incompetent professors, tenure, and America's declining standards of education...

TranceAddict Forums (www.tranceaddict.com/forums)
- Chill Out Room
-- incompetent professors, tenure, and America's declining standards of education...
Pages (3): « 1 2 [3]

Posted by weymouth on Apr-13-2006 16:46:

As a history graduate I feel sorry for the general education people that are made to take the level 100 history classes. History is a great way to help students think analytical, problem solvers, and people that think outside the norm but this only happens in upper level history classes that are much much smaller. The problem with the gen ed classes is the amount of people in them, for history classes to be successful you need to interact with other students and the majority of the class should be discussion between students. Personally I think that is the major problem with social studies today, most students think it is extremely boring because the teacher just spouts out dates and names that the student forgets right after the tests. It is no wonder that Americans are horrible at history now, because as you said teachers are preparing students to become trivia question experts if they can even remember the material.

Edit: I just read that it is a 308 level class, dang she needs fired. My student body took a stand against a bad history teacher and he got canned the next semester, so that is possible.

Posted by Spacey Orange on Apr-13-2006 17:07:

your teacher's a stupid bitch. you should kill her.

Posted by RJT on Apr-13-2006 17:09:

Alright, I have a meeting with the chair of the department tomorrow. She already knows my concerns, and I think I'm just going to try to voice them as reasonably as possible, and ask if I can switch to "pass/fail" status for the semester, take the final, and be done with this.

Posted by RJT on Apr-25-2006 17:48:

Interesting addendum to this little tale...

So last week we had an "exam" on the movie we watched, and I essentially wrote my essay on how I thought showing a movie with such a clear hollywood bias and no discussion of the repercussions of the Manhatten project was inappropriate.

I got it back today and it said "No Grade, See Me."

I go see her after class, and she basically asks me to reinforce my point to her. I explain myself, we discuss what point she was trying to make, and then she proceeds to tell me that she appreciates it to "no end" when students disagree with her in a respectful manner because it helps her improve her teaching abilities as well as shows that as a student, I'm concerned about the quality of education I'm receiving, as well as taking a more active role in my education (I'm also one of like 5 people in a 100 person lecture who asks/answers any questions) than most students.

I'm not sure, but I think I just got my ass covered for the rest of the semester. At first I thought she was pissed with me, but it seemed as though she couldn't possibly be happier with me. She was damn quick with the praise, that's for sure.

Posted by Slylee on Apr-25-2006 17:57:

quote:
Originally posted by weymouth
As a history graduate I feel sorry for the general education people that are made to take the level 100 history classes. History is a great way to help students think analytical, problem solvers, and people that think outside the norm but this only happens in upper level history classes that are much much smaller. The problem with the gen ed classes is the amount of people in them, for history classes to be successful you need to interact with other students and the majority of the class should be discussion between students. Personally I think that is the major problem with social studies today, most students think it is extremely boring because the teacher just spouts out dates and names that the student forgets right after the tests. It is no wonder that Americans are horrible at history now, because as you said teachers are preparing students to become trivia question experts if they can even remember the material.

Edit: I just read that it is a 308 level class, dang she needs fired. My student body took a stand against a bad history teacher and he got canned the next semester, so that is possible.

exactly. i have to think for a minute when someone asks me about WW2. lol "wait, was that with the germans?"

call me stupid, i don't care...i know i'm not stupid. i just know that i was bored as fuck in ALL of my history classes growing up. usually slept right through them, crammed for my tests (trivia questions like you said), got at least a B, and then POOF..it was out of my head by that night.

now that i'm older, im actually interested in history though, and even though i dont really have time to devote to studying it, i like to talk about stuff sometimes with my dad (he's like a damn history book of knowlege) or i watch those "boring" history channel shows a lot too.

Pages (3): « 1 2 [3]