Mrs. Obert with her condescending attitude holds the coveted
spot of absolute worst teacher ever! How does one earn such a position? Mrs.
Obert taught honors integrated math II my sophomore year of high school. Every
time that she answered a student’s question her tone was heavy with condescension.
She was only able to explain a concept in one way, never expanding upon the
concept or presenting it in a way that made it easier to understand. As a
student you are required to trust that your teacher will do what they can to
help you understand challenging concepts. Beyond her inability to teach us the
new integrated system was an inability to appear human. Sophomore year of high
school was also marked by the tragic events of the bombing of the twin towers
and pentagon. On September 11th, 2001 I was walking into math class
with 22 other students and there was a buzz in the air that something terrible
was unfolding. As we took our seats in class and slid forward in our chairs,
you could hear the metal scraping across the floor as the usual chit chat was
silenced. Everyone looked at each other wondering what was going on outside in
the walls of school. It felt like the time dragged by as Mrs. Obert slowly
walked toward the front of the classroom. Her steps seemed to be in slow motion
dragging forward as though someone was holding her legs back. She stood in
front of us and as we all focused our attention on what she said next, we never
could anticipate how the words she spoke would affect us. As her lips moved I
could not wrap my mind around her words. “I know that you may have heard some
things at lunch, things going on outside of school. I want you to know that
these are things that do not affect you, we will not be discussing any of these
things further and I expect you all to pull out your homework and get ready for
a pop quiz.” Her words hung above us and we quickly heeded her commands. What
we could not fathom at that moment was exactly how the events that had occurred
that morning would affect our lives for forever. To this very day I remember
that class and I remember the cold way in which she redirected our thoughts.
Very interesting piece to me as a teacher--you're very clear about how what she said affected you, and it certainly the 'not affecting yoy' part was not true, and none of it was appropriate for the situation.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, I have to admire her determination, however wrongheaded it was at this historical moment of horror, to try to do her job and teach.
On 9/11 I was doing exactly what I am doing this second: reading stuff online. I didn't hear the news til about 2:30 when my son called me. But I still had my responsibility to my students to consider and so by 3 I was back at work.
I can certainly appreciate that she had a job to do. I believe she had an opportunity to address it and move on. I just felt as though the way she handled the situation was unfortunate, and it forever has cemented my negative feelings towards her. I disliked her before the events of 9/11 and the class we had that day solidified every thought I had about her lack of better judgment.
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