Right after I wrote the previous post, I received my student evaluations for last semester. And they just killed me. One of the questions we ask is “How could this course be improved?”

And one after another, students answered that it was disruptive and inconvenient to have the instructor change twice within the course. Nothing insults me more than complaints about how much what happened to me inconvenienced somebody. I’m shocked by this need people have to see themselves as victims of somebody else’s tragedy. This complete self-immersion borders on the schizophrenic.

I hate it when people constantly feel aggrieved by absolutely everything in the world. These students had no real complaint to make. Not a single one of them mentioned any real instance of how the change of instructor was disruptive to them. But still they felt victimized.

I despise these fake victims because I’m not one of them.

I’m a warrior.

19 responses to “Victims and Warriors”

  1. el Avatar
    el

    May be, some of them didn’t know why the change happened. Or, didn’t like you demanding more of them than the previous instructor, even if they understand it’s for their own good and not something they can complain about. Wish you mental powers to ignore such as much as possible, such people aren’t worth it.

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  2. Fie Upon This Quiet Life Avatar
    Fie Upon This Quiet Life

    Students can be so unobservant and cruel. What morons.

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    1. Michael Blekhman Avatar
      Michael Blekhman

      Not only students, I am afraid.

      But people like you, Clarissa, will always be the winners.

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      1. Clarissa Avatar

        “But people like you, Clarissa, will always be the winners.”

        – And this, my friends, is how a person develops a positive mother complex. 🙂 🙂

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  3. Sister Avatar
    Sister

    Assholes and dumbasses.

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  4. David Gendron Avatar

    “students answered that it was disruptive and inconvenient to have the instructor change twice within the course.”

    I agree with them, you should have given this course. But, what they don’t know is this situation was better for them than having to be instruct entirely by some other bad teacher.

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  5. David Gendron Avatar

    Corrected:

    “students answered that it was disruptive and inconvenient to have the instructor change twice within the course.”

    I agree with them, you should not have given this course because of what happened to you. But, what they don’t know is this situation was better for them than having to be instruct entirely by some other bad teacher.

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  6. David Gendron Avatar

    Corrected:
    Corrected again:

    “students answered that it was disruptive and inconvenient to have the instructor change twice within the course.”

    I agree with them, you should not have given this course because of what happened to you. But, what they don’t know is that this situation was better for them than having to be instruct entirely by some other bad teacher.

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  7. Michael Blekhman Avatar
    Michael Blekhman

    This person must be a close relative of those ‘victims’.

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    1. David Gendron Avatar

      Please re-read my comment. This had nothing to do with Clarissa. Sorry, I don’t speak Ukrainian.

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  8. Shakti Avatar
    Shakti

    I hope the administration isn’t dumb enough to take it as a real complaint on teaching. If the students knew WHY you had to come back, then they just need to have all of the seats.

    I’m sorry they are so idiotically cruel.

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    1. Clarissa Avatar

      Oh yes, I will still have to write an explanation of what these complaints meant for my tenure dossier. So this is not over yet.

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      1. Z Avatar

        Good God, do you really?

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        1. Clarissa Avatar

          “Good God, do you really?”

          – Yes, I will have to make graphs reflecting these student evaluations (because the Chair of the tenure committee is in Statistics.) On the graphs, it will be very obvious that there is a drop in the evaluations. We are expected to write narratives explaining all such occurrences.

          This Statistics person says he needs graphs because they are easier for him to understand than words. When I become the Chair of the tenure committee, I will require everybody to submit the dossier in Ukrainian because it’s easier for me to understand.

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      2. musteryou Avatar

        Once we as a society get over the idea that the consumer is God, we may be able to treat him for his God complex.

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      3. cliff arroyo Avatar

        Shouldn’t the target be HR (who made the decision regarding the double change of teachers)?

        I can imagine that it was disruptive and inconvenient for students to have the double change and they might not realize (despite knowing of your tragedy) that it wasn’t you making the decisions about having to begin the semester and then having to make an unplanned return).
        Those HR decisions were absolutely against the best interests of the students and HR should answer for it.

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        1. Clarissa Avatar

          The HR never answers for anything, either in academia or in business. Oh, the stories I can tell!

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      4. David Gendron Avatar

        Brilliant, Roberto! 🙂

        Like

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