You're an excellent
instructor, sir. No, no, really, really you are.
It's just that you're a horrible,
horrible, disgracefully dismal
teacher.
You have no sense of your
class. None at all. And you can't even sense that much, you see? You go into detail when we all
understand, and you watch us lapse into perfect
boredom with whatever it is you're prattling on at. You gloss over the things that confound. You take for granted some
background that our last professor skipped because he ran out of time at the end of the semester, and you never, ever ask. You do not understand that it is the little things, the exponents and the
symbols that all look exactly the same if they are not carefully
rendered that catch an undergrad's attention, and that if you lose us on those you will never, ever get us back until we find out where it went wrong. And that may take
time.
You skip
triple integrals without ever skipping a beat.
You answer a question by saying we should have learned that already, and
insinuate guilt that we're taking your time by asking. A teacher should
never make a
student feel bad for the act of asking.
Your
solutions sets are atrocious. If you would not accept
Q.E.D. as an answer from us, do not use it to skip half a problem It is the setup that matters, and not the ending, for the
setup is what will keep us from ever, ever
understanding. What is logic to you is only logic because you have had so many years to let it become a matter you take for granted.
Do not say that this problem was done in
class, and therefore refuse to review it. If we did not understand well enough to be able to do the problem it is because we were unable to follow the first
treatment you gave, and while we may not know exactly where it went wrong, we are
lost. Do not penalize us for not having recognized that the first time. Do not penalize us for missing a class because
you want us to realize our sin.
You come in late every day and your
lecture always runs over time. You start a new topic with three minutes left and expect us to
follow when you show no sign of letting up.
You have not once in this entire
semester drawn any parallel between the math and what actually, physically
happens.
This is physics after all, sir.
Sir?
These are not sins
exclusive to you, sir. Many others have had them before you, but
I have never held such sins against them the way that I hold them on you. And it is
precisely because you are an
excellent instructor, Your explanations are
lucid and complete, concise and well composed.
But you do not teach. You have the ability to teach, but you choose not to because
you do not care. You ask me to care about you and your class and I do not. I vehemently stand up in opposition to it because I am putting forth more
effort than you would ever even consider putting forth. And that is why I hold you in
spite. That is why I turn and
walk away, and why I will spit on you and your class once I absolutely blow you away with the most fantastic
score you have ever seen.