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I was doing some cleaning on Saturday and came across a list I'd written down 40+ years ago of all the teachers I had up until I started graduate school. It was a longer list than I would have guessed, about 70 names, some of them listed multiple times because of multiple classes with them. The list includes all the PE teachers I ever had, at least half of whom I now have no memory of at all. The list does not include any of the art and music teachers who dropped into our regular grade school classes once a week for an hour. The list does not include all of the TA's I had in college for lab or discussion sections of big lecture courses. I never knew at least one of those names. (I accidentally cut the first session of that discussion group and never felt the need to learn the guy's name.) And I quickly forgot the names of some of the others. I started thinking about the good and the bad teachers, and since I did a little teaching myself I started thinking about what makes a good or a bad teacher, and thought it might make a good meme.
1. Where did most of your early teachers come from? Was that important?
Most of my grade school and several of my high school teachers came from southern Missouri, the Ozark Mountains, a region not exactly famous for academic and intellectual achievement. The result was many of the kids spoke better English than their teachers who were after all college graduates. My fifth grade teacher didn't know how to correctly pronounce the word "theater;" my high school advanced chemistry teacher could not correctly pronounce several words important for chemistry including "formula," "oxygen," and "chlorine." Did any of it matter? No, we kids accepted they were from southern Missouri and we pronounced the words correctly despite our teachers. A couple of times in college I ran across professors mispronouncing words that the students began copying because, obviously a professor would know what he was doing. The worst example was a professor from the hinterlands of Mississippi, who kept saying a word as 'spat-ee-uhl.' It was months before I realized he was trying to say the word "spatial," and failing. But what he'd been saying all along did suddenly make more sense.
2. About how many truly boring teachers did you have?
I think I can safely say two. Both were men. One, a math teacher, had a voice that would put you to sleep. The other my graduate Russian grammar instructor, had a grating voice that would keep you awake, but his classes were pretty tedious.
3. Would you say that unpleasant teachers are necessarily bad teachers?
Sometimes the two do coincide, but I can think of examples of teachers who shouldn't have been teaching, but who successfully taught their courses. (see below)
4. What characteristic is the worst for a bad class as opposed to a bad teacher?
The worst thing is to sign up for a class because you want to learn something about a subject and have it not be about that subject at all. I had a course my final semester in college that was supposed to be about Russian culture, and what was taught was Marshall McLuhan's then popular ideas about media. I had a course in grad school that was supposed to be about Russian folklore, but was instead a course on Joseph Campbell's Hero of a Thousand Faces which while relevant for folklore wasn't what I'd signed up to learn about. Thinking about it now, both courses were probably dumped on the people who taught them. It was time according to the schedule to have them offered, and no qualified professor wanted to teach them. So they fell to whomever was low on the totem pole. Instead of taking the effort to learn something themselves, the instructor and the professor who did the teaching for those courses decided to teach whatever they wanted to. That's not a great idea when people are paying good money for classes. About half the class very publicly and permanently walked out on the instructor and since she'd made a point of saying attendence was not required there wasn't anything she could do about it. In fact, I would guess that on average those of us who walked out got higher grades in that class than those who defended her and stayed, because we had the good sense to work on and turn in the projects which we'd been told would constitute the entire grade. Nobody walked out on the professor. It was an interesting class. But I wish it had been on Russian folklore instead.
5. What makes an unpleasant teacher?
It seems to be about attitude.
Some male teachers are just grumpy all the time. You walk into class and here's this guy in a constant bad mood. I had a math teacher in high school who seemed to be constantly bitter about being stuck in a job he hated. He griped about things at random, some of which it was difficult to understand why they bothered him other than his general bad mood. My Astronomy professor in college was frequently in a bad mood. but I can say it was really his own fault. He was a little careless about planning his lessons and frequently went over his alloted time. Then he would explode when people got up to leave before he was finished. The universities I attended, Missouri and Ohio State, have huge campuses. If you don't leave your class at one far corner of the campus on time, you are never going to make it to your next class at the other far corner on time. The professor never considered that he wanted students to show up late to other professors' classes, to please his own quibbles. I had a psych professor who literally never had a good word to say about anything. None of them was a bad teacher, but they did make class unpleasant. The best thing I can say about them is that they didn't take their problems out on individual students.
Women teachers with bad attitudes were a different story. Some I had would always take out their frustrations on individuals. I had two Russian instructors who were perfectly nice people and good friends of mine outside of class, who were nearly unbearably irritating once they stepped in front of a class. One of them asked me specifically to sign up for her section of a class one term, and was really sad when I didn't. But who wants to listen to somebody you like going overboard personally berating someone else you like in front of their face in public? I had an awful class with a history teacher in high school. I would have excused her because she was pregnant the whole school year. But kids who'd had her class in earlier years were saying exactly the same things about her. I think she just didn't like boys in general, and she'd get mad and let into one of us for the most trivial things. She once demanded to see everyone's class notes and let into me, because mine weren't up to her ideals. She raved loudly to the whole class that I wouldn't do well in college because of the way I took notes. I think my record at the university and in grad school would prove differently, and I wasn't in the least bit concerned about my academic future when she was in the middle of her tirade. No doubt she thought she was doing everyone a big favor by setting out the way students ought to do their business. But honestly she was just making an ass of herself. To be balanced I had a woman professor in college who I thought was pretty good when I was in her class. But every female student I talked to over a period of a couple years said she absolutely favored the guys unfairly. At least she didn't berate the women openly in class. The worst woman instructor I ever had, berated an entire math class over and over for reasons known only to herself. It wasn't a sudden frustration over bad test results, it was just a constant stream of bile. I don't think she had the slightest idea part of her job was to encourage students.
6. Did you ever have any teachers who were so bad they should have been fired?
Probably two. The female math instructor just above was probably bad enough she should have been fired. I had a male grade school teacher who was generally a fine teacher, but who got so violent when he got angry, he probably would have been fired with the societal attitudes ten years later, if he hadn't moved on to administration. He might well have ended up in jail, if he were teaching these days.
7. Most people have had teachers they liked and didn't. Some are lucky enough to have a few who made a real positive difference in their lifes. If you could go back in time and talk to some of your less favorite teachers before they started teaching what would you tell them?
Mostly relax. You are not responsible for the rest of any of your students' lives. They will have other chances to learn... It's fine to point out problems you see. But don't think all of those problems absolutely must be corrected before the final exam in the course you are teaching... Don't let your personal problems boil over into the classroom... In the end, teachers who don't challenge their students to better things are worthless. Think about the differences between being a successful demanding teacher and unsuccessful demanding one... And as always treat others as you'd want to be treated yourself.
1. Where did most of your early teachers come from? Was that important?
Most of my grade school and several of my high school teachers came from southern Missouri, the Ozark Mountains, a region not exactly famous for academic and intellectual achievement. The result was many of the kids spoke better English than their teachers who were after all college graduates. My fifth grade teacher didn't know how to correctly pronounce the word "theater;" my high school advanced chemistry teacher could not correctly pronounce several words important for chemistry including "formula," "oxygen," and "chlorine." Did any of it matter? No, we kids accepted they were from southern Missouri and we pronounced the words correctly despite our teachers. A couple of times in college I ran across professors mispronouncing words that the students began copying because, obviously a professor would know what he was doing. The worst example was a professor from the hinterlands of Mississippi, who kept saying a word as 'spat-ee-uhl.' It was months before I realized he was trying to say the word "spatial," and failing. But what he'd been saying all along did suddenly make more sense.
2. About how many truly boring teachers did you have?
I think I can safely say two. Both were men. One, a math teacher, had a voice that would put you to sleep. The other my graduate Russian grammar instructor, had a grating voice that would keep you awake, but his classes were pretty tedious.
3. Would you say that unpleasant teachers are necessarily bad teachers?
Sometimes the two do coincide, but I can think of examples of teachers who shouldn't have been teaching, but who successfully taught their courses. (see below)
4. What characteristic is the worst for a bad class as opposed to a bad teacher?
The worst thing is to sign up for a class because you want to learn something about a subject and have it not be about that subject at all. I had a course my final semester in college that was supposed to be about Russian culture, and what was taught was Marshall McLuhan's then popular ideas about media. I had a course in grad school that was supposed to be about Russian folklore, but was instead a course on Joseph Campbell's Hero of a Thousand Faces which while relevant for folklore wasn't what I'd signed up to learn about. Thinking about it now, both courses were probably dumped on the people who taught them. It was time according to the schedule to have them offered, and no qualified professor wanted to teach them. So they fell to whomever was low on the totem pole. Instead of taking the effort to learn something themselves, the instructor and the professor who did the teaching for those courses decided to teach whatever they wanted to. That's not a great idea when people are paying good money for classes. About half the class very publicly and permanently walked out on the instructor and since she'd made a point of saying attendence was not required there wasn't anything she could do about it. In fact, I would guess that on average those of us who walked out got higher grades in that class than those who defended her and stayed, because we had the good sense to work on and turn in the projects which we'd been told would constitute the entire grade. Nobody walked out on the professor. It was an interesting class. But I wish it had been on Russian folklore instead.
5. What makes an unpleasant teacher?
It seems to be about attitude.
Some male teachers are just grumpy all the time. You walk into class and here's this guy in a constant bad mood. I had a math teacher in high school who seemed to be constantly bitter about being stuck in a job he hated. He griped about things at random, some of which it was difficult to understand why they bothered him other than his general bad mood. My Astronomy professor in college was frequently in a bad mood. but I can say it was really his own fault. He was a little careless about planning his lessons and frequently went over his alloted time. Then he would explode when people got up to leave before he was finished. The universities I attended, Missouri and Ohio State, have huge campuses. If you don't leave your class at one far corner of the campus on time, you are never going to make it to your next class at the other far corner on time. The professor never considered that he wanted students to show up late to other professors' classes, to please his own quibbles. I had a psych professor who literally never had a good word to say about anything. None of them was a bad teacher, but they did make class unpleasant. The best thing I can say about them is that they didn't take their problems out on individual students.
Women teachers with bad attitudes were a different story. Some I had would always take out their frustrations on individuals. I had two Russian instructors who were perfectly nice people and good friends of mine outside of class, who were nearly unbearably irritating once they stepped in front of a class. One of them asked me specifically to sign up for her section of a class one term, and was really sad when I didn't. But who wants to listen to somebody you like going overboard personally berating someone else you like in front of their face in public? I had an awful class with a history teacher in high school. I would have excused her because she was pregnant the whole school year. But kids who'd had her class in earlier years were saying exactly the same things about her. I think she just didn't like boys in general, and she'd get mad and let into one of us for the most trivial things. She once demanded to see everyone's class notes and let into me, because mine weren't up to her ideals. She raved loudly to the whole class that I wouldn't do well in college because of the way I took notes. I think my record at the university and in grad school would prove differently, and I wasn't in the least bit concerned about my academic future when she was in the middle of her tirade. No doubt she thought she was doing everyone a big favor by setting out the way students ought to do their business. But honestly she was just making an ass of herself. To be balanced I had a woman professor in college who I thought was pretty good when I was in her class. But every female student I talked to over a period of a couple years said she absolutely favored the guys unfairly. At least she didn't berate the women openly in class. The worst woman instructor I ever had, berated an entire math class over and over for reasons known only to herself. It wasn't a sudden frustration over bad test results, it was just a constant stream of bile. I don't think she had the slightest idea part of her job was to encourage students.
6. Did you ever have any teachers who were so bad they should have been fired?
Probably two. The female math instructor just above was probably bad enough she should have been fired. I had a male grade school teacher who was generally a fine teacher, but who got so violent when he got angry, he probably would have been fired with the societal attitudes ten years later, if he hadn't moved on to administration. He might well have ended up in jail, if he were teaching these days.
7. Most people have had teachers they liked and didn't. Some are lucky enough to have a few who made a real positive difference in their lifes. If you could go back in time and talk to some of your less favorite teachers before they started teaching what would you tell them?
Mostly relax. You are not responsible for the rest of any of your students' lives. They will have other chances to learn... It's fine to point out problems you see. But don't think all of those problems absolutely must be corrected before the final exam in the course you are teaching... Don't let your personal problems boil over into the classroom... In the end, teachers who don't challenge their students to better things are worthless. Think about the differences between being a successful demanding teacher and unsuccessful demanding one... And as always treat others as you'd want to be treated yourself.
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