Good reason to switch my English teacher?

Question

I have the worst possible Honors English teacher! I know so many others who had her last year that say that she treats her honors classes like AP! She is rude, full of herself, and condescending. All other honors english teachers give 2 to 3 months time to complete the Sophomore Research paper which is worth a lot of your grade. This teacher gives only 2 weeks. She assigns a ridiculous amount of homework, assignments, essays, and projects, one on top of another. Her ego is astounding. She cannot communicate effectively with kids or adults. I received all this information about her from kids who have previously had her, and their parents. I am a High Honor Roll student with straight A's. English is the subject I struggle with the most to get an A. With this teacher, I'm afraid I won't succeed. What would be a good reason to give to my counselor to change my teacher? How should I talk to my counselor about this? How can I convince my counselor who is pretty strict with school rules and policies? Don't tell me that I should just get through this teacher. Only type an answer if you have any advice regarding talking to my counselor and changing my teacher. Please help me, I'm counting on you!!!!

Answer 1

I would suck it up and stay in the class.  Perhaps you should try the challenge.  Alternatively, if you know she treats the honors and AP classes the same, you should transfer in to the AP class; it would look better on your transcripts.

Answer 2

Welcome to the Real World.  Your days of feel-goodery classes will soon be long gone.  Tough it out, but document things in case you feel that you (individually) are being treated unfairly.

Answer 3

What you describe suggests that this teacher has personal issues which you will not be able to address so the way I see it is that you only have three solutions.

1. Speak to her

Feed her ego, it is big but clearly needs feeding. She also sounds pretty miserable, being in her shoes must be hard. Make a habit of stopping for a moment after class and tell her that you find something she did, even if you didn't, inspiring, tell her that she has raised your horizons and expectations and you really want to do well then on another day tell her that sadly your parents, your cat, your back yard, whatever you like, is preventing you working as she is inspiring you to do.

Her ego will enjoy this approach and you may do 2 things 1. have her see you differently and 2 actually inspire her to be a better teacher.

Speak to your counselor

This time use the same tack in reverse, you want to be inspired, you need to understood, you need patience and you need support, none of which you are getting, before he/she answers explain that everyone says stick it out but your love of education is dying in your soul and you may, even if you wont, quit altogether. At this point however you must ask for something positive for very few people will know what to do here, ask your counselor to either speak to the head of department with you or even a school leader ask for a change of group before it is too late.

3. Lastly, sometimes it is better to be a big fish in a small pond rather than a small fish in a small pond. Decalre you aren't coping, if this is possible without you losing you own opportunities, and demands to be put into a lower calss group. Will you still be following the same curriculum there? Can you achieve more in that group by being happy than in this one where you are clearly not? If not then play the game - work out the minimum you need to do to pass with the grades you need and make that your ambition be smart and change the way you look at the class, Say everyday, what must I do to survive this class, then smile and play the game.

Good luck

Answer 4

Talk to the teacher first.  Frankly, a counselor should be able to see through the reasons you would give them and see that you just don't like the teacher.  Really, you'll be better off going straight up to the teacher and saying I want to do well in your class.  I know it's going to be a lot of work, but I know I can do it.  Often times, the teacher that challenges you the most, and who you may hate at the time, ends up being one of the best experiences that you will have in education.  If you need help, ask the teacher for help.  They don't want you to fail, no teachers want that.  If the teacher out and refuses to help you when you ask for it, then you have a reason to go to your counselor and request a transfer to a different class.