Mr. Horrible

One of my students emailed me the other day to find out if/when she could pick up her final exam. In her email she also let me know that someone from this last session had posted a bad review of me on ratemyprofessors.com. Of course, I had to go read it (I usually check in at the end of a semester anyway, just to see what the kids have to say). She was right. This person wasn't very happy.

"Well, I took his summer [introductory biology course] and I don't know if I learned enough. This teacher isn't that good and he picks favors. Also he will give answers for the exam for some people he likes ( I mean he cheats to favor the people he likes). Avoid him. He is terrible. I got an A in his class, but the teacher sucks. He should be teaching high school kids."

I'm not exactly sure where the accusation of cheating "to favor the people I like" comes from. Maybe they meant to say that, when I can, I clarify exam questions for those who raise their hand with questions during a test. Or maybe they mean that I tell the people who actually attend lecture some things that are guaranteed to be on the exam, especially when it's something that's not in the text, just to make sure that they write it down and study it.

This was the first negative review of me that someone's posted on that site (there was one other, but that was posted by my roommate's son, so it doesn't count), but apparently this student wasn't the only one who felt this way, because someone else posted this comment later:

"AVOID THIS TEACHER. He cannot teach, his tests are hard and he picks favor. He thinks that he is the super hot guy, but I heard he got 5 kids. He is ugly and I don't think he is hot. I didn't learn anything from him. Horrible. AVOID HIM"

Oh yeah, my tests are hard. Hard enough to make people cry, haven't you heard? Nevermind the fact that the averages are usually exactly where they should be (if not higher than they should be), and that someone nearly always was able to score 100%. My favorite part is the middle though. Here, read it again:

"He thinks that he is the super hot guy, but I heard he got 5 kids. He is ugly and I don't think he is hot."

Hilarious! I don't think I'm "the super hot guy," because if I were, it stands to reason that I'd be getting a lot of ladies, right? Since that doesn't happen, I'm forced to face the cold reality that I am not "the super hot guy." However, even if I did think that, wouldn't the fact that I "got 5 kids" help prove it? After all, that would mean someone slept with me at least 5 times (well, maybe less than that if there were twins, triplets or quintuplets involved).

I also love how the second person just echoed the first person's sentiments, which really comes across as if they're saying, "Hi, I'm incapable of an original thought, so I'm just going to repeat what someone else has already said, complete with misspellings and poor grammar, and then add a personal attack because I'm mad that I got a bad* grade."




* Just making an assumption here since by this person's own admission, they didn't learn anything from me.