That is so DAMN Irritating!

I have a class this semester that is probably the worst one I have ever been in...for a variety of reasons.

First of all the instructor is scatter-brained as hell and cannot stay on topic. This person is nice enough and we have some decent conversations before class starts....but once class starts it is one of the most aggravating experiences ever.

The instructor doesn't teach from the text book. In fact, you'd be hard pressed to get me to say the instructor teaches anything at all. The conversation in class always seems to be about this instructors personal likes and dislikes or this instructors life outside the school, or the fact that this instructor doesn't like small children, or this instructors political views and so forth and so on. All of those things are fine, but they don't do a damn thing in the way of informing me of what we are supposed to be learning or what will be on the next test. I can't take a test in this subject if the only things discussed in class are things about the instructor.

This instructor also has the incredibly annoying habit of soliciting the political views of students and then immediately talking over them, in a very high pitched voice early in the morning, the minute they appear to be contradicting this instructors political views. Why ask for differing political views if you really don't want to hear them?

But, the most irritating thing about this instructor is that they absolutely REFUSE to exert any control over the classroom environment. Today, I finally got a gut full of the classroom chaos and said something about it.

Today was a rare day when the instructor decided to actually teach the class. We were going over some hand-outs, which we are often instructed to make additional notes on, and we were talking about material that will be on the next test and when that test will be etc.....You can probably imagine that most everyone in the class was paying rapt attention, because actually learning about the subject matter in this instructors class is an unusual event indeed.

But, not everyone was paying attention. A small, teenage cabal had gathered in the back of the class. I sit up front because I have bad eyesight and my hearing at 35 is not what it was at 18. I don't want to miss anything. I also sit up front because most teens sit in the back and teens irritate the absolute hell out of me.

Today this group of teens was so loud and disruptive that even sitting in the front I had trouble hearing what the instructor was saying. They were giggling, talking, cell phones were going off, moving their desks around, rattling papers...oh and did I mention giggling and talking and giggling and talking?

Yet, the instructor said not a word to them....just kept right on talking to us as if there weren't three rude assholes sitting in the back of the room disturbing everyone else, making it impossible to follow along and take the right notes. The people sitting around me were getting as irritated as I was. This should have been as plain as day to the instructor, as a few of us would occasionally turn around in our desks and glare right at them, then turn around and look at the instructor asking silently for an end to be put to that bullshit.

During break those of us who were fed up all discussed how fucked up it is to act that way and disturb other people. I don't quite get why a lot of these kids are in college. They obviously have no interest in learning. It isn't a law that they be in college. This isn't high school. In fact, someones money, either their parents or taxpayer money, is being spent to send them there and they are not only fucking up their futures (which I am not inclined to give a shit about) but they are fucking up other people's futures (like mine) as well, by being such a distraction in class. Why waste money and time like that?

Anyway, after break and upon returning to the class they were at it again....even louder. I stopped by the instructor's podium and said, "Can you please tell those kids to shut up? I can't hear a thing you are saying and they are distracting everyone who is trying to pay attention to what you say. It's really irritating!"

And do you know what that instructor said to me?

"You are asking the impossible."

I stared at them for a second and said, "Really? Well, whose classroom is this, yours or theirs? If you don't say something I will because I am not going to fail a test because you refuse to control the atmosphere in class."

A few minutes went by and when the teenagers got cranked up again the instructor sort of grew a pair (very small one) and told them to stop carrying on a conversation in class....that if it was that important they could take it outside in the heat.

I just kind of shook my head. Had it been me I would have put them out of my class and told them not to come back until they could respect the other students and the instructor. Since the last day to withdraw has already come and gone they would have been in extreme danger of failing, if it were my class. Alas, it is not. They barely got a slap on the wrist and within a few minutes they were cranking it up again.

Luckily class was coming to an end at this point. If it hadn't been and the instructor failed to follow through on the threat to make them leave class I would have left class....and about 14 other students would have followed me out. If it happens again next week that is exactly what I will do. I am not taking out student loans and going into massive debt so I can get a PhD in what some disrespectful, asshole kid just posted as their Facebook status, who they fucked last night, who they are fucking tonight or who got drunker over the weekend. I don't give a shit about any of that.

Really. I. Don't.