I had an interesting Astronomy class today. First let me give you a quick background on my experience of this class. The teacher is great, his lectures are entertaining and informative. I really like him, but the class is hard to get a decent grade in, so very hard. I will work my tail off and I’ll think I’ve mastered all the things that I’m supposed to know, but it turns out that I am so very wrong. Even worse, I don’t even know when I’m wrong until it’s too late. I can’t really explain why this is. I don’t understand why I think I do something right but I’m so very wrong. Case and point. I studied like hell for the midterm, remember? And I got lots of help from tutors. I did the interactive CD ROM thing from the book and I went through all those study questions in the backs of the chapters. I actively took notes from my reading, I made this incredibly fancy exam sheet with conversions and formulas and diagrams. And after the test, I was so elated because I KNEW I had done really well. Remember that day? Well, I didn’t do well. I got a C, I think it was a low C even. I spent hours and hours studying. Still, a lousy C, and worse, a C when I thought I had gotten a strong B. That’s not good. I’m a school rock star, I know how to get good grades, I’m really good at it. Plus, I really like astronomy, so I should be doing way better than I am. I don’t really blame the teacher, I’ve heard similar stories from other astronomy classes. But it doesn’t make it any more pleasant. I really do like my 4.0 GPA and I wish I had some guidance on how to get an A in this class.
So anyway, the class average is 50%. My teacher has been getting angrier and angrier, it’s actually a common phenomenon with CCSF teachers around midterms. Most teachers loose their steam and start to hate students by midterms. This guy was falling under the same trap. He says he turned into one of those grumpy teachers that goes home and complains to his family about his terrible job. He decided he wasn’t going to take it anymore. He decided that after just two years of teaching, he’d turned into the kind of teacher he hates. He just stands in front of us blank-faced students and lectures for 3 hours a week. They are good lectures, but lectures aren’t an incredibly effective way to learn subjects like astronomy. We need to apply this stuff in order to understand it. So he asked us for help today. We’re restructuring the class, we’re setting up ways for students to get support from one another. Hopefully things will improve. Hopefully he’s on the way to becoming a really, really great Astronomy teacher with lots of happy students with A’s and knowledge in their noggins. That would be really cool. I don’t want to get a C. I’m clearly willing to do the work, and I think there are many students in the class that are in the same boat as me.