School Daze Update
Ok, the hilarity continues....
When last we left our hero (me) had met with the director of admissions to CCI and had discussed my concerns about the teaching methods and abilities of two of my instructors. Apparently, when I left her office she went directly to the Head Chef in charge of curriculum and discussed that with him. To the best of my knowledge he then informed these two women about the concern. He also attended class Thursday morning, he sat in on the class, and in several instances joined in the discussion, explaining things, or asking for clarification of some point. While he was there: no one slept, tweedle dee and tweedle dum the two women actually stood and moved around the room and had well prepared notes. They ran the class in with some degree of professionalism. They are still not good teachers, and the info they provide is terribly disjointed, incomplete and poorly explained.
After Chef Paul left the class they exacted their revenge. It is clear they do not know who complained but they suspect the gang of 4, Jill, Esther, Alexis (totally hot cuban guy), and myself. We were each teamed up with some of the worst students in the class and assigned new seats. We have to work with them on a group project, sit with them, etc. I believe they suspect Jill is the culprit as she clearly got the worst team, two of the worst pupils I have ever encountered, ever. One of them walked out because she didn't like her seat or her team members.
After spending 30 minutes with our teams we had to design a "game" that would facility team building and review the material needed on the final in one step. We also had to do this work outside of class time. The Tweedles now let each of us know that our grade was dependent on the success of each member of the team and having each team member contribute.
Two of my team mates are women who have some motivation and drive and have already started doing some work, one member of my team, Tim, is a funny short little dude, very young, and so clearly a person with severe ADHD. I have little or no problem with him, he may be irreverent, but he does try to contribute to class, and has some interesting insights. Not a brain surgeon, but there is more in that fuzzy little head of his then you might think. My last team make is a guy of indeterminate race, some asian, maybe some latino, possibly a bit of caucasian, He likes to be called Buddha. He told me that laughingly but added "only chicks could rub his belly and by belly, he meant cock."
More fun!
The piece de resistance to this whole day was this little scenario. After we had been moved into our new prisons teams one student, a young woman who had arrived extra early the first day to snag a seat in the front row, asked to be moved closer to the board. She informed the tweedles that she couldn't see the front of the room, even with her glasses on, nor could she read anything that was written on the board. T1 replied "no moving" and T2 added, that she (the student) would just have to listen extra carefully and copy down everything they said. I wonder how this fits into the ADA requirements for reasonable effort to accommodate people with handicaps? Moving a student from the back row to the front row requires so much effort, I am sure the courts would see how that was an unreasonable request to be made. It is not like it was something easy like installing an elevator or rehabbing a historic building to accommodate ramps and wider doors.
When class was over Jill, Esther and I decided that things were just not going well and we went to speak with the head of student affairs and her assistant. Chef Barbara seemed genuinely concerned and sometimes shocked by what was going on, and what we were telling her. She assured us that this was fixable and that we were right to be concerned.
Not sure that much could be done between then and our midterm, which is Tuesday of next week, we decided to meet to study and review materials on Monday after class. Maybe if we put our heads together we can gain some insight into what we might need for that class and what we need to work on.
I may not be learning a ton of career management stuff, but I am learning a lot about standing up for myself, taking control of my education, and fighting to succeed. Not necessarily bad lessons to be learned, but not exactly what I was hoping to be the outcome of my first week in school.
I have to remind myself not to get distracted here. This is a big issue, but I have to focus on the big picture, which is that I must study and learn, and not spend too much time fretting over this issue. Ultimately, I know I can pass this class, and perhaps passing is enough.