Dropping a class because teacher is a jerk

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anyone else do this? I have just had it with this lady so i'm dropping the class. She'll say things like "God gets an A in my class" and she just makes things overall more difficult. I just don't want to feel like the only one. It's an ENG 200 lvl drama class which is the study of plays throughout history. I could see myself enjoying the class, if she wasn't so rude and self absorbed. I explained to her I have aspergers the 1st day of class. 3 weeks later she calls me over and starts asking me questions about it in front of half the class. I guess I am just venting, but it would be nice if someone could relate.

I've done it. The teacher was often a no-show. I think by mid-terms he only showed up to 3 or 4 classes (class met weekly). One week he told us to learn a portion of a lesson by the next class. He didn't show up for that next class. The class after that he showed up and was mad at us for not learning the entire lesson when it wasn't assigned. He never communicated to us when he was going to miss class or if there was a change in the assignment. There was no schedule in the syllabus to let us know when certain tasks needed to be accomplished, so we had to go by his in-class instructions.

I dropped the class. I later found out that about half of the students also dropped the class. I ran into one of them and he said he spoke to the dean about it. The dean's response: "Oh, we know about him."

I'd heard from other students who had him and they said there were times when he didn't even bother teaching anything, just talking about topics completely unrelated to the class, yet expected them to know the material anyway.





Fortunately I've only had to do this once.

yeah, I'm about to do that with my speech class.

I knew going in that I would lose "subjective" points because of my aspie social skills, but I figured I could compensate by getting all the "objective" points....

But the thing is, a lot of the objective points aren't attainable!

The professor actually designs tests so that everyone will fail just so she can give a talk on the importance to good study habits!! !! !!

I just wanna scream, "I ALREADY KNOW HOW TO STUDY, YOU EVIL COW!! !! GIVE ME A FAIR TEST!"

Don't let her break you! After the census date, which I'm sure has passed for you by week 3, you're just an extra number she can do without.

Don't drop, finish the class, get the grade then get out.

...that is definitely not acceptable. I will almost guarantee that your university has very strict policies against doing something like that. If not, there are actually laws against it. If someone in the administration knew a professor was revealing a student's disability to the rest of class (assuming she had not discussed it with you beforehand and gotten explicit permission, which it doesn't sound like she did) it would likely be a firing offense, even if the prof had tenure.

I am droping an entire bachelor because of the lac of respect i get from my lecturers.
I get some respect when I tell them i have aspergers.
But because of the stupid medical system in the Northern Territory i have not had a diagnosis ever...
So when i cant show that little piece of paper saying i am medically diagnosed Aspergers they just start treating me like s**t. Aslo I am a 1st year taking 2nd year subjects in order to try and challenge myself, and my lecturers are just not teaching me anything. Nor will they be flexible when i dont understand something.
I do a Creative Arts bachelor, and I have even been told by one lecturer "Oh darling you can't draw." and "Your works that of a highschool students, and is not university level."
Im like WTF a stick figure can be worth over a few millin dollars n yet my life portraitures arent good enough...
Now you have me venting too =)

My high school Advanced biology teacher is going to drive me insane as a sophomore...
Why must he be so petty and give such complex assignments... He always tries to make a hybridized report involving both his website and written forms. (i hate my ISP. stupid bandwidth limits...)
I knew i should have left when he told us that he still lived with his parents at 50... This is true, I swear!
He seems to have no life and assumes we have nothing to do but study, take online test of his, come to his class, and repeat.

meh, I'll just pass his class this semester and try to avoid him at all costs.

I feel your pain, because when I added into a class one time. This teacher I had was being a major jackass one day so much to the point i was literally loosing it. She was intentionally misspelling my name when I told her how to clearly spell my name like 10 times literally, she was bombarding me with questions for being 2 minutes late, she asked me infront of the class what disability i exactly have (as if it is your business for me to answer you infront of the class, it's personal, hello). Also, she was accusing me of being a smart alec just because I told her that what she asked was a personal question and literally embarassed me multiple times infront of the class. I got so pissed off that day, I have never been pissed off like no other in my life. As soon as I got home, I dropped the class.

I had another teacher which was ridiculously hard, rude, impatient and had an attitude, where 1/2 the class or even more failed, and I had to literally kill myself to get a high C in the class.

Yeah, I dropped my French class after the professor was just really bad at her job and kind of a jerk to me.

First, she assigned 15 pages of worthless homework every night and didn't teach us anything...just had us do more paper homework in a class that's supposed to put an emphasis on vocabulary and pronunciation of the language.

Next, I missed a class due to an endocrinology appointment that I couldn't reschedule. She said this was unacceptable and sent me a formal warning notice in the class citing that I was rude to her and my work ethic was lacking. I realize that I sometimes come off as a bit harsh, but that was just un-called for.

So I dropped her course. I can pretty easily test out of French, as I already speak it more or less fluently, I just figured that a 30-level (intermediate) course would be good refresher for me. Turns out I was wrong, as it's literally a rehash of 10 and 20 level courses, one for each half of the semester.

It's not really a loss, though, I can now focus on the two courses I'm in that I like, and the one that I find sort of pointless, but is a requirement for the major. Stats. Easy.

I've done this twice. Once was when the professor told me (about three minutes after having met me, and knowing nothing about my background and education) that he thought I should have an easier goal because I would never get into the program I was aiming for. The other time when when I had a professor who occasionally made sexist jokes on top of treating me (a woman) differently from the men in the class with the same level of experience in using the equipment the class was concerned with and ignoring me when I raised my hand in class.

I don't dropping either (though the second resulted in a W on my transcript); they weren't worth the mental anguish.

I've never done it, but in hindsight I should have.

I know a student who walked out of class on the first day when she saw who the teacher was. He wasn't a "bad" teacher, but he was a horrible communicator. Most struggled with the class because he could not convey the material effectively.

I had a class I got a D- in solely because it was the lowest grade the teacher could give. He was "punishing" me for falling asleep in class (a product of the school not enforcing the "quiet hours" rule in my dorm), and he never discussed punishing me over this issue with me prior to doing this (but discussed it with another teacher). He did mention the problem to me, and I filed a formal complaint against the school for not doing it's part to ensure I could get a proper night's sleep. The reason he probably didn't was because he needed me to work with another student (we were paired up) and was using me for a project. He avoided doing anything to help me in the class then pulled this stunt. Had I known he was going to pull this stunt, I would have dropped the class as he would have to issue a WP (withdrawn passing) grade rather than something that hurt my overall GPA.

He used me to benefit another student but had planned early on to pass me with the lowest acceptable grade.

I stopped reading there. I believe you. You did nothing wrong in dropping out of that class.

it will be good for your gpa.

This is flatly illegal (in the US). This is a FERPA (Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act) violation, and needs to be reported. If she's willing to treat you this way, she's likely treating weaker, more-vulnerable students this way as well.

Man, there must have been no set grading scale there! Not even one based on a curve!! If there was, no professor could give a grade lower than what the student mathematically earned without a complaint being filed. If I had a professor do that at my school, I could file a grade grievance and win.

For the record, I would HATE a class that completely lacked "points" on assignments with a grade assigned at the end subjectively. I would have no idea if I would get an A or a D-, and I would probably fear that my social skills will end up being 50-75% of the grade.

At least with a grading scale the worst I could do from PO'ing a professor would be an 89.9% B+ where I'd otherwise "just make" an A- with a 90.5% or so.

Well, the short, short story of how it happened.

It was an acting workshop. We all started with an A. Poor performance would cost us.

Key grading points was a journal we were to keep and how our performance on the final project turned out.

As I wasn't an "artsy fartsy" kind of person, my idea of a journal was sterile and factual entries, not a flowery exposition on how I felt about what I was doing. I repeatedly expressed concern about the content of my journal to the teacher. He always brushed it off...saying that I should just do what came naturally and it would be fine. For the record, my journal was basically given an F...ensuring I got a D-. He did assign a book for us to buy and read. It was an actor's journal, but by his own admission, it was "professionally written" by a writer who took the actor's scribblings and embellished into something better. It was never presented as a model of what our journal should be like.

The final project we judged by a panel of invited teachers. I did adequately there...as I pointed out, he gave me an F on the journal...ensuring a low grade.

I protested the grade. It was a sham. I had two key issues.

1. He decided to penalize my grade without discussing it with me.

2. He had another student who missed half the class every session so he could attend another class that overlapped in time, he had to make up that time with the professor after class, and he got an A+...not even a token penalty for all the extra work it imposed on the teacher. In contrast, my falling asleep only happened a few times.

I knew it would be a sham because the professor overseeing the hearing told me in advance that she was backing my teacher and would ensure the panel saw things her way. I wish I had the gumption to demand her removal from the process based on her pre-hearing statement to my face, but I did not.

The panel held that the teacher did discuss the issue with me by saying it was a problem. Further discussion was not needed.

The panel held that the book I was given was an example of what my journal was to be...in spite of my testimony that the teacher said it was not so.

The panel held that each student is graded on a case-by-case basis, so they could not consider my allegation of disparate treatment by the teacher. The other kid was a "wonder child" prodigy, but I still felt that putting the teacher in the position he did should have mandated some penalty on his grade.

FWIW, several other students hated the teacher, had issues with him. Apparently, while I got the worst treatment, he was not kind in how he graded most of the other students. I was the only one to file a formal protest.

It was in hindsight I realized things he said and did, put the pieces together, and realized he never discussed his plans with me because he needed me and didn't want to risk my dropping out of the class. It was compacted so that I could have left with a WP near the end because the class met twice as often and would finish just after half the term was finished. The teacher was an aloof jerk who would bend over backwards for fellow theater students who had potential but would brush off anyone who didn't measure up.