Demotivation in Education

Mar 27, 2015 • Kristopher Keipert

My demotivational story took place during my senior year of high school. I was a student in my schools first ever advanced placement (AP) chemistry course. Both the instructor and the students were mutually patient since this was the first time the class was offered. I don’t remember why, but about half way through the year we had a 2-3 week period where a long term substitute teacher took over the class. The teaching quality plummeted and she really wasn’t qualified to teach the subject. I did poorly on a test she administered, and tried to talk to her about the subject matter afterward. She was dismissive and told me that I would have to deal with teaching assistants in college who don’t know the material very well, so this was good practice. This was extremely discouraging, and my TAs were great!

The teacher should have taken the time to go through the material with me. She always could’ve emailed the primary instructor if she had misconceptions of her own. Nobody should have to “practice” being confused with an extremely unhelpful teacher.