Dealing With Stubborn teachers/bosses

MikeF · Oct 2007

Hey guys, I've been meaning to post this here for a while now, but I finally had enough incentive after todays classes.

What do you guys do when either a boss or teacher is becoming so arrogant, and generally un-beneficial to the people under neath them that production comes to a standstill?

I'm in my graduating year of a split 2d/3d program and our final assignments are 1 minute films in both mediums, we have the whole year to work on these, but as of late our 3d instructor is getting way too involved with telling us how badly we all suck and how we'll never succeed in the industry... So much to the point where we haven't had an actual lesson in more than a week.

The big problem here is that none of his superiors give a damn about what he does, so theres no one we can even complain to. I've been putting up with it for most of last year and two months this time around, but I, along with everyone else in the class are really reaching their breaking point.

Suggestions?

Ruz · Oct 2007

we had exactly the same crap in our final year at uni. We were never the flavour of the month as a group, the tutors thought we were a bit 'surly' and in our final pep talk, they more or less told us were were shit. I thought it was quite funny really and didn't take too much notice.

the thing is if you tell him he is being a dickhead, he might screw you around when it comes to the grades.
no easy answer, othere than complaining in writing.
good luck.

rooster · Oct 2007

I would first try speaking to the guy and reason with him, at least so you can say you tried.. can you go higher than his direct superiors? I would keep going up till hopefully someone gives a damn, failing that start a petition so you might have a bit more weight behind your complaint?
edit: Ruz you make a good point about him screwing their grades, however it sounds like he's going to do it anyway. Plus if everyone complains he can't nerf everyone without looking like an incompetent teacher

MikeF · Oct 2007

I've approached him on multiple occasions, and he turns off his attitude instantly, and he's entirely reasonable, but as soon as its lesson time he brings on the charm again. We've scheduled another group meeting with the president of the college, but thats been pretty fruitless in the past.

Ferg · Oct 2007

It took 4 graduating classes complaining formally, several department-wide walkouts, and many, many letters to the school management before they FINALLY fired the guy leading our art department. Unfortunately it seems like the 3d art edumacation world is riddled with dickwads and shitheads, and they all support eachother, so it's very difficult to dislodge some of them. It basically took the threat of the school losing a large portion of their profit for them to do anything about it, and in the mean time, 4 classes' worth of students wasted their money on partially worthless education because of this guy.

Sage · Oct 2007

Honestly, there isn't much you can do. You can complain to the Dean, and the Department chair or talk to the professor, but really there is a 50 % chance that this will backfire. I still did it though, didn't get much good out of it, but that's the way I am. He screwed me out of my money I made him feel like a prick all the time I could. The funny thing is people like this usually want people to like them. So if you want to suffer a bit go for it or just ignore the prick and try and learn the most you can. Sometimes you can, sometimes you can't. It's easier if you can get the entire class involved but that rarely works. Bitching is easy, doing something about it is another story. It only makes a difference at review time when the students give them out. If the professor doesn't have full tenure then they usually fire his ass. I say pick your battles, keep in mind that your professors are the ones you need to write you references when you go to grad school, and for some of your first jobs when you get out. Pissing them off isn't very wise and they will most likely screw with your grades. If you are too much of an idealist do what you must and suffer. In case of your boss, it's the same, and again you might need them as a reference when switching jobs. Sometimes it helps to get to know them, but a lot of times it makes it worse. Good luck. Don't let it get to you, and try and be practical about it. In case of your class, do what you have to do to meet the assignment requirement investing as little time as you can while getting a good grade. If it's a B or better take it. Invest your time on teaching yourself what you need to know, 99% of the work you make in school doesn't cut it to get a decent job. That's my experience, sorry it sucked so much.

Hope it goes better for you.

I just read your post about about him being reasonable. If that is the case then accept the fact that he sucks as an instructor and ask him questions one on one when he doesn't need to show how amazing he is. I'm sure he knows his shit so do what you can to learn. It may or may not apply to your work. So ignore his BS, and get his feedback and ask for suggestions. Sometimes they will be quite good.

Alex

Mark Dygert · Oct 2007

Stop sucking... Make a short so jaw dropping he eats his words. Maybe he's not a dick maybe he's trying to wake up a bunch of soft jelly bellies that think because they paid an ass load of money they get to walk thru the rest of their life? Maybe a bunch of students think they know all there is to know about life & art and don't want to hear they aren't as cool as they assume they are?

Ok relax, deep breath...

Seriously tho you're almost out I see you have three options:
1) Bite your tongue and just be patient. It sounds like he'll still be a bitter old crank long after you're gone and not much is going to change that in the short time you have left.
2) Start recording his lectures and 2hrs into his "you suck" rant remind him that he hasn't taught anything in weeks and ask him to get his ass back on track, that is if he has a plan other than telling his students they suck. If you can get him going at least you have some YouTube material...
3) Make your short about a character that happens to look a lot like him. Try to think about what makes him such a dick, maybe it was some childhood trauma, or maybe he's married to a horrible shrew? It would be awesome if you did it with cute animals or something that isn't exactly apparent its a rip on him. If its done well he can't deny you a good grade, its a double slap in the face, with a side of tea bagging.

Justin Meisse · Oct 2007

best teacher I had at art school was the one that wasn't pussy footing around and told the truth, which happened to be that 99% of the students sucked and didn't put any effort in their art, he quit in disgust after about a year teaching there.

Jesse Moody · Oct 2007

[ QUOTE ]
best teacher I had at art school was the one that wasn't pussy footing around and told the truth, which happened to be that 99% of the students sucked and didn't put any effort in their art, he quit in disgust after about a year teaching there.

[/ QUOTE ]

Same here. I went to AI - San Diego. While some teachers knew what they were doing not many had a grip on how to develop next gen stuff. I had a similiar issue but it wasn't even with an art class it was my very last quarter and I was taking a sociology class. Yeah fun stuff. So some of you guys remember I had kidney stones and i was told by my doctor to take the rest of the week off. So I missed classes on thursday and friday and my teachers had no problem with it because i had a doctors note.

We are allowed 2 classes missed before our grade is messed with. So up comes GDC. I had told all my instructors in the start of the semester that i woudl be going and looking for a job. Totally understandable. I got all my assignments and was told to pass them in the week after I got back. Well my sociology teacher said that our presentations were due that week and my name was picked to present that week and not the following so I would have to take a 0 for a grade. I tried everything I could with her to get this worked out. I asked nicely, I begged and then I just got pissed. It got really bad and messy and then she failed me for the class and things got even worse. My last quarter at school and she was going to fail me because of her issues. So I talked with the dean, student affairs, my ad, her, other instructors and everyone but her didn't see why this had become such an issue.

She said I would have passed but she said she does not accept late work is the excuse I was given. After hearing that I stated that she had allowed a student that missed the mid term exam in week 5 or 6 to take that exam (late work) in the 10th week of school so he wouldn't fail the class.

Well I graduated with no problem.

My advice after my long story is just be persistent.

I end you with this bit of advice from one amazing movie.

See there are 3 kinds of people. Dicks, Pussies and Assholes. Pussies think everyone can get along and dicks just want to fuck all the time without thinking it through. But then you got your assholes Chuck and all the assholes want to do is just shit all over every thing. So pussies may get mad at dicks once and a while cause pussies get fucked by dicks. But dicks also fuck assholes chuck and if they didn't fuck the assholes you know what you would get? You would get your dick and your pussy all covered in shit.

Smirnoffka · Oct 2007

I have a similar problem here with a dick head divisional officer. Being in a division, he has direct jurisdiction over me and my peers, and has decided to lay a whole bunch of rules down right in the crunch time of the year. I shouldn't even be telling you this. In my situation there is nothing I can do, he directly outranks me, but if I was in your situation, I would just sit back, relax, learn the most you can off the people on these boards (they seem nice

) and turn in an amazing movie. And yeah, subtly rag on him in it. He doesn't seem to switched on, and only do it subtly as to not get a shit grade, so he probably won't notice.

Or slash his tyres.

That'll show him...

Motz · Oct 2007

I usually get fired lol. In Indiana when someone doesn't treat our staff right I bring it up, and they make up lies to get me fired. Since I moved here I've been fired for supposedly threatening people twice. Regardless of not even remotely speaking to these people, and having 15+ witnesses against the claims.

From 15 years experience in the workforce, I can simply say ignore it till you can move on. You are better off keeping your head down, unless you are close with his/her boss.

aesir · Oct 2007

well, do you guys suck so much that you'll never get a job...?

flaagan · Oct 2007

Sounds like the old saying...

If you can't do, teach.

rooster · Oct 2007

aesir, I think thats irrelevant- even if they do a teacher should have more tricks up their sleeve than saying 'you guys suck' over and over

. If they say it then they have to give you a way forward too

Neo_God · Oct 2007

Sounds like he's trying too hard to be the "straight Forward hard-ass" teacher. Mostly because you say he's reasonable on one-on-one chats.

The best teachers are the ones on the brink of retirement. They're full of wisdom, are straight forward with you, If you fucked up, they'll tell you so, and then help you out. And yeah, they'll give you the real world talk, about how you're not hot shit and tell you the art life is full of being told what to do, unless you have the slim chance of making it successful in thr art world, and if you do you'll then have to deal with various agreements with dealers, some that may be awful.

Mark Dygert · Oct 2007

I think the key is figuring out if he is a, dick teacher, or just a dick who can't teach. Unfortunately that first dose of reality is a bitter pill. Like rooster said he should give students a way to improve and be helpful if not, slash his tires and revel in the fact that you're saddled with a mother f-ton of debt. WOO!

Ruz · Oct 2007

any half decent teacher should be able to improve even the most basic of artists. the ones who are lousy teachers resort to this kind of behaviour( like me he he)

Dealing With Stubborn teachers/bosses

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