My [15 F] teacher [30+? F] is out to get me

I am a high school teacher. Here is some advice about what you should do in this situation:

1) Do not take this to your counselor. They can't really do anything about it. You need to take it to the English department head, or some sort of administrator that oversees the English department. For example, in my school I have an administrator that oversees my subject as well as a few others. These are the people who can address this issue. The counselor has no authority over how teachers teach and grade. Do some research to find out who this is (if the school has a website, check there). If you get no luck there, ask a different English teacher for the information. You don't have to explain why, just ask who you can contact if you have an issue and need to go over your teacher's head. I have found this information for my students and other students in the past, because as much as I'd like to believe that all of my fellow teachers are wonderful and objective and unbiased, it just isn't true.

2) You school probably has some sort of complaint system where you can file a formal complaint against your teacher. Use this.

3) Please keep in mind that it is possible that the school is doing something about this as we speak, but they will NOT tell you what is going on. Investigating a teacher who is doing a poor job takes a long time. Teachers rarely get fired or let go outright unless they do something extremely awful and illegal. Chances are the only thing they will do is wait until the school year is over and then not ask her back next year.

4) She is a new teacher, which means she is under a lot of scrutiny. Unfortunately, new teachers tend to fail in some way - I know that I was terrible at discipline and classroom management, and had to work hard over a period of years to fix it. My students noticed, which I feel bad about. But new teachers are not going to be perfect, because the ONLY way to get good at teaching is to get a lot of experience under your belt, to make mistakes and fix them. That means that in the meantime, they have students who aren't having an optimal experience. It really sucks, but it's the only way to make good teachers. This isn't excusing what your teacher is doing - grades should ALWAYS be objective, no matter how you feel about a student. Things like classroom management and engaging lesson plans don't have to be perfect all of the time, but at the end of the day students deserve the grade they have earned, no more or less. This should be the first concern of any teacher. This is why we have rubrics. Why give a rubric if she isn't going to follow it? This is something the administration will not look kindly on her for.

5) Basically, you're stuck with this teacher for the rest of the year. However, you will be fine. As much as we like to push grades and AP classes, they aren't the end of the world. You might get a bad grade in this class, which you WILL bring to the administration and contest, and it will either get changed or not, but in a year or two it won't matter in the slightest. Really. I took 6 AP classes in high school, and only ONE ever had an effect on what I did in college, and all it did was let me skip one general education class. Do your best to get into AP Euro, but if you don't, I promise that you will be ok.

As a teacher I am really sorry that you have had this experience. We want to believe that all teachers are perfect, and I am usually the first to defend teachers from criticism. But some are bad, and they make all of us look bad. They have to go. Keep bringing this up with the administration, be pro-active, and chances are this teacher won't be there next year. It won't do anything to help you personally, but at least it will spare someone else like you from going through this.

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