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incompetent professors, tenure, and America's declining standards of education...
Perhaps the title of the thread is a bit of an overstatement. That, however, does not change this nagging feeling I have that I am currently being cheated out of my education.
Short Version: I have a professor at the moment who thinks that showing movies (even historically inaccurate/biased movies) and imparting the ability to answer trivia questions is an "education." I think this is a travesty and am appalled that I am paying for it.
I am sitting in a class right now, essentially a European history class spanning 1780-Current, that is essentially a two day a weak glorified History channel documentary. The woman who teaches it is quite possibly the single worst educator I have ever encountered. A summary of complaints:
- At least one documentary or feature film (Usually from the History Channel or A&E, todays is "One Day," a feature film about the atomic bomb that significantly lacks historical accuracy) a week that we are expected to "take notes" on.
- Lectures consisting of Prof. Peguero standing in front of class with a list of names, and copies of the "terms sheets" (each containing 40-60 terms), where she picks a term and a student and simply expects them to explain it's meaning. These days generally occur the day and day after she hands out the 3 term sheets for the upcoming exams.
- She also has an attendance policy where after missing 3 classes in a semester, your final grade is lowered %5 for every following absence, regardless of the reason. I could ace this class without showing up once, leading me to believe the only reason she has an attendance policy is so that in the event she was ever "checked up" on, she would actually have a room full of students. In short, her attendance policy seems to attempt to make up for her inability to teach.
- Exams consisting of 120 trivia questions. There is no testing of comprehension, only ones ability to remember asinine dates and names for one day.
And that is only a brief summary. There hasn't been a single actual lecture since the beginning of the term, and her idea of "educating" us, is for us to memorize a list, not to actually understand what the terms meanings historically, or even to each other, are.
There is absolutely no incentive to do any reading, as it will not help for the exams, and once a week (2 classes per week), students are expected to give half the lecture, an expectation that the majority of the class has proven incapable of meeting.
In summation, I know more about European history than this woman could impart in a years worth of classes, much less a semester, and feel as though I am being completely robbed of an education.
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last minute disco dot net
Last edited by RJT on Apr-11-2006 at 16:56
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