Wednesday, April 29, 2009

My Second Dose of English 111


My experience and reflection on English 111 has been a long journey. It all started back in the fall of 2008. It was my first semester here at Tidewater Community College. I had just graduated from Ocean Lakes with honors, said my good byes to all my friends, and headed towards my future. I was so nervous my first day, shuffling through all my notes and maps just trying to find where to go. I eventually came to find out that my classes were too far apart to even reach any of them in time so I ended up having to change some of my classes that day. I was so frustrated and angry because I had to choose teachers that would fit my schedule without researching and rating anything about them.
I ended up choosing a different English 111 teacher in the process, which I honestly believe was the worst mistake I have ever made in my life. The first day I walked into my English 111 class there was no one there except a couple of students. A couple of minutes later, this woman walks in with this cold look, doesn’t look anyone in the face, and quietly sits at her desk. She handed out the syllabus to everyone and read word for word from this eight page masterpiece. After she had read this, she asked if anyone had any questions. I recall a few questions being asked by a couple of students and she would literally look at them like it was the dumbest question ever asked in history. Almost always, this woman would always tell you to refer back to the syllabus if you had any questions about anything.
As time went on, I realized more and more that she was just not a good teacher at all. She was not there for the students needs and she was never willing to help. She told the students that she does not believe in email so we actually had to mail her paperwork or make an appointment. She would even mail us student examples for our essays which makes no sense to me because she is wasting all that money on stamps.
Her assignments were so vague and misunderstood. She would assign us 2 “journals” every two weeks and each journal had to be at least two pages long. This was so stressful to me because I was working full time and I would have these journals just piling up on me. She would always sit in her desk and teach. I believe she got up once to write on the chalkboard. I ended up pulling of a B average in her class and then I had gotten some disturbing news from her. On the day of the first part of the exam, she walked me outside and told me that I was just a half a day over my allowed absences, which all in all meant that I had failed the class. I was distraught and begged her and told her that I was a good student and I had a B average. She told me she had to follow her rules and that was that. This teacher has had many complaints and TCC still has not done anything to change it. Her complaints date back to 2004, where countless students have complained about her. I believe our class started with 30 students and by the end of the semester, we ended up with about 8 people.
Spring semester came and I met my new English 111 teacher, Mr. Gasparo. He opened up my eyes to a whole different world of English. He was so laid back and was willing to hear what the students had to say, just like I am getting to write this blog about my own experience and reflection on English 111. He was always open to new ways to improve his teaching methods. He was a little scattered brained at times, but he was never too serious about things. He gave us many chances to redo our papers and was always there to help with getting your paper started or just working on revising it. I believe we could have used our class time more wisely by talking more about the essay assignments themselves, because I would tend to get lost at times. I love the fact that we would get to choose what we wanted to write about, teachers usually always set that for you. He was never old fashioned; he would always think outside the box and introduce new ideas to us. Overall I have really enjoyed this class and I plan on coming back next semester.

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