In seventh grade I began to realize how easy math was becoming for me. I was finishing all of the homework assignments in class while the teacher was lecturing on the material. When my parents took notice of this they decided that I should get a book for eighth grade math problems to work through once I finished my actual homework. For about half of the year, I went through the same routine every day in math. During the lecture I would finish the homework and then during the homework time I would work problems out of my advanced book. At the end of the year I took a test and ended up skipping eighth grade math all together and going straight into algebra one. It was in algebra one that I encountered my least favorite teacher ever.
Her name was Mrs. Jones, and while she was a nice person I couldn't learn from her at all. Every day that I went into that class I felt frustrated because I couldn't understand the material she was teaching no matter how hard I tried. For the longest time I felt that I was the problem and that I just wasn't smart enough but then I noticed the countless other students that were struggling just as much as I was. We had lengthy homework every night in that class, ranging from forty to fifty problems a night, the worst part was that it was graded for accuracy. At the beginning of every class we would grade the previous night's homework and turn it in. I remember that I was incredibly frustrated by this because I felt that I shouldn't be penalized for not retaining the information immediately. Almost always, our homework that night was over the new material we had learned in class that day. I don't feel that I had enough time to actually understand the material before I was graded on it.
It took me until nearly winter break before I began to figure out that I simply could not learn from her teaching style. The unfortunate part though, is that she wouldn't teach any other way. It was her way or the highway. I would ask her during class to explain things different ways and she would just repeat what she had said before.
I struggled through that class and it was by far the hardest class I had taken up to that point. She is only my least favorite teacher because she did nothing to help me succeed. The only reason I passed that class was because I went out and learned the material in other ways on my own. She never took the time to even consider that the way she was teaching wasn't working for everyone sitting in her classroom.
Travis,
ReplyDeleteI remember my least favorite teacher, just like it was yesterday. Actually, I have class with them Monday, Wednesday, Friday. It's hard to be engaged in a class where the teacher isn't willing to help you succeed. My teacher enjoys working out a problem that takes up the entire board, and then realizing that they made a mistake towards the beginning of it, and redo the entire problem.
I also can recall my least favorite teacher from high school. She was my Algebra II teacher sophomore year. Although I did well in the class, it was only because I was able to learn the material on my own before the tests. The most frustrating part about her teaching was her lack of helpfulness. She would never explain a homework problem in class that a student asked, unless he looked up the solution before hand. It just felt like she was there because she had to instead of her trying to help us learn. I agree with you that those teachers that only do it their way are very frustrating.
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