Grievances

Dear sir,

I do not know you outside of a professional capacity. I'm sure you are a nice person, with your mild manners and your politeness. For all I know, you could be the saviour of your family, the toast of gatherings, the life of the parties. Different perspectives, different impressions.

But I have to tell you that from the perspective of a student, you are one of the most disappointing lecturers I have ever been under the tutelage of.

I registered for your subject with much anticipation and excitement - it was part of my passion, and I planned to pursue it as a possible career in the future, so how could I not expect anything less than great? But then, towards the middle of the semester, after many cancelled classes and less than two weeks' worth of topics covered, the original lecturer had to resign as her health was failing. I thought it was kind of you to step in and take her place, occupied as you were with the other subjects you were already teaching. Granted, you were the only person available and with the most similar qualifications, but I remember feeling sorry for you and the extra workload you had suddenly been burdened with.

Then I had my first class with you.

I remember taking a writing class with you a few semesters earlier, before another lecturer took over for you. You sat in front, mumbling monotonously and more to yourself than to the students. But I forgave that because while you lacked the skill of lecturing, you still knew your field. The things you spoke of were relevant and interesting, and your decades-long experience in journalism more than made up for your poor lecturing skills.

Taking this new class with you was a whole other story. From the start, it was clear that you knew little, if not nothing, about editing. Everything you taught us steered further and further away from editing and focused on journalism, which, while related, is a mostly separate field to learn about. You completely dismissed the original notes which the other lecturer had saved for you and told you to read, and we learned nothing about editing. Every week, you taught us in lists, and even then what you taught was so mind-numbingly general that I began to despair every time I stepped into your class. Sir, I already know that in captioning a photo, I have to: a) write an interesting caption, b) look at the photo first before I write the caption (???), and c) make the caption short and concise. But where are the technicalities? The terminologies? The relation to editing and not journalism?

The worst thing I could not and will not forgive you for is your linguistic skills, or lack of it. I don't expect you to have a perfect grasp of language. But in a subject like editing where language is the core characteristic of a good editor, it makes us students worry when we can spot many more linguistic errors in your writing than you yourself seem to be aware of. And it wouldn't be any of my business to judge your linguistic skills were it not for the fact that you use it to mark our proofreading exercises, consequently giving us consistently low marks based on your shoddy grasp of grammar. Even less fun was how we always had to go up to you and painstakingly point out to you why a particular error was in fact correct, and vice versa, in the hopes of getting that mark we deserved and you denied.

The final exam was a breeze. The questions were straightforward and were direct regurgitations of the lists you taught us in class. But when it came to the proofreading exercises my heart broke into two and sank, just like the Titanic. For where you had stated 10 marks for 10 linguistic errors, there were clearly many more. Every classmate I talked to afterwards agreed.

Still, I hoped. I hoped that even if I could not save my final exam, my carrying marks were proof that I was doing well enough to score an A-. But no. It has come to light that apparently you rarely hand out As, even to people who deserve it, and I pity those people. Now, I'm in the same boat. You gave me a B. While I may sound like a whiny brat who cannot see the bigger picture or reasoning behind all of this, I can safely say that based on my carrying marks and the fact that I know I answered the questions in the finals correctly, I did well enough to warrant more than a B. Thanks to the grade you gave me, I will have to graduate with a 3.495 - barely off the Dean's List, and I don't have to tell you how upset I am about that.

More than the grade, more than the marks, more than anything else, though - I'm disappointed in your conduct as a lecturer in class. I feel cheated out of a subject I had loved so much in the beginning and found that I'd got a cheapened deal. You taught us nothing remotely relevant or interesting pertaining to the field of editing, and if anything, you have made me fear what the others in your field could be like, if even you with all your years of experience could turn out to be so lackadaisical in imparting knowledge. And I feel sorry for all those who have to take your classes in the future, if you are still teaching editing then. I would have commented on all of this in the TER, but at the time it was still under the name of the original lecturer and so I could not say what I so badly want to say to you now:

You make me pity you so much.