De-motivators

Everyone meets a de-motivator in their life at one point. You know, that one teacher/lecturer/Professor that you’re not quite sure graduated with a diploma in teaching and might be secretly bribing the dean to let them stay on the payroll?

Let me tell you about the ones I’ve met.

Chemistry, Sixth Form

We had this great, awesome teacher who expected nothing less than our personal best. Note, ‘personal’ best, and she could always tell if we weren’t putting in enough effort. Well, she had a couple of things to sort out and left us with a sub. This sub, although was supposed to be well-versed in Chemistry had some big shoes to fill. He failed.

The teaching wasn’t the problem. The problem was that for every question we couldn’t figure out, he’d go on a fifteen minute rant about how we weren’t paying attention in Fourth and Fifth Form, then he’d tell us that we were all doomed to a life of mediocrity and could never score in Chemistry so he wouldn’t expect anything past a B from any of us.

Sixth Form or not, hearing that sort of thing for the last leg of the race was a huge downer. Thanks a lot dude.

Biology, 1^st semester

I wouldn’t call him bad, just so far out of touch with reality that he doesn’t quite understand what was going on. He couldn’t turn on the computer or use PowerPoint. Half the class, he was mumbling into his paper, flipping through the slides and giggling to himself.

Although we tried to study the slides he provided and added to it with outside texts, it never really seemed to be enough.

Grammar, 2^nd semester

Lessons with him was like a trip into bizzaro world.

We didn’t have a text book.

Our classes occurred at random during the week. Lessons consisted of him putting up a slide and asking us if we thought the sentence was wrong, or right.

Physical Chemistry, 4^th semester

Refer Chemistry teacher, Sixth Form. Now factor by a hundred and add in a degree in racism.

Favourite quotes from him?

During an exam: “Really? You guys aren’t done yet? I would have finished it in 15 minutes.”

Regarding Chinese people: “Never understand anything, only memorize the book.”

When entering the class: “Oh, you guys are here again.” (Um… classes are weekly, like duh?)

Before an exam: “Just try not to fail.”

After exam results are out: “The other class is way better than you guys.” (Different lecturers, different marking standards, different marks)

Regarding the speed of our problem solving: “The Chemistry Students are way faster than you guys.” (Well fuck you. We are majoring in OTHER subjects and I bet your precious Chemistry Students wouldn’t do very well in our subjects either.)

Regarding the class in general “Not very smart, are you?”

History, Final semester

Oh, she takes the cake.

We have classes on Monday and Wednesday. During the second week, she announces that there won’t be any classes on Mondays. I had an event on week 5. Week 6 was exam week. Week 7 she cancelled class. Week 8 was a holiday. Week 9, she demanded to know why I was absent for 3 weeks when I handed her the letter of exemption for my Event.

Never mind that. She declared a first come first serve basis for our assignment topics.

This week, we got into class and she declared she was changing our Group’s topic. Why? We weren't in class on Monday. Apparently, we should have sent a representative to a class that we didn't know was ongoing to tell her we wanted that topic.

My beef with this:

1.       She said it was a first come first serve basis. I was Group 2. I was in FUCKING GROUP 2 and I FUCKING CHECKED AND THERE WAS NO ONE DOING THE SAME TOPIC WHEN I SCRIBBLED IT ONTO THE PAPER why did the other group write the same topic?!

2.       If she was so ‘CLEAR’ about the fact there was class on Monday, why was almost half the people absent? Oh right, because they didn't know about it.

3.       She had the email address of EVERYONE IN THE CLASS. Would it be so hard as to tell someone to tell us? Like through Email? That was A WEEK AGO.

4.       And when one of my friends mentioned she was absent, this lecturer replied with ‘See? You shouldn't take turns coming to class. You should be here all the time.’

Like. What.

Yeah, so I'm furious. Can you tell?