Look Here, You Stupid Students, I Was A Great Teacher!

If you’re aspiring to be an educator, why not take it for a spin first?

You never know what you just might learn…

“Yeesh! These physics students can be a real tough crowd…they seem to really enjoy busting the chops of us teaching assistants!”

Back in the day, before Yelp! and Google Ratings were a thing, reviews were handled the old-fashioned way: all accolades and raking-over-the-coals alike were in writing, on good ol’ paper.

In my case, it was August 2002, and as an aspiring high school physics teacher, my college side-gig was teaching labs in the physics department at Kansas State. I had taught the previous semester, and to kick off the TA¹Short for Teaching Assistant. training session for the new semester, our lab directory was handing out our performance reviews–the ones our former students had written.

And boy, was I excited for the feedback! A little constructive criticism and a few compliments would surely only help my future career in education.

Welp, a mere two reviews in, and things are already getting…um, “interesting”.²I am sad to report that while I kept the best-of-the-best comments as mementos, I couldn’t locate them when I went to look for them. I really wanted y’all to see with your own eyes that I was not exaggerating.

He never seemed prepared to teach lab, and quite honestly, appeared to have no idea what he was talking about.

Anonymous Student #1

Ok, that’s not what I want to hear, but they do make a fair point: I would rarely review the material before class, pretty much just improvising as I went. It may be criticism, but hey, at least it’s constructive, right? Let’s see what else we got in here:

Worst TA I have ever had. What else do you want me to say?

Anonymous student #2

Ouch. I mean, c’mon…the worst? Like, how could you possibly know that? Ok, I’ll just file that one away as “Not a fan of my teaching style. And probably a poor student at that.” Next!

He was super-helpful, and happily provided his undivided attention any time our table had any questions.

Your favorite student *wink wink*

Ok, FINALLY, someone who speaks the truth. I was helpful. I was an attentive teacher. Those other haters are just jealous. I’m sure the rest of these are just like—

The absolute worst TA I have ever had…

Anonymous Student #3

BORING! I’ve already heard this one, buddy. Maybe try out some original material next time?

Wait, what’s that? There’s more?

…this guy was a total clown. I sincerely pity any future student of this bumbling buffoon. I somehow actually know less about physics after being his student.

Anonymous A-Hole #3

Ok, I gotta give this clearly disgruntled, low-achieving student points for creativity. They may not have science down, but at least the got a grasp on the English language. But I’m not going to let a few squeaky wheels get me down…

He sucked pretty hard at his job. The end.

Anonymous Butt-plug #4

Hmmm…am I crazy, or I’m starting to see a trend here? Let me flip through the rest of these…I’m confident that whoever went through these must have stuck all the glowing reviews singing my praises in the back…

He seems like a great guy…

A truth-seeing student

Yes…do go on…

…but sorry, he’s not a very good teacher at all.

I take that back, you, you sitter-on-a-throne-of-lies!

Okay, let’s just skip to the back, where the really good ones are surely awaiting me…

Unbelievable. He couldn’t be bothered to help us out at all. He would literally trip over himself like a damned fool to help the more attractive students, completely ignoring us regular folk.

Sounds like somebody has some self-esteem issues

Now, see, I gotta take issue with a comment like this. I enjoyed helping everybody. You know how some people claim “they don’t see race”? Well, as a teacher at least, I don’t see beauty or lack thereof, I merely see hungry minds, yearning to learn..

He only talks to pretty girls.

Someone who clearly doesn’t identify as a pretty girl

Ok, that’s it! Who wrote this? WHO WROTE THIS?!? This is nothing but a lie! I’ll admit that some groups of students connected with me better than other anti-social ones. And yes, therefore I spent more time engaging with those who bothered to engage back. And no, there was ZERO correlation between the perceived beauty or attractiveness of these students–heck, there were plenty of dudes amongst them–and how much time I spent with them. Sure, there might be some relationship between a student’s pleasing appearance and their social confidence–and thus more likely to respond to my attempts to connect with my students on a human level. But were there…um, “teacher’s pets” that one might argue were objectively less-than-attractive? Yes! Plenty of them! Don’t I get credit for talking to the not-pretty girls? Doesn’t it count for anything that I spent plenty of time talking to dude-students?

Oh geez. Doth I protest too much?

Do I really come off as a guy who “only talks to pretty girls?”

This is so embarrassing…

“Whew! These students are just really dragging our asses, aren’t they? How bad were your reviews?”

I knew I wasn’t a bad teacher. I didn’t have a bias towards students who were more physically blessed than the other students. Heck–I better not!

So to prove that, while I may be a mediocre educator, I’m overall an alright guy and these students are just sadists, I turned to my fellow TA, the K-Man,³I think his name was Kevin, but I can’t remember for sure. who surely got roasted by his students as viciously as I had.

“Huh? Well, actually, no…all my students loved me.”

“You’re kidding me! Why don’t you read some of yours out loud?”

“My pleasure…”

Absolutely loved being his student! Best TA ever!

YOu’re not helping my cause, other TA’s Student

“Oh. I bet it feels good to hear that. But surely they’re not all like this?”

“Let’s see…”

The K-Man knows physics, and knows how to teach it to us students. Wish every teacher was awesome as him. I love you, K-Man!

A little too glowing of a review is you ask me

“Okay, I believe you. You can stop now…”

“Ah! Here’s another gem:”

K-Man is the best. Women want him and men want to be with him…

A Student in the arts of hyperbole

“I SAID THAT’S ENOUGH, DUDE.”

“Just one more…”⁴I shit you not, this was really written in this guy’s TA review.

If there was one thing that the K-Man taught me in his class, it would be that I want to bear his children…

Definitely not my student

“Oh, you and your students can go ----- yo’ selves, K-Man!”

The beginning of the end. That’s what I like to call that particular moment.

It was indeed the beginning of the end of my budding career as a teacher. It made me really step back and wonder to myself, “Is it possible…could it be…maybe–just maybe–I’m not cut out to be a teacher?”

Incredibly, it would take another whole year before I fully accepted this cold hard truth and changed my major from “physics teacher” to just “physics”–but that’s a story for another time.

Eventually, though, the trauma induced by my mean, mean college-level physics students caught up with me. A couple of years later, when I was trying to decide if I should pursue my PhD in physics, I was thiiiiis close to walking away and saying “nope, not today mother fuckers!” And all because I knew that for the first year of my studies, the way I was going to put food on my table was being personally indentured to the UNC Department of Physics and Astronomy…teaching physics labs.

But, Young Grasshoppers, I am here today to tell you that shouldn’t let being a sh*tty teacher deter you from pursuing your dreams. And–fun fact–you can actually get better if you put some serious elbow grease into it.

Not only did I face down my fear of snarky students by diving headlong into the entire grad-school experience, but I actually did a pretty decent job teaching my labs. And you know why? Because, I took those less-than-fun feedback forms from years earlier to heart…

…and stopped talking to the pretty girls.

…

J.K. Kidding. It turns out that 30 minutes of prep work before class goes a long ways. That’s the real trick to not sucking butt as a teacher.

Oh, and if you need proof of what a slightly-above-average job I did my second time around as physics lab TA, you’re in luck; I brought receipts.

Not to brag…but…

Since you probably didn’t read every single one, I’ll paraphrase them for you: the students enjoyed my enthusiasm for physics, but felt that maybe the lab was not the proper venue for me to workshop my stand-up routine.

So that’s the good news. The bad news? None of my students wanted to bear my children. ----- you, K-Man, for setting the bar so high…

The point of the story is if you’re the type of guy (or gal) who only talks to pretty girls, you probably should give some thought to your choice of career.

Perhaps, for example, you might want to reconsider the notion of being a high school teacher–a scientifically proven formula for horrible, horrible, you-just-might-end-up-on-a-national-registry disaster…

Content created on: 22/23 July 2022 (Fri/Sat)

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