert (yes, it was pretty rough). My principal stuck by me and now I am happily in my 12th year doing just fine. Your teacher most certainly did not choose to make lemonade from lemons; but to expect her to happily take on a challenging duty without allowing her at least a few years to acclimate seems rather dispassionate on your part. Just my opinion, though - and since you are going to conservatory next year, it's probably best that you try and get what you can out the course rather than focus on the obviously low quality instruction you are receiving. If I'm correct, either the teacher will not be teaching the class next year or will be allowed time to prepare better and deliver a better experience for the next crop of students.


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## Feathers (Feb 18, 2013)

OboeKnight, I've had a similar experience with Biology back in high school. However, I suppose my situation was easier to deal with because I could just read through the textbook and try to remember and understand as much as I could on my own. For a subject like English, students need more help from instructors, and it's truly unfortunate that you are stuck with this instructor, especially when you take your education very seriously. On the bright side, it could be beneficial experience to become less dependent on classroom instructors and use other resources on your own, for it could be good "practice" (as long as it's not detrimental to your grades) for similar situations in university.


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## OboeKnight (Jan 25, 2013)

Bone said:


> Devil's advocate here: as a teacher, I recognize the signs of a frustrated, underprepared public school employee in your description. Unfortunately, she happened to be your teacher this year, so you are absolutely within your rights to feel "cheated." On the other hand, please try to see it from your teacher's perspective: job full of precocious, eager learners dumped in her lap with probably no prep time and very little assistance in the transition.
> I was transferred to an exceptional music program mid year when a teacher was fired. There was literally a line of parents complaining to the principal after the Christmas concert (yes, it was pretty rough). My principal stuck by me and now I am happily in my 12th year doing just fine. Your teacher most certainly did not choose to make lemonade from lemons; but to expect her to happily take on a challenging duty without allowing her at least a few years to acclimate seems rather dispassionate on your part. Just my opinion, though - and since you are going to conservatory next year, it's probably best that you try and get what you can out the course rather than focus on the obviously low quality instruction you are receiving. If I'm correct, either the teacher will not be teaching the class next year or will be allowed time to prepare better and deliver a better experience for the next crop of students.


I realize that she was under prepared to teach the class and was most definitely overwhelmed with the amount of new material, but she has been an English teacher for many, many years and as an English teacher, she should have experience grading essays, right? That's not AP specific, that just comes with being a teacher.


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## Vaneyes (May 11, 2010)

There wasn't much the principal could do because the replacement teacher had been given a "free pass' for taking on the course so late. She could do anything with her immunity, and she did. This course should never have gone ahead. A tawdry school system...not uncommon.


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## jani (Jun 15, 2012)

When i was in vocational school, my class teacher forgave over 40h of absence to one of my class mates, i lost all my respect for him after that.


That's my ignorant teacher rant.


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## EddieRUKiddingVarese (Jan 8, 2013)

jani said:


> When i was in vocational school, my class teacher forgave over 40h of absence to one of my class mates, i lost all my respect for him after that.
> 
> That's my ignorant teacher rant.


But that was me - wasn't it old class mate- down bring me down...............


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## Vaneyes (May 11, 2010)

Yes, I understand that sometimes extracurricular activities can make up for classroom absence. It's all so confusing.


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

It's English class, you read a book and write ******** about it. A good English teacher comes up with very engaging ******** discussions, but in the end I have never seen much formal instruction in a subject so fluffy.


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## jani (Jun 15, 2012)

EddieRUKiddingVarese said:


> But that was me - wasn't it old class mate- down bring me down...............


It seems that now you can pass courses by being absent 90% of it.


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## Ralfy (Jul 19, 2010)

You need more than a day to prepare a syllabus and materials.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

This sounds like a "pre-college" reaction to the way things are going to be out of high school. Teachers won't care as much about you personally, you will be treated much more like an adult, with more detachment. If she's a feminist, get used to it. If you are very religious, you might find this to be coming under attack as well. Welcome to the real world. Jobs aren't any better.


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## OboeKnight (Jan 25, 2013)

millionrainbows said:


> This sounds like a "pre-college" reaction to the way things are going to be out of high school. Teachers won't care as much about you personally, you will be treated much more like an adult, with more detachment. If she's a feminist, get used to it. If you are very religious, you might find this to be coming under attack as well. Welcome to the real world. Jobs aren't any better.


I've accepted the fact that she isn't going to teach anything, but that doesn't explain why she won't grade. I certainly hope the educators in college grade assignments before an entire month goes by. That's just lazy.


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## MichaelSolo (Mar 12, 2013)

I understand it might be a secret, but for the sake of my kids - what college was that?


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## Tristan (Jan 5, 2013)

I heard about a teacher like this at the school of a friend of mine. She was a biology teacher, but did not seem to know much about the subject (and was often corrected by a couple top students). She had the class do busywork most of the time and her tests were verbatim pulled from the textbook company's online quizzes that were companions to the textbook lessons. Once people figured that out, most people were able to ace the tests. Yes, almost everyone did well in the class, but learned almost nothing in the end. I'm glad to have never had that experience...


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## Guest (Mar 14, 2013)

OboeKnight said:


> I've accepted the fact that she isn't going to teach anything, but that doesn't explain why she won't grade. I certainly hope the educators in college grade assignments before an entire month goes by. That's just lazy.


Wow, so she still hasn't improved? My school just fired an incompetent teacher two weeks ago, and I agreed to take on one of her 10th grade Honors English classes. I have two of my own, so it doesn't involve prepping new material, but it adds 34 more students to my load for a total of 198! This woman was at least as bad as yours, maybe worse. She used to assign work, cancel it, then give everyone an A on it. If they actually turned in essays they rarely saw them again, and if they did, there was no feedback on them. Other kids said on the rare occasion that she wrote anything on the board that she stood there struggling to spell some of the words! They also said they read only two novels during the first semester and spent a lot of time doing word searches and crossword puzzles. She was forced on us from another school, so we didn't have a choice, but kudos to our principal for getting rid of her.

My offer still stands to give you some feedback on one of your papers.


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## EddieRUKiddingVarese (Jan 8, 2013)

jani said:


> It seems that now you can pass courses by being absent 90% of it.


Just like how I passed my psychometric testing.... shssssss lets keep that quiet hey!


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## OboeKnight (Jan 25, 2013)

Kontrapunctus said:


> Wow, so she still hasn't improved? My school just fired an incompetent teacher two weeks ago, and I agreed to take on one of her 10th grade Honors English classes. I have two of my own, so it doesn't involve prepping new material, but it adds 34 more students to my load for a total of 198! This woman was at least as bad as yours, maybe worse. She used to assign work, cancel it, then give everyone an A on it. If they actually turned in essays they rarely saw them again, and if they did, there was no feedback on them. Other kids said on the rare occasion that she wrote anything on the board that she stood there struggling to spell some of the words! They also said they read only two novels during the first semester and spent a lot of time doing word searches and crossword puzzles. She was forced on us from another school, so we didn't have a choice, but kudos to our principal for getting rid of her.
> 
> My offer still stands to give you some feedback on one of your papers.


After I had the conference with the principal, she improved for a week. We did AP prep and she seemed like she had gotten her act together. I turned in an essay and got it back two days later. I was very happy. Now, she's had the computer tech lady at the school make her a website where we are required to post our essays and peer edit them...apparently grading is still too time consuming for her. Also, we've spent two weeks on a poetry project. The class was split in 3 groups (about 10 to each group) to do presentations on the different periods of poetry. Its not going well so far. We haven't been notified of any literature to begin reading and the last book we read was over a month ago. She also said this project will be one of the only grades for the last quarter...so apparently we're not reading anymore. Oh well.

I'm going to send you my analysis of A Doll's House  I have it saved to my computer so I will send it in the next couple of days.


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## Chi_townPhilly (Apr 21, 2007)

Hope you'll indulge me by letting to know about my experiences in English Composition classes...
I took college-prep Advanced Composition in High School- and got a 'C.'
I took Freshman English Composition- and got a 'B.' 
I took upper-division College Advanced Composition- and got an 'A.'

Beyond the obvious conclusions (e.g.: I was more mature at each stage-- and I had better instruction, too), it should also be pointed out that the High School teacher straight-jacketed my prose (and most everyone else's, as well). Y'know... point-reason-example... real cookie-cutter stuff. I daydreamed that I could be like Moses- turn my pen into a serpent- LET MY LANGUAGE GO!

Eventually, my writing was freed from the House of Bondage. For those struggling with the proverbial "ignorant teacher," I can only hope that you'll be fortunate enough to have your instruction improve over-the-years, as mine did.


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## Novelette (Dec 12, 2012)

MichaelSolo said:


> I understand it might be a secret, but for the sake of my kids - what college was that?


University of Central Florida. Sadly, I frequently hear the same stories from friends who have attended Duke, Georgia State, Emory, Auburn, Colby, UF, Stetson, USF, University of Tampa, Eckerd College, etc., etc.


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