Complaints

A student writes:

“We have now had I believe 5 weeks of course with tonight being the sixth…

We ask questions and he answers some but mostly rambles and tells us to “trust him”, and it will make sense later…

I’d expected a student-based learning model, quite active and personalized …not lectures…

I am not going to waste anymore of my Tuesdays with this course as I am not getting what was promised from the teacher’s outline.

It is a judgment on my part, but I do believe that almost nobody in the class is there to become a professional… but merely to enjoy …as the course outline stated…”

This is a pretty good account to start with, as I have had student complaints for most of my 49 years in teaching, and have to deal with them, as I have in this case.

As always, the writer is pretty sure that everyone feels the same way about the class or the teacher. Often, they have others who have assured them they are correct. Most of us will not contradict another “crazy” student, and will simply agree, or nod agreement rather than stand and argue with a “crazy person”.

Usually, as in this case, the course or the teacher has been teaching for years, and as in this case no one has ever made this complaint. The biggest problem is the student “knows” what they want and therefore unless they get it, there is little to say. There is a prefixed idea about expectations that will not be discouraged.

I have found it is ridiculous to argue, or even explain to the student that it seems that five weeks is excessive before you figured out this class is not for you.

This is not, thank God, a required course, so the simple answer was to drop the course the first time you recognized it wouldn’t work, not wait a month to try.

I once had students tell me the teacher was difficult and horrible, and the complaint came from several students in the class. I did contact the teacher and had a meeting set up when the teacher was hospitalized and passed away. The difficulty she was having with her students was therefore obvious, and the solution was simple, as another teacher had to complete the class.

Another teacher told his class that he had bee teaching so long that he expected to “die with his boots on”, and they should not be  surprised if he died in class. He passed out in class from the flu unfortunately, and the class assumed he had passed away. They sent a representative student to the office to announce their teacher was dead. I guess that was a complaint.

I often hear about how everyone agrees with me and usually find out, if I investigate, that it isn’t true. Also, I have often heard that “at these prices I should expect…” and have offered all their tuition refunded, but they have to go away, and not get their tuition back and return to classes. No one has ever taken me up on that offer.

This is not to say that there aren’t bad teachers, but usually if someone is bad I have heard about it often, and never just a lone voice.

Yes. A student can have a problem with a teacher, and of course we try and resolve it, the concern I have is students trying to involve everyone else in it just to make their point.

A teacher may not be right for you, nor meet your expectations, but it may just be you and that’s fine…