Intimidating school teachers/professors

[LEAKYSEALS951]

Just thinking.
In high school, there was an intimidating high school teacher. I spent 4 years dreading our eventual encounter. She taught 12th grade.
When I finally reached senior year, she introduced herself as a Taurus. A hard worker. Stubborn. Straightforward.
"Hand in your homework, don't say the dog ate it, and we'll get along."
As a Taurus myself, I got it.
She set expectations. From there on, we clicked.

Same in dental school, some professors were difficult, but in reality were straightforward, and you learned something.

The easy teachers were fun, and got high marks. They were also useful in getting the right check marks, and having a good time, but I never learned as much.

My least successful experiences were the liberal arts teachers with weird "touchy feely" agendas.
"Read this literature... what do you think?!? How do you feel about it?" (code for interpret it as "I" do or fail!)
I had some successes there, but also dropped some bombs and classes along the way.

What say you?

[fanaudical]

My favorite teachers were generally the tough ones that did as you mention - set high standards/expectations, made those expectations clear, and put the responsibility on you as to whether you were going to meet them or not. I learned to value those encounters.

[KFC911]

Mrs. Durway ... 12th grade English.... she hated "our crowd" . She gave me a D-, on my term paper, and a D- in the class as I recall. I was a straight A student, highest SAT scores in my area, and was a rebel without a cause

I was going to college and English was the only class I needed to pass in 12 grade.

Honestly ... it was a term paper that would have received an A in college... just like mine did

We "tomatoed" her house a week before we all left for college ... about 13 of us

That Beotch

And got ratted out too .... dang younger brothers !

[KFC911]

College professor ... Computer Science ... taught 370 Assembler ... out of a class of 30 ... only 1 or 2 would pass his class each semester ... "the weeder class"... this was the late 70s and geeks ruled .

[pwd72s]

When I was in school we learned to write on clay tablets...only IBM and the pentagon had computers.

[LWJ]

Dr. David Frank. U of O Rhetoric and Communication. In a class of approximately 200 he would call on you. You were demanded to stand up, answer directly. Not use "uh," "ah," or "um." It was strict. It was difficult.

Dr. Frank later became the Dean of the Honors College at UO.

He is an awesome professor. I can write / talk for hours about him.

[KFC911]

Three CS college professors I distinctly remember... Dr. Cramer (^^^ above), Dr. Wirth, and Dr. Wu . Hard as hell, unforgiving, and yet willing to be questioned, and occasionally proven wrong at the same time .

Dr. Wu (3 PHDs) served me tea one afternoon in his office ... a first for bofus .

I also skipped a lot of classes by lessor teachers and professors... I was a DIY student then ...

[pavulon]

They were all intimidating in HS. Some more than others and some would lighten up over time. They were adults and that was the way it worked. But I think fairness mattered to most. For example, my youngest brother started to get bullied in about 9th grade. My younger brother (great kid, worked hard, not a trouble maker at all) "fixed it" but it bought him a trip to the HS principal. A conversation between them resulted in "We need to see more of that."

In college, it was different. Prof's ran the entire spectrum. Super smart, drunk, no social skills, great social skills but seemed to be shooting from the hip when teaching, people with something to prove, ego-maniacs, genuinely good and smart people, others seemed tired of covering the same stuff they've been covering for years or decades.

[LWJ]

Then there was Dr. Cadbury. He was absolutely brilliant. I am pretty sharp but that guy was a couple of orbits above me. I wanted to take a class he taught but I read the syllabus and I knew I couldn't get an A. I figured I could get a B however. I took the class. That SOB gave me a C. (Side note: I graduated Phi Beta Kappa. I was not a poor student.) I went to see him and showed him how by HIS syllabus, I had earned a B. He said "come back in a week." This happened 5 times. I was about to go postal on him. He changed my grade when I came back the 6th time.

And. Having a rewarding career in sales? Persistence is a crucial trait that is needed. Dr. Cadbury, for all of his awful egotistical BS, trained me a little on this.

[Dixie]

I only recall two HS teachers.

Mr. Cheek.

I was afraid of him. He was a gruff man that looked like Michael Douglas in the movie Falling Down. He taught chemistry. While I don't recall any chemistry, that man taught me more about math than any math instructor I ever had. (I still suck at math.)

Mrs Black.

She was my freshman English teacher in1975. She was a fat old hippy woman. When she wasn't ranting about "The Man," she'd have us sit in a circle and 'rap' with her. Friday's were "Togetherness Friday."

That woman hated me. One reason was my daddy *was* "The Man." That I was white, cute, and affluent, did the rest. She'd incessantly ridicule my looks and clothes, and dream up any reason possible to send me to the office. One time I was sent was because I refused to do my homework. That homework? Lying to my daddy about being pregnant to see how he'd react. I knew how he'd react. He'd be heartbroken for my being pregnant, as well as lying to him about it.

Anyway, I suspect my experience is normal. I had some horrible teachers, a few really great teachers, and a lot of average ones.

[Rick Lee]

I went to a prep school. It was mostly a boarding school, but I was a day student. Being a boarding school, most of the teachers lived on campus and we all got to know their families. My mom and grandmother also worked there, so they knew everyone and, of course, called them all by their first names. The kids had to use Mr., Ms., Dr., etc. The last time I ran into some of my teachers was at my grandmother's memorial service about eight yrs. ago. Even at the tender age of 47 then, I couldn't bring myself to call them by their first names. I respect those teachers more than anyone else in my life. They truly were the best anyone could have.

[LWJ]

This thread is interesting. Makes me think.

I was 22 and a first year grad student. I was assigned to teach a class to pay for my tuition. The rules were almost none existent. I was super lenient. I told the class that I didn't care if they attended. If they did attend, I wanted them to be attentive. Shocker, it worked very well. I had super high attendance and participation. Given that I had zero experience, I needed it!

[Zeke]

Teachers or instructors that took the time to go over the material and speak about it. The ones that talked about irrelevant subjects and then assigned reading, basing their tests on the reading were hard for me. Due to ADHD and problems with my eyes, I could not read well. Tell me something and I'll not forget, at least until test time, even insignificant details.

AFA tough vs. not so tough, it didn't make any difference to me. I was going to learn it through listening or not. One thing I had a beef with was the various grading systems. Each teacher set their own grading rules. The strict curve was bad news for me in some instances. If there was a lot of cheating in that class, my grades sunk. And I called them on that. So some teachers and I had a difficult relationship. If they walked out of the classroom during testing, I was apt to follow them.

All the way to the principal's office.

I read better now at old age. Go figure.

[Cajundaddy]

In HS my chemistry teacher Mr. Van Camp was intimidating, tough as nails but he saw something in me and demanded my best work. I delivered and we got along just fine. As a result college chemistry courses went very smoothly.

My least favorite teacher was a college calculus class where the prof announced on the first day that 30% of us were certain to fail his course. I figured any prof with a consistent 30% failure rate was not going to be useful to me so I dropped that class the 1st day.

Possibly my best and most challenging teacher was Econ in college. I don't remember his name but had 3 courses with him. He had been an economic advisor to Nixon in the White House when they were trying to contain runaway inflation after LBJ's spending spree in Vietnam. This guy lectured for 1 hr every class followed by Q&A and we were expected to take notes on everything as it would be in the tests. I probably wrote 500 pages of notes each semester in his classes but got a deep understanding of Micro and Macroeconomics, how to run a successful business, and the principles of investing. These classes were challenging but turned out to be the most valuable of any I had in college.

[Zeke]

@Cajundaddy, I wonder if he delivered on that or was just blowing smoke to get students to work harder. For most students there is always room for improvement. The straight A types were a different breed.

[Cajundaddy]

Originally Posted by Zeke

@Cajundaddy, I wonder if he delivered on that or was just blowing smoke to get students to work harder. For most students there is always room for improvement. The straight A types were a different breed.

Which one, Calculus? I have no idea but I dropped that class and never looked back. A couple of friends survived his course but said he was a complete dickhead every day. Some people should just choose a different profession.

I was definitely not an "A" student but really focused my efforts on courses I saw value in. I think my final GPA in college was probably 3.0 with a wide variety of grades that reflected my interests.

[LWJ]

On the 30% failure rate? Almost certainly a ploy to reduce HIS work load. I had a computer science prof my Freshman year that said all Juniors should consider dropping. All Sophomores mandatory drop and didn't even discuss Freshman. I was a Freshman. I took the class. Did just fine. He was an a55.

[oldE]

Thinking back, I realize I remember those who were communicators, regardless of the subject. I recall a polysci prof who was a name dropper, but had nothing to teach. There was a philosophy prof who couldn't get out of his own head and a strategic studies prof who made me work harder than any of them.
I strove to emulate the communicators and it served me well in my endeavors in management, sales and tourism.

[Tim Hancock]

School was a joke for me. I rarely applied myself. I cant think of one teacher I really "liked". The ones I "disliked" the most were the ones who assigned lots of homework. I hated homework and writing papers. I could typically cram the night before any test or quiz and get A's.... So long as there was not much homework, I would always get good grades in both high school and college.

Every job I have ever had I think I could have done without anything learned from school other than maybe some of my grade school reading/writing/arithmetic and then college drafting class which I used at my first machine design job. Every other work related skill has come from work experience or my own independent research.

Nowadays, a smart person can learn about nearly anything on the internet without teachers.

[Zeke]

A smart person could have self educated in the library back in the day. That's a big could have. However, I think early elementary schooling is a must to launch education. You (TH) make a good point considering the insane costs of college now. They are buying a degree so they can go out and learn.