As I perused my usual reads earlier this afternoon, I couldn’t help myself; I simply had to look at ratemyprofessor.com and see if there were any new stabs at my character. Now, since this is the time in the semester when the developmental math students must take a state test their attitudes are at their worst. Once I reached the site, I noticed some of the usual libelous material attacking my character and stating how inferior I am to other teachers (and even my fiance!), but a particular rating caught my eye:
“test are hard and and hes proud of it and if you dont show your work he takes off points also homwork is due on the test day with your lab sheet and if you didnt take the lab mastery before taking his test he takes of 5 points and the same is for homework to sum it all just dont take him half are class had to drop out cause he is horrible”
First, I would like to observe a moment of silence to remember all of the poor, pitiful brain cells shriveling and dying in this idiotic lump of flesh that I have the distinguished honor to call “my student”.
Now, I know the spelling and grammar are about as deformed as the un-pedicured toenails of a syphyllitic leper, but if we look beyond that we can see this student is criticizing me for a few of things:
1. Apparently being proud of making challenging tests is a bad thing. Keep in mind that I do not make tests too hard to pass (I still have several students with A’s on each of my tests.
2. I teach a math class, and yet the student (remember now, this is a STUDENT) thinks that I am being unreasonable by requiring all scratch work to be shown on the test so that I know that they are doing the work correctly. I’m so sorry, student! I’m sure you, with your minimal high school education, can run a class better than I can!
3. First of all, I have no idea what “homwork” is. But I can tell you all about my homework assignments. Homework being due on the day of the test is bad? Even though I give a minimum of a week to complete one chapter’s worth of homework? Should I give the full 15 weeks of the semester to let you turn in the homework whenever your poor little vegetable brain feels like it?
4. Yes, the lab assignments are also required on test day…but what the student didn’t say is that the lab is actually due before I require it in my class (the lab is independent from the lecture portion). So, if it’s due before I require it anyway…why is this a problem? Ah yes…I forgot; the snowflake doesn’t want to do the lab at all. So sad.
5. “To sum it all just dont take him half are class had to drop out cause he is horrible”. Wait, what? Half are class? Now, I can understand confusing “their” “there” and “they’re” (Hey I didn’t say excuse that mix-up, I just understand it) but mixing up “our” and “are”? This is fantastic! I had all of this excess malice building up in me with no place to unload it, so thank you student! Thank you for crapping out a wonderfully idiotic review to confirm my growing suspicions that college students are becoming more and more stupid!
I guess the student tried to sound at least a little smart by using the math term “sum” in the review…Unfortunately, my misguided fool of a student, you are still an idiot who is going to fail the class (and hey, that means you have to dish out another $350 for the class…a little insult on Ratemyprofessor doesn’t even compare!)
But after I finished reading the review (and finished the subsequent laughter), I realized something: there’s nothing truly wrong with having the characteristics the student complained about. Having challenging tests, requiring homework to be turned in, requiring lab work to be completed on time…mon dieu! The student has actually pointed out several good qualities for a teacher to possess. That’s when I had the realization that if students think that these characteristics are somehow negative, then they have lost sight of what it means to be a student.
By the way, this student wrote this during a semester when I’ve helped over 85% of my students pass that state exam (significant for my college, where passing rates of 43-52% are the average).
However, after reading the students poorly written comments, I simply asked myself “…is any of that really bad?”
-Professor J
