I’ve been slightly frustrated the last two weeks with my drafting class. While the teacher is knowledgeable, the class is moving at a slow pace. Not so slow that we aren’t on target, but slow enough that I’m able to work ahead in the book, do my homework and still leave over an hour early. It’s not that I’m brilliant, but I know how to sew, I’m all about getting an education and I have got work to do. Class isn’t social for me. It’s business.
One of the things I liked about my undergrad experience (do you like how I said that as though I had a graduate level experience, lol) is that people *wanted* to be in school. In high school, it seemed like half the people rather be somewhere else. Yet, here, people complain about, well, everything. They complain that we have homework. They complain that we have to sew for homework. They complain when they come in early to complete sewing assignments on the school’s machines, but don’t tell the teacher ahead of time so she isn’t there to help them. They complain that the class is ‘too fast’ but when we finish early they don’t stay for help or to do the homework that they inevitably won’t have the next class. So, the next session, my class starts 20 minutes late while they are in the machine room finishing up homework due that day.
You know what, I haven’t even gotten into the 30 mins of remedial math I sat through teaching folks how to read a freaking ruler (for the record, this is covered in fourth grade and again in 10th in the state of Maryland. I checked). That, is a post that I haven’t had the, tact, to write.
So, today, I had to take out my earrings and have it out with one particular student. Now, this is not my proudest moment. But, this 50 something classmate did her homework assignment wrong. We should have drafted and sewn princess seam front and back bodices. But, she only did the front. When she realized this, she got belligerent and accused the teacher of saying it wrong and not communicating effectively. My awesome teacher gave the assignment correctly and it’s written in our syllabus. This insane woman was the only one out of 15 who got it wrong. She starts arguing with her during the middle of a quiz. And when I say arguing, I mean verbally badgering the instructor about telling her the wrong assignment and that she needs to communicate better.
The 13th graders in the class are just giggling away like it’s a stage production. After a few minutes of this, I turned around and pointed out that she was wasting my time and money and she needed to go to office hours instead of taking class time to work out her inability to listen. So, she starts yelling at me! I, of course, get completely out of pocket. Here I am leaving my job during the day to be here and actually learn something. It was admittedly stupid to argue with her. I was giving her exactly what she wanted – attention.
Half the class was egging her on and half the class was egging me on. All of a sudden, I felt like I was on the set of Mean Girls. Once the words ‘bougie’ came out her mouth, I said screw it and left class. I was already done with the quiz and the first assignment and had worked ahead and completed the next assignment. And now, I’m just frustrated and annoyed. I’m letting her take all the fun out of the this for me. Because she’s like this EVERY. SINGLE. CLASS. Why should her foolishness dominate the class?
Awesome Leslie in Austin says I need to talk to the instructor. But, quite frankly, I think she’s a young Eastern European woman teaching a class of ethnically diverse women and is intimidated. This is the second time this woman and I have gone at it. I just have not done a good job of being the bigger person.
