From: Idrul Copius-Emments < ice@aol.com>
To: Angry Professor's Friend
Subject: you suck
I am writing you this email in concern of your class. I am extremely dissappointed in the way you have taught your class. you taught your class on a level that was way too advanced for a [00] level course. Having to grade on a [X] point curve is ridiculous for 2 tests in a row. when over a quarter of the classes are getting D's and F's on tests is ridiculous. i understand one test being hard and you curving and making up for it on the second test, but then for that test to be curved and even more harder is not ok. I know several people in both classes and they struggles as well, they also expressed to you and you didn't really seem to help them as well as me. I emailed you two times before you responded back to me when i wanted to speak with you about help because i am a senior graduating next quarter. i wanted you to help me understand the materials a little better, all you did was told me to study the notes more intensively. Yes, i am upset because i failed the class, i am upset that you made your tests so hard and weren't concerned about helping your students, especially when they are graduating seniors struggling. what you need to realize is some classes we have to take because it is required, not everybody is a whiz at this stuff is you, try puttin it down in our terms. your lectures are understandable but your tests are horrible. I don't recommend your class to anybody or you. i have struggled before in classes, but never have i felt so disgusted with the way a teacher has taught or dealt with their students. Curving is great, but when a teacher has to curve regularly is not ok.
Friday, July 25, 2008
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37 comments:
Your point is proven. I'm cringing and itching to reach for a red pen to correct the hell out of that email. It may be to your advantage if this person tells his / her peers to avoid your classes. Would you want to teach anyone in that mindset?
LOL. I can just see this guy/girl fuming more and more as he typed that. By the end it was barely even coherent.
Hey, I had the same student this past semester in a history class! And even though I did meet with hir several times, and posted a sample paper on the course website, I still never made my expectations clear. Funny how it works like that when the student doesn't listen.
Barb
Sweet! This student has transferred to *your* school! I can look forward to the upcoming semester!
I would love to know how you responded to this. I just spit up a little.
FROM: ice@aol.com
TO: Prospective Employer
RE: Interview
I am writing you this email in concern of the interview you had me last week. I am extremely disappointed in the way you asked me questions I was not prepared to answer. It is ridiculous to assume that recent college graduates will be prepared answering for these questions. I am not going to recommend your company to my friends for any kind of employment, and I think your horrible products are not fair.
====
Aw crud. I can't even fake it this badly.
No wonder he couldn't review his class notes. He's illiterate.
Gawd.
I can see (vaguely through the mist) where he might be coming from, but anytime you feel obliged to write a letter like this, make the grammar and style unimpeachable.
At least then you look like a whiny slacker instead of a whiny asshat.
I once had a professor that reminds me of this student. I asked that the professor help me on a chapter of business stats, to which he refused. (This happened throughout the semester for several students.) At the end of the semester as he handed out evaluation forms, he proclaimed to the class in pidgin Engrish, "I know you all hate me. Why don't you just say something bad about my mother?!?"
So someone in the back row did. I'm pretty sure he never made that offer again.
"...even more harder..." seriously?
Wow.
Let me guess... This is a service course taken primarily by students outside your discipline. The general description of the course makes it look easy, and them students are surprised when they have to actually *earn* their credits.
How'd I do?
This message was sent to a friend, not me. (I was really jealous!) The course is required by a social science major and contains lots of "real" science.
In case anyone is interested, the modal grade in this class (of approximately 200 students) was an A.
FROM: professor.mofo.angry@prestigious.uni
TO: Idrul Copius-Emments ice@aol.com
SUBJECT: You stupid (was: you suck)
Thanks for confirming with your e-mail that my judgment about your abilities was correct and my grades match your performance.
As I am always be eager to help I assumed you want to have your opinion about my course on permanent record. I made sure a copy of your mail got added to your file.
Hope this helps and finest regards,
Professor Mof O. Angry
Oh. my. GAWD.
What an idiot. I think I've had this student before. Have college students always been like this? Or is it just that nowadays, they feel more free to demonstrate to the world and their profs why they, like, are soooo "special?"
I like to tell my students that not everyone is awesome at everything. Look at me and chemistry, or statistics. The thing is to find what you ARE good at.
Which I doubt this turkey's ever going to do. What an asswipe.
Sorry to post 2x in a row, but two quick things:
1) I'm going to use this incoherent e-mail when our new semester starts August 21.
2) How do you shorten a post with the "Read More" link? I've looked all through Blogger and can't seem to find it. I know, I know, dumb question. It's Blonde Friday over at E&P.
I think they just got a job where I work.
Jesus, that student must have one bitch of a commute, getting to your campus after taking English Lit at mine.
I'll never understand the students who bitch that they didn't understand because you didn't reply to their e-mails.
Throughout my undergrad and graduate years, if I didn't understand material, I showed up at my professor's office hours with my books and notes and you know, ASKED for help on the specific issues I was having problems with. I only had one professor who was unhelpful even after I went to office hours (and another who was equally unhelpful but taught a class I hated and took with a pass/fail grading option so I could avoid talking to him).
I suppose you can't expect that type of logical behavior from someone who is a graduating senior yet has such a poor grasp of the English language.
So this is what the world of illuminated university faculty is really capable of, neh? Has the profession of passing on knowledge degraded to the mere act of whispers and snickering on an internet blog?
Perhaps insulting students behind their backs, like the bigger bully pushing the younger child, is the only way for unfulfilled individuals to find satisfaction in their otherwise empty lives.
I suppose it is humorous to observe that a professor can be so immature and petty.
To see a person in the valued and distinguished position of teacher abusing their position to denigrate their students is a sadness indeed.
You are a fault within the education system.
Sean, it appears you have a serious lack of the humour gene.
"You are a fault within the education system."
Actually, those of us in the education system would refer to Angry Professor as a Truth Screamer. In this case, however, she didn't make a single comment about this letter (other than the fanciful nom de plume), but she simply presented the email as is. It spoke for itself.
Y'know, I actually had a prof this summer whose ratemyprof comments pretty much mirrored what was expressed in this student's email. "Tests too hard." "Expects us to know too much." etc. So I went into the class expecting Massive Fail. Anyway. Imagine my surprise when the tests weren't impossible. Hard, yes. But only hard in the sense that you needed to study beforehand. The amount of time you put into the class was directly proportional to the grade that you got.
/and, yeah, I didn't get an A in the class, but so what? I put in a lowish B's effort-worth.
A graduating senior? Good Lord.
Can a bachelor's degree even be considered evidence of literacy any more?
(Semi-sour grapes from a dropout ...)
How could this student possibly graduate?
Sean, it appears you have a serious lack of the humour gene.
My guess would be Sean has a serious lack of good grades.
This kid needs a spanking.
ha... this kid is probably related to the one who showed up in my friend's office hours a few years ago:
kid: I can't possibly be failing this class, I'm going to med school (presumably this is because the class is somewhat biology related and he either needed it for his transcript or believed he had some sort of natural gift)
TA: Well, your exam grades were very low and you didn't turn in the paper
kid: yeah, but I'm going to MED SCHOOL
TA: well, did you go to class?
kid: no
TA: did you do the reading?
kid: no
TA: well, how did you think you were going to pass?
kid: no, you don't get it, I'm going to MED SCHOOL.
(repeat loop endlessly)
"I am a senior graduating next quarter." The seven most frightening words in the whole show. I sincerely hope the person does NOT graduate, because I cannot think of a position in which he/she could succeed in any quarter. I was the secretary (yes, we were secretaries in those days) in the Undergraduate English Department at our University, and while I never encountered a person of this (lack of) caliber, I must admit to being alarmed by the papers I typed for Education majors.
Good to know a "graduating senior" need not know anything about stats or composition to graduate from LSU.
As for the negative comments, I don't think Sean understands how frustrating it can be for faculty to deal with students who see their education as a financial transaction that entitles them to both a good grade and a degree.
I have little doubt that the author of this blog holds regularly scheduled office hours and would help a student who was struggling conceptually. I also have little doubt that this is a student who has not put in the effort in the class for help from the Angry Professor to make a difference. My assumptions are based only on my own experience with (many) students like this.
I don’t think the answer in dealing with students is to bully or ridicule them. Ever. But The Gentleman’s C is an anonymous blog and I don’t think it hurts for faculty to blow off some steam in a setting that fully protects the student’s anonymity. I think the student is the only one who should be embarrassed by this exchange (notice the Angry Professor did nothing other than repost an e-mail). He or she is likely not which is another problem.
What’s wrong with the educational system in this country is significant. But The Angry Professor isn’t the problem. Notice the student never said anything about learning in his/her e-mail. Not that this is surprising. Learning isn’t why students go to college anymore.
Well, just because s/he SAYS, "I'm a senior" doesn't make it so. I've had a couple of students try to bullsh*t me on this one. One was a sophomore. The other was either a sophomore or a junior.
jonesnought:
My favorites are the ones who claim that they had straight A's until they took my class--not knowing all it took was a few keystrokes and a password for me to see EXACTLY what their GPA's were before they took my class!
I had this student a few years back. They wrote on my evals that I was "intimidating." As a lowly adjunct, that meant I had to stay after school and go to the principal's... I mean the department chair's... office and get reamed. I really didn't fight it, even though I knew in an instant who the student was, because I felt it would be unprofessional to take the matter further or compromise the student's privacy and freedom of speech.
But I will never teach at that school again. Waste of good lecture prep.
Sean, you really need to grow a funny bone.
Or perhaps, you're the type of student who sends these e-mails?
I do not work in education, and I never personally interacted with people who would send e-mails such as these, but any student who sends this type of e-mail after the class deserves to be made fun of.
Sean fervently believes in a history that never existed.
Since time immemorial, teachers have lambasted lazy students.
For proof, here's a link to a medieval painting from a blog [not sure which one] as evidence.
BTW, anyone else note how nearly all of Sean's sentences were in passive voice?
*tsk-tsk*
I love how people use the metaphor of bullying inappropriately.
I seriously wonder if they've ever experienced it at all.
Hi Angry,
i am in the same profession as you and this email would be really funny if it were fictional.
I got one that trumps this but sadly I deleted it.
The student that wrote it had some real issues going on.
Modal grade of A? That is a bit crazy?
I can believe the modal As. There's always someone going "This class is too hard and everyone else thinks so too," when "everyone" is really just a couple of the person's friends who are also doing poorly.
Did the professor send back her monitor wtih red pen over all the mistakes in grammer?
I have also had this student.
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