EPTHonestly, you haven't had a shitty teacher until you get to university.
i hate crappy teachers - Page 2
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javy_
United States1677 Posts
Honestly, you haven't had a shitty teacher until you get to university. | ||
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Sufficiency
Canada23833 Posts
On October 14 2010 15:32 javy925 wrote: If your teacher is bad, you're going to need to rely on the book. Luckily for you, there's a tremendous amount of material on the physics you will learn in that class. If you don't find your textbook adequate, go find a college book that is used in lower division physics. There are tons out there which do a good job explaining the material. If you don't want to deal with another textbook, then you have to go talk to your teacher about why you're having difficulty learning from the lectures. Honestly, you haven't had a shitty teacher until you get to university. In universities there are shitty TAs and shitty profs who can't speak English. If you want to learn something, do it yourself. Most of these elementary topics can be found on many books. Just mix-and-match, read all of them. Often one book will explain certain things better than other ones. | ||
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Impervious
Canada4199 Posts
On October 14 2010 13:58 Cambium wrote: just wait until university, you haven't seen bad teachers yet... Sad but true..... Some profs are absolutely amazing. So far, most of mine have been awesome. Some are absolutely terrible, and I've had 2 so far. I had a Calc prof taught us the wrong stuff for the entire semester, and well over half the class (myself included) failed because of how difficult he made it..... He's still a prof, because he's tenured..... My philosophy prof would give you an instant fail on any paper that had a view different than his, no matter how well you presented it..... He's still there, of course, because of how influential he is in parliament..... And TAs are the same. Some are awesome (one held his discussion groups at a bar). Others are terrible..... I don't even want to list these..... | ||
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bbq ftw
United States139 Posts
Ask your classmates if you're the social type, read a textbook if you're not. Or read the textbook 100% of the time. You won't regret learning how to learn things (trite, I know, but true). | ||
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prOxi.swAMi
Australia3091 Posts
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Osmoses
Sweden5302 Posts
On October 14 2010 14:23 Manifesto7 wrote: Ever gone and talked to your teacher after class about your problems? This. Unless you've got one of those teachers that a) don't give a shit or b) would rather entertain you with stories of their youth. I had this physics professor that would spend all class talking about how "this used to be all orange plantations blah blah" and if you were ever foolish enough to get caught in conversation with the guy, you were stuck for at least a half hour, because he just wouldn't quit, going on and on about something completely irrelevant, like how he used to know this guy that came from sweden who had once talked to the king. Even when you started saying stuff like "OK, thanks, goodbye, alright, see you later then" and walking away, he would COME AFTER YOU, still babbling like a deranged person. You should try to talk to your professor after class, but lets not pretend there's no such thing as bad teachers. | ||
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Atom Cannister
Germany380 Posts
You have it better than that! | ||
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Robstickle
Great Britain406 Posts
On October 14 2010 13:14 imBLIND wrote:High school physics is a pain in the butt If it's any consolation most of the stuff you should know at this point is either wrong or grossly simplified anyway. | ||
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jamesr12
United States1549 Posts
I had one professor for math who spoke pretty poor english, but he was a great professor, because he cared. He knew his english wasnt great so he made sure students could understand him, and showed us all kinds of resources. He was also was around to help students all the time. He held 20 office hours a week, and would help with anything he could even if it wasn't his class. I had another professor for physics, who was awful. He spoke perfect english, but didnt give a shit about his students, made no materials avaliable for help, held 2 office hours a week (unvi minnium.) Left the room as soon as he could when the class ended. Payed no attention to what the preq for the class he was teaching were. Read the book and learn on your own is all you can do. MIT opencourseware is good source as well I reccomend it. TL:DR: College proffessor are either great or suck there is rarely someone inbetween, if they suck man up and use the book also MIT opencourseware is great | ||
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Tazza
Korea (South)1678 Posts
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Cambium
United States16368 Posts
On October 14 2010 13:58 Cambium wrote: just wait until university, you haven't seen bad teachers yet... At the university level, some profs simply don't give a shit about teaching as they may wish to focus their attentions elsewhere such as research or university/departmental bureaucracy, so they literally give the worst lectures ever. This is especially painful when these profs teach foundation courses such as linear algebra (so that you are fucked throughout your university career) or advanced topics (you take them because you have an interest, yet you learn absolutely nothing). Also, you have to keep in mind that high school teachers typically are not the cream of the crop. While some are extremely passionate about teaching, sadly, most of them simply see it as just another job, something you do to get by in life. On a side note, I volunteered at a local highschool three times a week assisting/teaching Gr. 12 calculus during my senior year, and I really enjoyed it. This might be something I want to do after I retire :D | ||
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GreatFall
United States1061 Posts
What does it all mean? Well it means that even if he wanted to, no Ph.D. in his right mind would go back for 1 more year of schooling just to teach high school. It's far easier to just apply for community college! That's the predicament I'm currently in. I love to teach and have a Ph.D.. I was looking at both High School and Community College. When I realized that I have to go back to school a whole year just to teach High School (which pays less than community college). I said fuck that, I'm teaching Community College! Basically long story short. The system is set up in a way that makes it easier for people with lower degrees, who may not understand the topic as well as someone of higher education, teach high school over people who are much much more qualified. | ||
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mieda
United States85 Posts
In high school you expect teachers to go at a much slower pace, go over all the trivial homework assignments on the board with you, give feedbacks with many quizzes, tests, whatever. Yes, you were sheltered, and you expect the world will continue to shelter you. You come to college, you're a young adult. You'll be treated as one. One of the things you're learning in college is how to be independent, and take matters into your own hands. You don't understand something? Go bother your TA, your professor's office hours, use the libraries, ask your buddies, find resources - there are many in most universities. Be proactive. Just stop complaining that your professor or your TA is not spending 24/7 making lectures notes just to make you happy. Most of the TA's or Professors are actually quite happy and willing to discuss course matters with you if they see that you're really trying to learn. Yes, it takes effort on your part (surprise!) to learn the materials well. The world really doesn't center around you once you get out of high school, ok? Stop being a lazy whining baby and please grow up. Also many professors have different view of the topics than you do, and have varying teaching styles. Some of them might stick to textbooks, have very rigid course plans. Some others may design the course so that you learn the formal properties from textbooks, and the lectures cover the "intuitions" of them - often times if you really take the time to understand it with patience, you'll see just how valuable a lot of those talks are. Ask yourselves these: 1) Are you really trying to learn the material by putting genuine effort on your part? 2) Are you going to the office hours or are you just sitting lazy back home complaining about some parts of the lectures you don't understand? 3) Did you really think learning something is easy and it's purely based on lecture notes? | ||
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arb
Noobville17921 Posts
On October 14 2010 14:23 Manifesto7 wrote: Ever gone and talked to your teacher after class about your problems? pretty much this | ||
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pepsidrinker
United States11 Posts
On October 15 2010 04:10 mieda wrote: I see a lot of complaints by college kids here about their professors. Keep in mind that if you go to research university, you won't be spoonfed materials by your professor or your TA, especially in freshman baby courses in calculus, linear algebra, whatever. In high school you expect teachers to go at a much slower pace, go over all the trivial homework assignments on the board with you, give feedbacks with many quizzes, tests, whatever. Yes, you were sheltered, and you expect the world will continue to shelter you. You come to college, you're a young adult. You'll be treated as one. One of the things you're learning in college is how to be independent, and take matters into your own hands. You don't understand something? Go bother your TA, your professor's office hours, use the libraries, ask your buddies, find resources - there are many in most universities. Be proactive. Just stop complaining that your professor or your TA is not spending 24/7 making lectures notes just to make you happy. Most of the TA's or Professors are actually quite happy and willing to discuss course matters with you if they see that you're really trying to learn. Yes, it takes effort on your part (surprise!) to learn the materials well. The world really doesn't center around you once you get out of high school, ok? Stop being a lazy whining baby and please grow up. Also many professors have different view of the topics than you do, and have varying teaching styles. Some of them might stick to textbooks, have very rigid course plans. Some others may design the course so that you learn the formal properties from textbooks, and the lectures cover the "intuitions" of them - often times if you really take the time to understand it with patience, you'll see just how valuable a lot of those talks are. Ask yourselves these: 1) Are you really trying to learn the material by putting genuine effort on your part? 2) Are you going to the office hours or are you just sitting lazy back home complaining about some parts of the lectures you don't understand? 3) Did you really think learning something is easy and it's purely based on lecture notes? This is the best post by far... If you aren't doing your part to learn the material, how can they do their part? To the blog owner: You complain about not being able to speak an ounce of French after taking four years of French. How much effort did you put in on your part? I bet you only attended class and did the one hour worth of homework that was due. That's hardly enough to learn a language. You probably didn't go out and rent French film, study the dialog, or even attempt to find people online to practice with. You can't blame teachers for your own laziness. The two things that really bothers me when people talk about their failures: 1. It's not my fault I am not able to understand it, other people are just bad at teaching it 2. I know I am a motivated person and I can do it if I wanted to, but I just don't want to try | ||
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SlyinZ
France199 Posts
I'm not a badass genius, but i learned more on the internetz than by my teachers  | ||
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emperorchampion
Canada9496 Posts
On October 15 2010 02:23 Cambium wrote: To follow up on my comment earlier At the university level, some profs simply don't give a shit about teaching as they may wish to focus their attentions elsewhere such as research or university/departmental bureaucracy, so they literally give the worst lectures ever. This is especially painful when these profs teach foundation courses such as linear algebra (so that you are fucked throughout your university career) or advanced topics (you take them because you have an interest, yet you learn absolutely nothing). Also, you have to keep in mind that high school teachers typically are not the cream of the crop. While some are extremely passionate about teaching, sadly, most of them simply see it as just another job, something you do to get by in life. On a side note, I volunteered at a local highschool three times a week assisting/teaching Gr. 12 calculus during my senior year, and I really enjoyed it. This might be something I want to do after I retire :D Yeah, I've been really lucky in my semester so far. I guess I fluked out and got all the best professors from what I've seen. On the other hand, my TAs are pretty bad. You can tell that they know their stuff, but they have absolutely no idea how to convey it in an understandable fashion. My Calculus TA just writes stuff on the board and talks really quietly, and my Physics TA gives examples that are like 2 years ahead of where we are :/. I really agree with the part about liking to teach, I taught Karate for half a year and really enjoyed the process of it. Becoming a Professor myself is something that I've been considering, but that's a bit far ahead yet. Anyways, to the OP: Good Luck! As someone else said, High School physics is pretty much worthless :S | ||
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Slayer91
Ireland23335 Posts
On October 15 2010 00:41 Atom Cannister wrote: I had 14 years of Irish and I can barely speak a word of it. You have it better than that! I can read french articles over the net perfectly but I can't speak a word of irish either. French teachers (especially if they're from france) actually teach you the language, instead of teaching you to say "how are you" and then making you learn off poetry analysis. lol. Helps that the language is actually logical. But anyways, teaching isn't exactly easy. It's very hard for someone who isn't naturally really good at explaining things to people to be a good teacher, and they need effort/feedback to improve. If they actually care you shouldn't bash them too hard. Physics is something you really should be able to try to understand yourself with some hard thinking. Teaching should NOT be a 1-way system. You need to think for yourself. Here was my teachers method of teaching french; 1- Have a grammar book of all grammar lessons and regularly test yourself on all irregular verb conjuagtions+grammar tenses, etc 2 - Have a vocabulary book which you take down any word you encounter you don't know, look it up in the dictionary (this is tedious as hell) and then write the translation beside it. (colour coding is good). Read at least 1 article in this fashion a week, highlighting unknown words/phrases (watch out for stuff like subjunctive verbs that seem like real words) then looking them all up. 3 - Have 1 writing exercise to do a week and try to get it corrected in terms of grammar. (not like your teacher will refuse this) If you want to be able to speak it, you need to practice oral//listen to french speakers a lot as well. Also, as a preliminary make sure you understand how to say french words properly. e grave, e acute, NO h, don't pronouce last letter. -tion is pronouced -ssee-on Can't think of anything else h aven't done french in a couple years but I found this method fantastic for having a thorough knowledge of the language and not some crappy learned off stuff. (you can learn specific phrases as "vocabulary" though) | ||
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Trezeguet
United States2656 Posts
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Impervious
Canada4199 Posts
On October 15 2010 04:10 mieda wrote: I see a lot of complaints by college kids here about their professors. Keep in mind that if you go to research university, you won't be spoonfed materials by your professor or your TA, especially in freshman baby courses in calculus, linear algebra, whatever. This is a very good point. If you're going to have a crappy prof, it's better to have it in a less important/difficult course. I had a shitty prof for Cal 3 though..... Was not a fun experience..... About half the class dropped it before the deadline because they knew they would fail it, I decided to try to stick it out, only to be part of the half of the remainder that failed anyways..... Barely failed (I got a 58 on the final and needed a 60), but failed nonetheless..... | ||
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