Just Cowboy Up Already

It's the beginning of the semester, still officially the first week since we only had half a week last week and this monday off. It's this first week or so that all my pet peeves of teaching come roaring in. Eventually it tapers off and I get into the swing of things, but the first few days I'm continuously reminded of all the little things I hate about teaching. There's a particular phenominon I hate more than anything. This semester my classes started with 35 seats (all full), which isn't that bad, but the limit has since been raised to 39 to accomodate student demand. Still this is nothing to get all riled up about, and compared to the fall, where classes can start at 45 (fuck my life) seats, this is still managable. That is until I wander online and see:

Instructor	Total Seats	Open Seats
Z, Master	39	0
Z, Master	39	0
Hwey, Shuw-Juang	39	8
Hwey, Shuw-Juang	39	9

You know what? Nut up and take the foreign teacher. The math department increased the available seats just for you all to flood my class? I don't think so. This really wouldn't bother me if I still wasn't getting students begging me for overrides. I got an email begging for one not ten minutes ago. No you can't have an override, my classes are packed and there's a foriegn teacher (who's way nicer than me) with 17 seats free! Now maybe, just maybe, mine is the only class that fits with your schedule. Still, I'm sorry, I don't care if its your last semester and you have to have this math class to graduate. Go fuck yourself, if that's the case you should've been more on top of things.

If I'm coming off sounding extremely irritated it's because this isn't the first time I've dealt with this. Further, the math department will probably just open even more seats for these whiney bitches, while the foreign teachers' classes stay relatively empty. I hate this, I hate this more than anything (at least today I do), and not just because it fills my classes up. In actuality, by the halfway point I'll have enough drops and no-shows to give my classes breathing room. No, this is a deeper rooted problem in the damaged psyche of the average college student. Where does this idea come from that if a teacher is foreign then they're automatically bad? First of all it's wrong, and second of all it's completely unabashedly racist.

"Woah woah woah," you might be thinking, "just because I prefer American teachers doesn't make me racist." Actually kids, it kind of does. To me the statement "I'm not racist, I just can't take classes with foreign teachers," is just as bad as saying "I'm not racist because I have black friends." And you know what they say about people who say that don't you? I can't tell you how many times I've had a student come up to me in the first week and say something like, "wow, I just want you to know you explain things really well, I'm just so glad you're American, I failed this last time because I had a Chinese teacher." You know what? Keep that shit to yourself. What I hear when you say that is, "Hi I'm dumb, dumby-dumb-dumb, and instead of taking responsibility for my dumbness, I've decided instead to blame it on someone else, and particularly on something they can't help." Every time a student has told me this they end up failing my class too. It's uncanny huh? Turns out it wasn't their English you couldn't understand, it was the math all along.

Also, you might just be cheating yourself if you only take American teachers. Some of the best teachers I've ever had have been foreign, and some of the worst teachers I've ever had have been American; and vise versa. Their nationality had nothing, and I mean nothing, to do with whether or not they were an excellent teacher or not. From what I can tell college students are just lazy, close minded, ignorant little shits (wanna fight about it? Prove me wrong then). The second they have to do anything extra, like decipher an accent, it's suddenly too much and they give up and fail because of it. You know what? We live in a global world these days, and the sooner you get used to it the sooner you'll excel. If you refuse even the simple stuff, like taking a class from a foreign teacher, then you'll soon be left in the dust, and good riddance. So, cowboy the fuck up and take that foreign teacher. You might be surprised with what you get, particularly that it might be you with the problem, not them. Now isn't that what college is all about? New experiences.

(p.s. the name up there was changed to protect the innocent, and my anonymity)