Officially done with class

No, the marathon is not over yet. I still have to write a shortish essay and my thesis, but class is officially over. Yesterday marked a 7+ hour class session (to make up for the missed class on Thursday in addition to the regularly scheduled program) and it finished on a spectacularly typical note - morons giving presentations. Yes, my language is harsh, but instead of sugar coating it, I'm going to tell it like it is. "Morons" is the apt term.

One such moron previously featured in this space and clearly setting new benchmarks with every master stroke, Real World, really capped off her MA with a prototypical performance for the ages. In fact, her last presentation should have been recorded and put in a Pantheon or a Great Hall or at least The Wall of Shame.

The Setting: Regent's College, Regent's Park, London
The Topic: Globalization
The Presentation: "Globalized Theories of AIDS"
The Verdict: Classically Incomprehensible

Indeed, Real World wasn't the only person in the class to give a presentation that was essentially "X" + the word "globalized" and stir, but her's was by far the most unintelligible. Even the Danish/Lebanese guy who went on for about 25 minutes about why Islam is annoying to Westerners and needs to change was more coherent (and freaking hilarious - I've heard many criticisms of Islam before, but "annoying" is perhaps the most amusing especially from a guy who's first words spoken in class were "It's because they're vampires."). Anyway, Real World decided that in a class about Globalization, she was just going to rehash her AIDS paper and presentation from two terms ago. Bully for her. Another girl gave a presentation about Kosovo that just happened to be the identical presentation that she gave in February and equally had nothing to do with Globalization (leading my professor to exasperate profusely).

So, expecting something like "globalization made the transmission of AIDS easier for the following reasons..." I was ultimately not surprised when the resident brain trust rolled out the various theories about what caused AIDS in the first place. There was the generally accepted ("globalized") view that AIDS is caused by HIV etc. Then there was the crackpot ("regional") view that AIDS doesn't exist in the first place. And then there was the offensive ("localized") view ala Farrakan that AIDS was a plot by white Jews to corrupt and destroy the black man with a little Pat Buchanan in there somewhere (and some "sinny sin sin").

Only Real World could take an entire class on the topic of Globalization and never get past the "global" part of the word. In fact, only Real World could take an entire MA program and never understand the simplest of assignments and the simplest of concepts. This was not a hard course. In fact, I read about a 6 year old genius here in the UK that speaks Mandarin who would have cried rivers of tears if he saw how easy this class was. The little tike probably could have "learned" everything there was to learn in this class in about 3...3.5 minutes. If that long.

Real World, however, is such a rare breed of ignorance, dishonesty, tactlessness, shoddiness, and outright stupidity that even after 8 weeks and 30+ hours of class time, she understood little more than the "global" part of the word. I'm sure glad I have that diploma, ya know? It really means a lot compared to some of the finest. (And no, she didn't get that job at Amnesty International. The international community cheers.) Not only is it clear that she didn't learn a single thing in this MA program, it's also quite clear that she's going to graduate and be a Master of Arts. I'm ashamed for many reasons.

Of course, in all of this, I blame my professor. I've been quite sympathetic about him because on a personal basis, I feel that he's a good guy. He's just a crap-tacular teacher. It's not entirely his fault (it's like teaching to a room of half adults and half toddlers), but I still blame him. An MA program should be rigorous. It should be demanding. It should be a challenge. In some of my classes, that was the case. But in this professor's classes, it was never much of a challenge. He always taught to the worst students, never to the top of the class. To me, that's a philosophically bankrupt proposition for many fine reasons. For example, on principle ("there's principalities in this"), if a poor student fails out because they can't keep up with the program, that's not the professor's fault and he shouldn't feel bad about it. Not every person is meant to go through an MA. But even beyond that, I've always felt quite strongly that the problem in education is that when dealing with poor students, systems and teachers tend to talk down to them which means nobody wins. Teaching to the top is more likely to bring the lowest up instead of the highest down.

At any rate, screw all that philosophy, what I really want to rant about is how much of a jackass my professor is. He really pissed me off on Friday and class couldn't be over fast enough. I'm a pretty opinionated guy and after a few classes of dealing with utter nobbery (both from classmates and the prof) I was emboldened to run the show. Frankly, as Eurotrash and I agreed, we had to run the show or die from utter boredom and excessive nobbery, an exceptionally brutal fate indeed. (This only applies to classes with this one particular prof, by the way.) Well, somewhere along the way, I obviously annoyed my prof. It may have been when I came to the conclusion that he's a dogmatic tool masked as an "academic", but I don't think he ever really understood the level of disrespect that I had for him because I hide it pretty well.

But, the point is, on Friday, in class, he said in response to something I said, "Yes Stephen, I know because you know everything." The gloves came off then. I really don't think I said anything that was extraordinary or out of line. I don't even recall the "conversation" that was occurring at the time, but it was undoubtedly a situation where he went off on a wild tangent that had nothing to do with the class material and said some really silly shite (par). I was both angry and shocked. If you want to tell me to tone it down because I'm crowding out other "voices" in the class, so be it. Do it in private. I won't agree with it, but I'll respect it because ultimately he's the prof and I respect his position. But to say something like that in class is totally unacceptable and unwarranted, especially from a guy who is generally a nice guy. So, the result was that as compared to previous situations where I would just let him say things that were dogmatic, unscientific, and baseless, the last class featured me calling him out. Every. Single. Time. I couldn't help myself really.

Here's the rub. He's never respected the voices or views of his students in the first place. There is a strong contingent of students that absolutely refuse to take classes with this guy because of all of what I've discussed, but ultimately it comes down to the fact that he expects (demands) respect from his students but it's never been a two-way street. So, being the somewhat patient guy I am and ultimately being political (and not having much of a choice), I kept taking his classes because I always hoped at some point things would get better. When it became apparent on Friday that he fundamentally disrespects his brightest students, well, I wasn't exactly going to be charitable on Monday. Ultimately, the test of wills had no bearing on most of the class because most of the class is either A) moronic, B) too timid to speak up, or C) asleep. But for me, at least I got to make my point.

He's the director of the program, by the way.

There's a saying that goes something like, "the road to hell is paved with good intentions" and that sort of sums up how I feel about this professor. Nice guy. Good for some jokes in the pub. Does good work for the Royal Institute on International Affairs. Terrible professor whe clearly has little to no clue about how to teach or run a program. I found myself several times over the course of the year thinking, "I can do this better than him," and that's not an arrogant statement. I just don't think it would be hard for most people to do better than him if they were equipped with the knowledge.

At any rate, I still have to work with this guy because he's my thesis advisor (the only thesis advisor) and we're definitely on good relations on a one to one setting. He wants to take Eurotrash and me out to a pub next week to celebrate the conclusion of our coursework, for example. So I haven't burned any bridges or anything silly like that. I've just completely lost respect for him as a teacher and mentor.

I guess the sad thing is, I came in with such high expectations, expectations that have been so tragically and utterly deflated. Some of my classmates are very bright. Some of the classes were very challenging. And I definitely learned a lot. But, much like college (when I had horrid grades), I don't think I was ever challenged properly. The only activity that I've ever been challenged properly was debate, but it shouldn't be that way. Sigh. Maybe I'll get a PhD and feel the same way. Right now, I'm just happy to be done with the coursework so that I can truly begin my task of researching and writing my thesis.

(This is probably the harshest post I've written. One year of frustration is now vented.)