Teacher issue.

[meowbark]

So, long story short, I take a Networking class. I'm not supposed to be in this class until NEXT year, and the school wouldn't bother changing it when they were supposed to.

The teacher, he teaches us jacksh*t. He used to at the beginning of the year, though after we got back from Winter Break he's been making us do FCAT explorer, [state testing prep thing] and has been cooped up in his office as an excuse to not teach us. Usually we would do the test prep for 20-30 minutes, but he's been making us do it all class. Now state testing is finally over, he's been in his office, not giving us crap to do and tell us to watch these training videos online that aren't really of any value.

Problem? For the most part I like doing nothing in this class, the thing is we have a certification test in a little over a month. Which means I can become Cisco Net+ certified. Which is good because it gives me Summer internships at places like the Naval Air Base where my dad works, which will give me extra points when applying for scholarships and Georgia Tech.

What the hell should I do? I've considered studying online from a study guide I can probably torrent but I don't have a lot of time to do that because I still need some personal time, time for homework, sleep, and all that. I run a tight schedule at home. I really want to become Net+ certified, it's something to be proud of getting. But the way my teacher operates... He also teaches my Photoshop class, luckily I use PS a lot on my own time so I know my way around it. My other two classes, A+ [basic Computer Maintenence and Customer Support] and IC3 [Microsoft Office and the very basics of computers] aren't that hard either.

It's just... It will bug me forever if I get those other 3 certifications but not Net+ I actually prefer learning from a book and a teacher instructing me instead of watching out of date videos. Plus, knowing him if I tell a counseler or something, he'll go to them and tell him/her he IS teaching us but I just don't wanna pay attention. :| I really don't know what to do anymore and I felt like venting. If anyone has advice, PLEASE tell me.

 

[Sweet Kandi]

If you're worried about telling a counselor and him retaliating, have a group from your class talk to him/her. A counselor will usually believe a whole class over one teacher.

I had a teacher like that for info tech 9th grade. The way he taught was basically, if you don't understand it from day one, you fail. So if you were behind, he wouldn't help you and would accuse you of not paying attention when he never even taught the beginning steps.

I know it's late in the school year, but is there another teacher who offers that class you can switch to? Or possibly even give you something to start working on?

 

[TamaMum]

It's not an easy situation and I am not sure there's an easy solution.

You say you are short of free time with all the other work/study committments you have, so maybe you could use the Networking class time to do your own thing?

I can understand you enjoy "doing nothing" during the class but if all your teacher is doing (now that state testing is over) is making you watch training videos that aren't much value to you then perhaps you could make better use of the lesson time?

I'm guessing he won't notice if you use your time during that lesson to study Cisco Net+. I know you're not keen about online studying - but at least you would have free time during the lessons to work on it?

The test is in less than one month - it might just be worth your while to give up your "personal" time - just for a few weeks - and focus intensively on this subject so you stand a good chance of getting the certificate.

Giving up 3 weeks of free / personal time and using the Networking class time seems like a reasonable trade if it means you get the opportunity for internships / scholarships, etc.

 

[meowbark]

SK/ Yeah, there's one other teacher in the IT division at my school who teaches Net+, but according to my classmates in other classes, he doesn't teach anything either :/ So... I'll probably have to agree with TM here, since I have a feeling the results wouldn't be pretty if a counselor approached him about 'not teaching' He'd probably hammer us down with work packets like he did at the beginning of the year. I don't mean small, 5 page packets either. These ranged from 20-30 pages of work. That was hard enough for me to complete as it was, and even then those didn't do much in preparing me for this test. They were sort of repetitive...

TM/ Probably going to do that, I found a study guide online from a torrent. It has everything we've covered already from the OSI model and covered the pieces used in networking and also stuff we haven't gone over. I'll most likely be studying from that at home. The videos are boring and like I said, not really helping me out. Though, in class, he literally goes to his office from the start of class and stays in there expecting us to watch the videos we have been watching. I've watched all 5 videos already, so really no point going back over them... Watched a few of them twice.