The goal of any teacher is to leave an impact on his students, whether it is from teaching them life lessons, organic chemistry or how to make a beer bong correctly. It surprises me then that so many students absolutely despise their professors. Although grades might not always match expectations, with professors getting the flack, I’m referring instead to some teachers that just seem out to get students.
A test is supposed to be a metric to measure knowledge of a subject. It can tell a professor if a student is studying and truly learning the material or if he spends all his time getting high. This is why I have a problem when students demonstrate knowledge of a subject and are punished for it with poor grades. The practice of making a test hard enough so that there are no perfect scores is perfectly sound. It is a test of knowledge and shouldn’t be easy. But taking off points just because you can is the kind of thrill I can only imagine one gets during the heights of sexual ecstasy or sending men to their deaths in the fields of battle.
Some other war stories: I once had a professor who gave a quiz and was disappointed all the students did horribly with remembering dates. He then promised that the next quiz would be all dates. When the next quiz arrived, however, not a single date would be found. Maybe the lesson was to expect the unexpected because people are liars. But overall I just wanted to punch him in the face Jack Bauer-style.
I think most students can recall a professor they’ve had that goes over the answers to a midterm before passing them out at the end of class. This is a policy I’ve never understood. I can understand that professors don’t want their students to be preoccupied with their midterms when they want to teach for the rest of the class. But making students squirm and wiggle in their seats, beads of sweat slowly dripping down their faces, as they go over answers is just sadistic.
Since their papers are not in front of them, students have no way of knowing if they got the question right or wrong – becoming anxious in the process. They also ask questions based on hypothetical annoying what ifs about the test, which could have been avoided all together if they could see it in front of them. Altogether, this leaves students in tears, like sorority girls having the cable go out during “The O.C.”
The only reasonable explanation I can find for this behavior is that professors get off on it. I find it hard to believe that professors are too ignorant not to know what they’re deliberately doing, so the only answer left is sadism. Maybe they’re not getting enough loving at home or maybe after years of teaching and being tenured they feel like they can do whatever they want. There are some great professors here at Northwestern; it’s what gives the school the reputation it has. But there’s still a portion of senile faculty out there who need to learn that being a professor doesn’t mean they have the power of God, just the power of being a bastard.
Eric Metelka is a Weinberg junior. He can be reached at [email protected].