Worst Teachers

Thinking back though my career as a student, I've had some people that almost seemed to be vying for the top honors of “worst teacher I've ever had”. Fifth place goes to my seventh grade Life Science teacher that stormed out of the class claiming that if some of us don't want to learn, then she certainly wouldn't bother teaching us. Fourth place goes to my ninth grade biology teacher whom I had to approach with each of my returned tests and the textbook; I proceeded to point out blatant errors on his part. On the worst of them, he would have scored a C- had he taken the test himself with a corrected answer key.

I'm going to give the third place award to the two people who taught my New Mexico History course in seventh grade. The first was a substitute teacher who didn't know the first thing about New Mexican history. On the first day, he told us (in all seriousness) that the state was a perfect square. He didn't last the week. The second teacher was hired hoping to become an English as a Second Language (ESL) teacher, which left me somewhat confused as to her priorities. She completely failed in the classroom discipline department; with the constant interruptions from various students, the only learning I did occurred via the textbook. But the madness did not stop there; to help with the noise level, she instituted the “talking brick”. Even after raising your hand and being acknowledged, she had to bring a five pound adobe brick in a five gallon Tupperware bin to your desk before you were allowed to speak.

In second place, we have my tenth grade Chemistry teacher who practiced minimalist theories of teaching, if minimal stood for “minimal effort”. Instead of teaching the students, he pulled up a Khan Academy video on that day's lesson, and then he assigned bookwork to be done by the end of class, which only maybe four of the thirty students finished in the allotted time. If asked a question, he would oftentimes need to leave the classroom to consult another chemistry teacher to divine the answer. He also seemed to willfully ignore the cheating that ran rampant on in his classroom. He would leave the room periodically during tests; the students were even bold enough to talk in normal voices about the test questions. Even when in the classroom, he turned a blind eye to students leaning over read other students' work. Based on a chain of people copying test answers, I was likely providing answers (unwillingly, I might add, since this was brought up with and dismissed by the administration) to almost half the class. Being a large animal veterinarian, I suspect that this man knows more about the colon of a horse than he does about teaching.

My chosen worst teacher earns his title due to three factors: the sheer volume of students he was able to affect, the duration that he held sway over them, and my knowing what a proper job should be. Luckily, he was only hired as the band director during my senior year, so I only had to endure one year under his unique brand of leadership. He simply did not understand that although he could and should be friendly with his students, he still needed to maintain a professional demeanor. He would spend time joking around during practice when we as a band were trying to accomplish things, yet he would yell and scream at students who imitated this work ethic.

It almost felt like he was trying to stifle our discovery of music. Where our previous band director would have us sightread new music almost every week to keep the band out of a rut, the new director only ran the three competition pieces; yet at the same time he would not spend the time that the band required on the more difficult sections. Also, the previous band director took the time to leave music on in the band room as often as possible as well as being available to students whenever. His replacement holes up in his office immediately after class concludes.

Planning in general seemed to be somewhere close to nonexistent (see http://www.tonedeafcomics.com/comic/lesson-plans/ ). Although he knew the scheduling of them weeks in advance, he did not notify students of after-school practices until the last minute; sometimes the same day as the practice, even after some of the students with early dismissal had already left. Then he proceeds to wonder why the entire band did not show up to to practice when the only way we found out was a small advert on an otherwise busy chalkboard. On a more personal note, I had asked him for a letter of reference for my college admission quest two months in advance, and yet he still had not gotten to it after the two months were up.

As a budding college student, I was in need of a horn to practice on during part of the summer until the tuba that had been ordered for me arrived, so I asked if I could hold onto the tuba that I had been playing on for the past two years until the end of the season. I figured that this was not too much of an imposition; apparently I was terribly mistaken. Instead of allowing me to use that horn (which I had taken impeccable care of), he instead gave it to the second chair student who earned my ire both by damaging the school instruments (resulting in a price tag of over $4000 which could have been spent elsewhere) as well as attempting to subvert the authority of the leadership positions that I held within the band. Instead, I had to fix one of the tubas that he had trashed to put it back into serviceable shape. He may as well have yelled, “Don't let the door hit your butt on the way out!” What a way to send a student who won a national individual band competition out. It came as no surprise to me that the majority of the graduating seniors seemed to hold the same opinion. Sometimes the newfangled thing is not all that it is cracked up to be.