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Today I layed my eyes on a digital album of this year’s graduate group of students. They voted for the most popular teachers and I was surprised to see that those who didn’t show up in school very often to teach their classes were voted as the most popular. „To get around things” in Romanea is a way of life and the university is not far from this phenomenon. Teachers who required homework and who had high standards were considered „harsh” or „difficult”. There was also a category of „enigmatic” teachers, without any definition of the term. I guess these were teachers who, apart from the others, didn’t like talking about their marriage ceremony, their holiday at the beach or their childhood, just to see hours passing by…
That is not only in Romanea… it’s here too. There are reviewsites for professors like campusdirt.com for instance, where you get to know how easy it is to pass at one professor or another. A lot of students would sya a teach is bad if there is too much reading or often homework, or if you have to come for class or you cannot be late. It’s ridiculous. I took this senior-level grad-undergrad class and we strated off as 25 in the class and in 2 weeks we were left to 15 and after 3 weeks there were at most 6 students regularly showing up for class. It was one of the most interesting class I went to though. At least whoever showed up for class you could be sure s/he was interested. Therefore the discussions were more fruitfull.
And by the way in US, at least for undergrad, if youw ant students to pay attention to you as a teacher, start your sentence with „this will count for your final grad…”
i meant count for your final grade. Because it is all about the grades, they say.
Well, I am proud to say I did not vote, as in my last year I did not go to school that much…Some of the results surprised us, some didn’t. Did you expect something else? I didn’t…Some of my belowed colleagues couldn’t pay attention to a simple presentation and pretty much disliked everything close to homework. I have to say there are certain results I agree with, concerning a teacher of ours whose mood I could never understand or her expectations. In my opinion, that top was created to let some stuff out, nothing more.
The main things that count for teacher popularity are:
*humour (extensively)
*being „one of the guys”(an occasional gossip, some juicy chitchat concerning angelina jolie’s evening gown in her last performance next to brad – be careful to chose topic carefully, according to gender predominance in classroom, lest you should be labeled a sexist pig or a wuss .. talking to girls about anjelica’s gown will not have the same effect! and you will run the risk of drag queen labels :)) )
*vast knowledge and the delicacy and erudition to flood your students with it without ostentation.
take it from an ex-student who loved skipping classes but also loved assignments, mid-terms and listening to smart people ;-)
Yes, some of my sentences end with „this will count for your final grad…”. When I let students ask questions about the syllabus and the course in general, they ask: „Is the presence really compulsory?”
Don’t get me wrong, some of the voted teachers in the digital album are popular because they are also good.
As for the vast knowledge transferred to students, I think sometimes that scares them and keeps them far from the classroom.
Well, in my dusty old faculty down on Pitar Mos, that wasn’t the case. I guess it’s also age related. One cannot compare a 17 y/o brat with a 23 y/o student.