Your story is very sweet, ACP. :)

But I go to university which costs me money and I am not planning
on top toeing around the teacher whenever he decides he's going to
be in a "bad mood" today. I understand that students shouldn't be
disruptive because it is a sign of disrespect not ony to the prof
but also to the course but then he should just start kicking people
out. Why is he dissing OUR country, OUR administration, OUR
students?! Nobody is pinning him down and forcing him to stay! if
he wants to go , he should then GO. Nobody will miss him. We have
so many fabulous american profs who live here and love their
students. I don't wake up for school every saturday morning to look
at his sour face and tell us, "I don't want to be here
either...let's wrap this up because I need to do
some shopping".

On 10/17/09, I think he was sharing with you. wrote:
> On 10/17/09, ACP wrote:
>> On 10/17/09, student wrote:
>>> "This is by far my biggest mistake teaching here...well now
>>> I know how it is and don't have to make the mistake
>>> repetitve".
>>>
>>> It kind of hurts my feelings...even if it wasn't directed
>>> towards me specifially..but it seriously kills spirits in
>>> the class and it makes everyone dislike the teacher and not
>>> want to study. I was actually excited to come into class
>>> today and then he says this. I don't even know why it
>>> affected me that much lol strange. But it seriously annoyed
>>> me. Do you think he really meant it? or he said it because
>>> he was angry? i need opinions of professors
>
> It sounds to me more like the professor is reaching out for
> sympathy or empathy. It wasn't very smart of him to say it
> because it one of you tattles on him, he could get in trouble.
> But if you change your thinking from being insulted to
> recognizing his statement as sort of a cry for help, then maybe
> you can turn this into a positive. Believe it or not, professors
> are people, too, with pain and joy in their lives. If on a day
> like that, you walked up to the professor and said, "Hey, prof?
> Are you having a rough day today? Well, thanks for being my
> teacher and things will get better," you will probably be one of
> that teacher's favorite students.
>
> I totally understand that the personal issues of professionals
> should not be your problem. It really isn't your problem if the
> person who works at the service counter at the car repair place
> is having a bad day or hates their job--same goes for the
> janitor who cleans your office or the cashier at the grocery
> store. Sure, they should be professional and hide their personal
> feelings. But on the other hand, if you learn to accept that
> some people will share their feelings when they shouldn't and
> then you use that as an opportunity to show some sympathy or
> kindness to those people, well, you will be surprised how many
> friends or allies you will have.
>
> I will give you an example. My first year teaching, the janitors
> at the school seemed very gruff and unhappy. So I asked them
> about their job and such. Turned out that they were
> short-staffed and all doing double duty and they were kind of mad
> that they had so much work to do. I could have taken the
> attitude that it was their problem if they didn't like their job
> not mine. Instead, I asked every one of them who I ever saw come
> to my room to clean what I could do to make their job easier for
> them in my room. They told me that they were very annoyed by
> having to clean up little scraps of paper off the floor such as
> the little circles from hole-punched paper or the tatters from
> notebook paper that is torn out of the notebook. So I made a big
> deal out of never letting my kids leave the classroom without
> picking up every little scrap of paper under their desks. I
> became the absolute favorite teacher of the janitor who always
> cleaned my room because I showed him caring and sympathy. He
> always brought me extra cookies from the lunchroom and he would
> do all sorts of little extra favors for me. It turned out that
> the janitor was a pretty important part of my life because he
> had keys to every room in the school. Let me just say that the
> janitor always had my back and I'll leave it at that.
>
> So instead of turning your professor in and getting him in
> trouble, why don't you turn the situation around into a
positive
> experience for the teacher and you

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