Injustice in school

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Yesterday the professor in one of my classes said something that really put something in perspective for me. How unfair the setup of colleges can be for aspies.

He was talking about changing the grading system to include homework problem sets (we didn't use to have homework but he did this to help people who struggled on the tests). The comment he made was this, he said it jokingly but nonetheless it really was telling about why school can be so hard for us academically. Here's what he said.

"On these problem sets if you get anything less than a B you should go slit your wrists or something" interrupted by laughter "um... that's not really what I meant, hehe, but seriously you have things to help you get these done. You have each other to help each other out with these. You also have your books."

I don't know anyone in that f*****g class. I have no friends at the college and I have never figured out how to be accepted into a study group. To me this implies that when trying to teach difficult things in large classes the professors don't even try to teach you. They just give you questions and assume that you will all cluster in a group to try to figure it out for yourselves. The textbook is pretty lame, too, poorly labeled, difficult to find what you are looking for. No wonder it is hard for us aspies in school if the teaching method isn't to teach but to just make a group teach themselves. Fortunately for me the first problem set I figured out on my own, but what if it doesn't stay that way?

My first day of college, our insane (clinically) English professor made us take the name and number of the person sitting in front of us, in case we ever had questions or needed help, we had someones number. Well one day, I get a call from this chick, and she asks me all these questions, and all I could say was "who the heck are you?" It was so uncomfortable, I hated that idea.

I once heard a story from where I used to live in which a young lady was thrown out of being a teacher's assistant by the school district because she had heard her mother say bad things about the school when she wasn't even involved!

That is very unfair!

A lot of professors have jobs in Universities, not because they want to teach, but because the school gave them a grant to research something. But they'll only get the money on the condition that they teach a class or two.

Yeah, unfortunately very true. I haven't had many "good" professors. I'm still technically working for one of the few I liked. (Don't get payed any more, already got credit for the research I completed, only thing going for me now, other than enjoyment, is the chance of someday getting a paper published in an ACS journal...hopefully.)

Some like the material, but don't like to teach. Others have gotten jaded. Others still, they aren't even good at teaching, even if they are quite knowledgeable in their field.

The good professors enjoy the teaching, and are willing to help you if you have problems with the material. Yeah, that involves interacting with them, but at times e-mail is sufficient. That's helped me a lot. The rest, well... it is tough. The only thing I have going for me in that sense is that I seem to be really good at multiple choice / matching, and at least in psychology there's a lot of that.

That, and the fact that my name looks pretty foreign, so I've had a couple times where I've been late on an assignment, apologized (in an e-mail), and had them assume I was an exchange student. They cut me some slack, why I'm not sure, but I didn't question it. They were pretty surprised when they put the face to the name. XD

GoatOnFire, I can relate to that annoying assumption college profs have that everyone will cooperate in a group. Once, when I was in college, we had a group assignment. Whenever I would contribute a suggestion to the group, it was politely ignored. Later, I found that the others in the group had been meeting at each others houses without even telling me, and working on the project there. It was a bittersweet triumph, when our group earned a collective low grade. I could see it coming, but since they thought it was a popularity contest, they ignored my input, and the grade suffered.

There are a couple of options. One is that, if you bring your issue up with the prof, you might find them a good deal more understanding than you'd assume. I know that I've had some pretty good experiences the couple of times that I've been able to approach someone about stuff like this. The other is just work harder on your own - you'll learn more that way, and if you're as anti-social as I am, you probably have more time than many of the other students.

I can often do the same thing. They do want you to pass the exams, and will often give a lot of help.


In reality, people will work together and help each other out on assessed problems - whether the lecturers want it or not - so that always will be a disadvantage for Aspies.

Some of them do. Others, they feel like they haven't done their job if everyone in the class passes.

OMG Professors just teach because they get grants for research? So much for that being the better option to teaching assistants.

I think (except in certain cases where curving is mandated) that instructors would almost always rather that the entire class pass/ace the exam - as long as they didn't weaken the criterion. Some might not care too much, but most even do.

I have some lecturers who will give us a huge amount of help on assessed work so that everyone passes and they therefore don't have to write a retake exam.

I busted the curve in one of my intro classes so bad that everyone else in the class would have failed every exam... I ended up with a 115% grade in the end of the semester...

Whenever we do group work I just sit and work on my own because I don't really know anyone in my classes. I never learnt very well when we were told to work in a group though.

Yeah I hate that too. I think that teachers should actually TEACH otherwise going to school for education is pointless.

Teaching is more than just regurgitating slop though.