I am Frustrated with two of my five classes, for almost the same reasons! How crazy is that? Maybe I am hard to please, maybe I'm really picky or maybe I don't want to put up with bull shit.
So here is a list of the 5 things I despise in a class and from teachers;
Before we continue - I would like everyone to make a note that these become problems for me when I’m at an expensive private school. I am paying a lot to take these classes so I expect a lot out of them. I think one of my friends freshman year calculated what each class lesson costs if you have five classes, by taking basic tuition (no living expense and fees) and divide that up. It came out to around $250 for every three hours, so I want every three hours to be worth that. If I don't feel like it is, then we are going to have problems.
Not having a class syllabus - for any reason.
Two of my classes have not yet given me a syllabus, for two equally stupid reasons. My ceramics class declined to give one out so we couldn't think ahead - That is the F*&#$^*! point of the syllabus, so we can look ahead and plan our schedules accordingly. Syllabus are even more important for a studio class when the entire curriculum is project based - clay can only dry so fast, metal takes time. If you don't want to give us the project brief (the more in depth details of a project) that's fine, but I want to know how many projects we are doing and when they need to be done. By not giving me a syllabus your class has dropped way down my priorities list because you don't respect me and my other classes enough to give me a outline for the amount of work required for your class.
If the ceramics class is frustrating, the Zen Gardening class is mind-numbingly infuriating. I had to take this class, it was the only one that fit in my schedule that would meet the requirements I needed, and I had hopes that it would be good. Those hopes have disappeared so completely that I don't even remember them too well. We arrived on the first day to learn that she was making minor changes to the syllabus and would give us one next week. The week after she told us she was changing the class up a bit and would have one for us soon. We are now four weeks in, with no hint of the syllabus, and worse she seems to have decided that she is not going to teach what was on the class description at all, so its not even the class I originally signed up for. The time to reevaluate your class curriculum is not the day the class starts - that point was weeks before, and if your class has changed then its no longer the class we wanted to take. In this case the class was to be an overview of Japanese gardening covering traditional gardens, basic Japanese aesthetic ideas - such as Wabi Sabi, Bonsai practice, and Ikebana or Japanese flower arrangement. Over the past two weeks she has decided (slowly- she's not super on top of it) that Ikebana was what she wanted to teach us, so the two books we have already bought are now pointless, and we are not learning any of the things I was excited to learn, plus, we now need to invest in specialized gardening tools and flowers. It's rude and irresponsible of her to do this and worse we don't know this for sure because she STILL HAS NOT GIVEN US A SYLLABUS!!!!
2. Not expressing your explanations for work clearly.
Part of this goes along with not giving a syllabus - part of the advantage to having project briefs is we have one stable source of information all laid out, we can see what is due and in what order - and if something has to change then it is easy to correct and adjust for those changes. Maybe this is just an art school problem, but most of my teachers are artists and there is truth in the stereotype that artist are crazy and unstable. It is quite common to ask the same question on two different days and get two different answers - so if you can't explain to me what is due next week clearly and consistently, then I'm not doing it. The teacher clearly didn't care enough to try to express themselves clearly so I'm not going to invest my valuable time in trying to work it out.
3. Showing YouTube videos in class - and calling it teaching.
I shouldn't even have to say this. Showing whole videos in class is a practice that should not extend past public school when your class has a substitute the usual teacher doesn't trust. If you're showing a clip to illustrate a point then fine - if its the main thing we do in a class, that's not OK. I can surf YouTube just as well, if not better then the teacher. I could do this at home, its not acceptable for my expensive college class to be relying on videos made by other people on a public platform that is free - why do I show up to class for that? If the teacher adds nothing but clicking a button to the class, and is not teaching me something I could learn for free somewhere else. I'm going to become annoyed very quickly - may I remind you that my family is paying a ton of money for me to come here, I want to learn something that I can only gain from the teaches here or the CCA environment. I can watch videos all on my own. I have a YouTube account.
4. Giving demos that are unhelpful, poorly done or pointless.
This falls into the category of wasting my time and money, just like YouTube - if your demo is something I could learn faster, better or for free, why am I here?
Note: if a teacher messes up mid demo I don't consider this a problem, in fact, in correcting their mistakes I often learn more then I would have otherwise.
5. Requiring outside class time for meetings and gatherings without the time/money being considered.
I am all for field or class trips, I believe going somewhere and gaining an experience outside of the classroom is very, very valuable. Some of my favorite school memory were field trips I took. Going to the zoo in elementary school to make birthday cakes for the baby elephant, spending a week in Washington DC in seventh grade or going to the art museum and the flower show in high school. Those were all amazing experiences. In College things are a bit different. if you want me to go somewhere or do something outside of class in replacement of homework or being in class then that's fine - if its fairly cheap and easy to get to those are also pluses.
I have two classes this semester that are handling this really well. One is my African American Art class, where the instructor believes that we need to go places and do things to really understand what he wants us to understand. So far we have had two events - one was going to see the movie Selma, and the other was going to a comedy club. For both of these he gave us multiple options on how we could accomplish this and in understanding of the time they would take, he canceled two classes. He also has stressed that this class will be like this, so no books or outside supply was required, instead he wants us to spend that money on the outings. Same thing with my Interdisciplinary Critique class, where the majority of the class will center on a short trip to visit galleries in LA - they realized it was expensive and would take a lot of our time, and in recompense they have canceled several classes and require no other supplies.
But if a teacher requires all three - coming to class, homework, and time at an event such as a lecture, symposium, or whatever else, especially without advanced warnings, you can bet I won’t be going.
After writing all this out it seems they all come down to respecting your students and not wasting class time because in this case (as in most cases) time is money. It’s amazing to me that teachers here can think these things are acceptable. I hate to be the one student in class who expresses their discontent in an assignment or process, but on the other hand these things need to be called out. If I feel that the assignment or the class was pointless then they will hear about it. Most teachers work hard, but if I don't feel that my teachers are respecting me or my time or trying to further my education then I'm going to tell them (and upper administration) about it..
I feel lots better now that I have typed that out. Thanks for reading my dark, mean thoughts. Hopefully I won't need a second rant and things can be cheerful again in the next post.
Talk to you later - Katie