Some Teachers Shouldn't Be Teachers

Professor Moody

English 1, Essay III

15 October 2012

SOME TEACHERS SHOULDN'T BE TEACHERS

I have had many teachers that shouldn't be teachers. Whether they were under qualified, pompous or really just didn't care about their students or what they're doing, they don't deserve the title teacher. A teacher should be someone who knows the field they are teaching and someone students can turn to if they are lost or confused about the subject. In the military, I've been in instructor billets quite often throughout my time and use these examples as a what not to do.

In the military, I have seen countless examples of bad teachers. A lot of the problem is the rank of the individual. When an instructor is a high ranking individual he or she is usually pompous and arrogant. If the students dare to ask a question it's like you are challenging his or her ability to teach and it's usually met with hostility. When I was a junior Marine, I went to my first leadership school and met my first of many horrible instructors. His name was SSgt Griffin. I remember asking him a simple question about how he got an answer on one of his calculations. The way he responded, one would have thought I murdered one of his children. He jumped up on the desk he was teaching behind and started yelling at me. After I dodged the

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three markers he threw at me during his tongue lashing, I was ordered to pick them up because he needed them to continue the class. From then on, the students in the class learned not to ask questions. We had to form study groups that met after every day of class to help each other out with the topics of the day that we were confused about. Although once we learned not to ask questions, the class went very smoothly.

Some teachers can teach but just don't belong anywhere near students. When I was in high school I had a history teacher named Mr. Sprinkel. History is one of my favorite courses and he really helped me stay interested and keep focused on the course. The problem with Mr. Sprinkel is it was rumoured he liked underage girls. He was the girls softball coach and rumors were always going around about him sleeping with girls on his softball team, but these were always just rumors and none of the girls ever admitted to anything. He had a very attractive wife and he was a good looking guy so everyone just assumed they were rumors because all the high school girls had crushes on him.

Six years after I graduated I was on deployment in Iraq and received an email from one of my friends. In this email was a mug shot of good ole Mr. Sprinkel. He had been arrested for texting nude photos to an underage girl. The problem is the underage girl he thought he was texting was really a law enforcement agent out of Louisiana. Mr. Sprinkel was extradited to Louisiana where he stood trial. He must have had a great lawyer because he was found not guilty. I'm not sure on the reasons he was found not guilty but I heard it had something to do

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with entrapment. The police department had tricked him into the situation so he wasn't guilty. I'm not sure if he's still teaching but if he is I feel sorry for the school and its students.

By far the worst teacher I have ever had is here at MATC. The first two weeks of the semester we didn't cover anything in the chapter that we were supposed to be learning. Instead, we talked about the legalization of marijuana and the illegalization of abortion. Then we got to the day of the test review for the first chapter and he realized that he hadn't covered anything that were about to be tested on. The day we were supposed to be getting the review, he spent it cramming two weeks'