i LOVE my History Professor!!!!

[bicentennial_baby]

Ok, I have a PolSci paper, and Econ test, and a History paper due on the same day next week...Plus, my mom and dad are sick, and need taking care of. So, I emailed my Hist. prof and explained the total situation, and he gave me an extension until after Thanksgiving!!!

It pays to be honest and upright...I am in love with him now, as my stress has lessened by about a brazillion degrees....It's a paper on the Russian Revolution, tough stuff...and he. is. da. man. :D

[ghostsofgiants]

1. Nice!

My would-be history professor skipped town just before the semester started, forcing me to choose a different, much less interesting history course. The course I'm doing now is still decent, but nowhere near as interesting as the other promised to be.

[bicentennial_baby]

3. Mine is "Revolutionaries"

Exploring the role of common people in the French, Industrial, Russian, and Vietnamese Revolutions. He's a pretty kick-ass teacher. Been teaching since '69, and married to a Vietnamese woman, although his specialty is French history. :)

[ghostsofgiants]

6. That sounds pretty interesting.

The history course I was forced to do is "The Professionalization of Women." It's not bad, but nowhere near as interesting as "Terrorism in the 20th Century" would have been. I had the Terrorism professor last semester for my general 20th history class and she was great. No idea why she had to skip out on us this semester.

[bicentennial_baby]

13. Eh, my original French prof didn't teach this semester,

cause she's pregnant. :shrug:

But yeah, a very cool class. :)

[Haole Girl]

2. History Profs. are usually cool...

..but I am somewhat biased since my own mother was one! :-)

[bicentennial_baby]

4. hehe....I'm so happy

You have no idea what a relief his email to me was....Wow. Panic over. :)

[Guava Jelly]

5. Thats cool of him

You'll have to bring him an apple.
Honesty is always best.

[NNadir]

7. I had a history professor in college who gave his first test after the drop date.

About 75% of the class got an "F." I wrote what I thought was a brilliant essay and got a "C."

Everybody panicked.

He continued this kind of behavior all through the semester. People were freaked. However after the final, everybody found themselves two grades higher than their test scores. He was just screwing with everyone's head.

Co-incidentally, the course was in Russian history. His exegesis about Stalin, which was delivered in a very ironic style, changed my life. I never saw the world the same way again.

[bicentennial_baby]

15. Wow...yikes...

Sounds....disturbing. :P

:)

[Hissyspit]

16. I screw with my student's heads like that, too.

Can you sum up his exegesis and what was ironic about his delivery. I'm just curious about what it was that made you change the way you saw the world.

[NNadir]

20. Well of course it would be very difficult to sum a course in a DU post.

He was a gnarly little man, older, with an obvious hunchback. He punctuated his lectures by shouting out absurd bits from popular culture, like "I want my MTV!!!!" These bits came spontaneously from nowhere in a disconnected way, while he was discussing Soviet grain exports designed to pay for machine tools in the midst of the great famine of the 1920's. Discussions of the terror were always filled with these wry, sort of mocking, jokey tone, but at the same time, you knew his heart was breaking. I think he was a highly moral man, but his morality dripped with bitterness and cynicism.

I don't mean to imply that he limited his criticism to Stalin either. I will never forget how he portrayed Witte, as a man with a fine mind strictly beholden to the absolute authority of very stupid and pigheaded people, the Romanovs. You really felt Witte's pain, and how he must have felt seeing his country sink while he was simultaneously powerful and powerless.

You really came away with this overwhelming sense of tragedy.

Because of this professor, I can hardly ever think of George W. Bush without also thinking of Nicolas II.

He was speaking to us well before the accession of Gorbachev, by the way.

Not so long ago, I read Radzinski's Stalin. Something of the flavor of my professor is there, the sort of scathing sarcastic detachment, an incredulous, almost bemused, horror.

He refused to debate or discuss grades. (He obviously had tenure.) Looking back, I don't think the grade thing was intended as cruelty for its own sake. I just think that to really teach that course, one had to inject more than a little bit of suffering, as trivially as such suffering might compare with Russian suffering in the 20th century. Most people who were taking that course were doing so for distribution and not because they were history majors. There was a lot of premed school angst. I will never forget it.

[Hissyspit]

23. Thanks very much for the follow-up post.

Obviously a valuable experience for you, and one that stuck with you.

[Jamastiene]

19. I've had teachers like that.

They reward those who stay for the long haul and try hard. And the bad grades are incentives to try harder. I love it when they surprise students with a much better grade than they thought they were going to have. My English teacher was like that to a degree. He made me revise one paper so many times that I lost count. He even made me change the entire subject of the paper during that time as well. I hated him for it at the time, but in the back of my mind I knew he would end up being a sort of mentor to me. I don't know how I knew it, but I did.

Once, during that time, he was going on and on about my latest revision. He said to change it back to the way I had it before. I hit the roof. I stood up and I blew up at him. I told him what I honestly thought of his tactics. He calmy told me that he knew I could be a great writer with a little help and not to worry. I raised one eyebrow at him and squinted my eyes in my best "go to hell/I don't believe you" stare. He explained that students who do the revisions per his suggestions pass the class. I sat back down and we started seriously talking about problems and life. Somehow, we ended up talking about punk rock, my favorite subject. He turned out to be pretty cool. Sometimes, teachers want honesty from their students. He said I was the only student who was honest with him like that. He appreciated it. He said most students just talked trash behind his back and kissed his ass in person. He said I was okay in his book. He didn't say that to many students, he told me. I was stunned into disbelief and awe by that. We talked it out and got along much better after that. That is, apparently, all he wanted from his students. Who knew?

Sometimes, the teachers who seem like jerks at first turn out to be the ones you miss the most later down the road.

[flamingyouth]

8. Very nice of him

It's cool when profs are understanding like that.:)

How are the folks? :hug:

[bicentennial_baby]

11. They're ok, as far as I know...

Mike and I went to see the family this past weekend, and my mom was in really good spirits, and my dad is doing awesome! My brother is doing his best to take care of them...so, at the moment, I'm not too nervous. :hug:

[flamingyouth]

14. That's good to hear

Been thinking of y'all. :hug:

[ZombieNixon]

9. I love my history professor!

Well, technically, he's my political economics professor, but mostly what he teaches is poli sci and history. He's a really cool guy. Hardcore Democrat, too. :D

[bicentennial_baby]

24. excellent!

:loveya:

[rug]

10. Soft shit like this cost Kerensky state power.

[bicentennial_baby]

12. Bwahahaha!

:rofl: thank you for that! :rofl:

[Lydia Leftcoast]

17. When I was a professor, I was always willing to make adjustments for

students who were really having problems.

The goof-offs who skipped class without explanation or obviously copied their homework off other students got no mercy, though.

[bicentennial_baby]

21. Yeah, he knows I'm dedicated...

I'm one of the few who always come to class, always do the readings, and always turn in high-quality papers on time... :)

[Hissyspit]

25. I love how my students think I don't know they're lying to me.

Honesty and sincere communication go a long way with professors, folks.

[Jamastiene]

18. Most teachers/professors are completely compassionate when

you keep them in the know. If they know you are a hard working student who normally is on time, they will give you an occasional break when you need it. I have found that to be true. I have had several high drama psychological meltdowns since I entered the Computer Engineering curriculum, because I know I am too "in over my head" mentally to understand it all. Overall, I have found my teachers to be understanding and even sympathetic at times. Of course, there have been one or two who are total jerks about anything any time no matter how hard students try.

Some of the things that happen at my community college might piss me off from time to time. I have to say though that the majority of my teachers give me the benefit of the doubt because they know I try hard and I care about my grades. It's amazing to me that the majority of the people in any profession can be that cool.

Teachers have always been my heroes. It looks like I would finally give this computer pipe dream up and become a teacher because of that, but not yet. I'm not that patient with the other students who do NOT try as it is now. I'd hate to see how heads would roll if I became a teacher. Of course, I'd give individuals who tried a pep talk and help them, but those who did not care would get a "talk" too. Learning is a gift.

[bicentennial_baby]

22. That's exactly it!

"I have to say though that the majority of my teachers give me the benefit of the doubt because they know I try hard and I care about my grades. It's amazing to me that the majority of the people in any profession can be that cool."

That's my experience as well..I'm no slacker, and it shows. And in a time like this, it pays off. :)