Your worst professors

[Digger]

Most of my secondary school teachers! I had a terrible time there. The worst one was the third in command, I spent a lot of time in her office. Once I had a panic attack and I didn't know what was happening to me because I'd never had one before. She kept saying 'what have you taken, what have you taken', meaning drugs I struggled so much and they didn't care at all, they were just worried I would make the school look bad because it had such a good reputation.

It's sad to read so many awful stories.

 

[JennieK]

The worst for me was a Statistics professor who barely spoke English. Stats was already like a foreign language to me, coupled with his inability to speak English well. So I stopped going to classes and taught myself straight from the book! I got an A in the class.

 

[pushpin]

The worst for me was a Statistics professor who barely spoke English. Stats was already like a foreign language to me, coupled with his inability to speak English well. So I stopped going to classes and taught myself straight from the book! I got an A in the class.

That's really great that you taught yourself! It does bother me when a teacher does not have a decent grasp of the language of instruction. Because you are right, math is already another language that requires a bit of translation, so when the teacher is unable to decently speak the connecting language, the shared language, then it just adds further complication to the transmission of knowledge.

 

[epath13]

from the age of 8 and until I graduated from college most teachers/professors liked me. I have no idea why! But somehow without doing much I seemed a very intelligent and responsible person... but, we had a teacher in preschool, who , I believe, hated me. She always looked at me as I was cursed or something. She complained about me being too slow and never talked to me (she did talk to other kids). I thought she was one lonely, sad, angry woman who could only accept "teacher pet" type of kids...

 

[grapesicles]

A lot of my worst teachers happened to be middle aged women who treated me like I was trying to be difficult! Had a French teacher once who asked us to present a particular topic each in front of the class - I spent hours struggling on mine as I'd switched schools and missed a lot of important info in between. Speaking in front of a class is hard enough, but not long after I started she screamed at me that I obviously didn't spend any time on it whatsoever, it was awful, I had to start over - actually cried in front of everyone. Needless to say, no one liked her anyway!

University tutors were my least favourite, since mine were mostly overly self-absorbed and notoriously useless. They seemed to be overly concerned about our efforts to work as a group and socialise - I happened to not get on with most of my small, all-female class and spent a lot of time working by myself instead. Which you'd think wouldn't be an issue - I get to concentrate and finish my work rather than get distracted by annoying gossipers. The tutors made unpleasant comments like "you make absolutely no effort to get on with anyone" and "you always just bury your head in the sand", all in front of everyone. I was told by a friend I should have complained on the basis of discrimination, but it was during my long-winded diagnosis process & before getting actual results, so there wasn't a lot I could do at that point.

Shame there are so many awful teachers out there! I've noticed that most acquaintances of mine who are training to become teachers are the least suitable candidates to be around children ever..

 

[photoaddict]

My education professor (had him for the majority of my education courses over two years) was nuts. I was really grateful that I managed to get someone else for the special education class because I soon discovered that he knew nothing about special needs. He thinks SPD is when one of your senses doesn't work. As in, you can't see/hear/taste/feel/smell. I tried to explain it to him, but he never caught on. Much of his other information was off, too. I was able to double check some with contacts who actually work in a local school district (my dad was on the school board, I know the superintendent, a teacher used to be my Sunday school teacher...). He even gave an assignment that wasn't even legal. He asked us to go to the school and get private information from students. Stuff that the school would have been in huge trouble for us asking about. He refused to remove the assignment, so I contacted friends with kids in the right age group to do the interview and lied about where I met the kids (he insisted that we *had* to go into a school).

 

[Xavier Marik]

I guess my grade 3 teacher was pretty bad, as she was mocking me in front of the whole class, saying things like "why do you even try, you'll never finish high school". It was a delight for me to show her my university diploma.

 

[Etzelaire]

Those who told my parents I was stupid, lazy, and that I would never go to university.

 

[Effy]

In 2011, I decided not to go back to college for a number of reasons after my first semester of merely three classes, but my communications teacher did play a part in me not continuing. I knew her, and she "knew" me. I worked with some special needs kids at the church (2009), one of which was HFA -- something I found coincidental and find a bit funny now, because we both got along so well.

I explained to her once about my Asperger's, and she acted as if I was making excuses. She loves communication, and I guess the problem with that and that class was that I was learning about neurotypical communication. It made me feel extremely singled out as an Aspie, and I dreaded that class so much because speeches were the worst, and learning the communication methods and rules was so hard. Everyone else understood, and I didn't. Another horrendous part was the accents. This was your average Texas, American speech. They were learning how not to sound Texan, and I have an American/Canadian/British/Australian accent -- all mixed -- because those are the kinds of shows I watched growing up. I also watch a lot of television and movies because I had a stutter as a kid and have a minimal one now, and somehow that helped me.

I also have Tourette Syndrome, and wow, that was hell. She would tell me I needed to "stop twitching", etc. during speeches and whatnot, or that I couldn't doodle, etc., and it was just awful.

All because I "don't act like [insert name of HFA child I worked with here]".

 

[photoaddict]

I was in 4-H as a kid and got in trouble all the time for doodling. I was "setting a bad example to younger members". Grr. Didn't matter that I'd been the club secretary for years, then ended up writing the minutes for other kids when they did it because I was the only one with notes. I was doing the wrong thing. (She regrets that now. She's not a bad person, just doesn't understand differences unless she's told outright.)

Speeches are awful. I got forced into it every year in 4-H, so by the time I got to college, I'd been properly programmed. Between that and a lazy teacher, I got by. And I managed to trick the teacher on the type I couldn't do. I wrote a crappy speech and brought my adorable toddler cousin as a "prop". She sat on the table and waved and no one heard a word of my terrible speech. (The speech was about Down syndrome, so the teacher felt bringing my cousin was a good idea.)