Teacher, just shut up!

Have you ever had a teacher who not only drained the learning life away from your soul, but at the same time, made herself look incredibly stupid - begging the question - "how did you get this job?" I have one of those such cases this semester, here at UNM, right within our own 'heralded' university. The fact that the course in question is but a 200 level course, makes no matter to me in this case. More so I am concerned with the governing body who approved her for such teaching duties. Believe me when I say, I am not the smartest man to have walked this earth. Not even close. However I would venture to say that I am one of the world's foremost experts on detecting BullShit. My English 219 class this semester has its gawdy, awful stench written all over it. With respect, I will detail the class' and its instructors failures. Let me begin.

1. We worked on resumes for 2 calender months. This class meets 3 times every week. 12 classes. 12 hours. 1 resume.

My belief is that if a college student, at a 4-year university, WHO rejected a certain number of applicants based on poor scholastic performance, cannot create a credible resume in less than 12 hours of school --- SHOULD NOT BE IN COLLEGE AT ALL. Go back to ITT Tech, or Webster Univeristy. The University of New Mexico should not be for you. Now, with that said, I believe that the students in this particular class are smart. They are intuitive. I think they feel the same as I do.

The teacher had us "re-designing" for 2 weeks. This would have been helpful if she were reciting elements of visual rhetoric - aiding us in our efforts. Sadly, though, she was not. She filled the class time: writing an outline on the board of the day's agenda - WORK ON RESUME. We worked on this resume in groups, individually, and on at least on 1 occasion - were given the day off to work on them at home "in comfort". I, personally, do not pay for at-home learning. Phoenix University has plenty of online courses. Maybe that's better for this teacher, and perhaps some of her students.

2. Her "lecture" consisted of sordid tales of her weekend in South Carolina (extended vacation actually - we missed a day of class for her trip).

Besides having NO educational value, her stories we random - uninventive - and sad. I would hate to be her age, looking at speedos walk up and down Hilton Head beach. Sorry hun, the geriatric ward is to the left. In all honesty, our class to date, consisting of roughly 32 classes held this semester so far, 12 were on a resume, and at least 1-3 were spent out of class because she cancelled it, and another 3 were wasted on student speakers - talking about their dream job. Useful time and money being spent? Not. At. All.

I mention this class and my hardships because I think that blogs such as these, and topics of teacher failures need to be shared. There is of course the infamous "post semester evaluation", which is random, and often shortened so the student can leave early. But these evaluations are a pathetic attempt at governing the teacher who we pay - trust - and take professional criticism from. I will, however, look long and hard into their professional backgrounds before taking anything they say with more than a grain of salt. For my current teacher, SAYS she has a PhD, but I googled her - and I can't find it anywhere.

Dan Guglielmo