Ahhhh!!! I'm so mad!!! Ever taken a class that you were so interested in, and then when you TA in it, it's a teacher/professor that has no idea what they are teaching?
Okay, so. I took this Survey of Eastern art history class, and the one connected to it, Survey to South eastern art history class last year, Fall and Spring. I loved the professor and the way he taught the class. He even wrote one of the books. (I got his autograph ^.^). So I wanted my friends to take the class as well, and besides, it covers GE so it's not out of the way. Turned out, he wasn't teaching this year and they have a different professor teaching it now. One who is more biased to Islamic art.
She suck.. sorry to say. What she is teaching now is really off from Robert Fisher's way. (the other professor.) She skips, she mix's up the art from the dynasty's. Some of the things I learned last year that really helped me, she just tells the class that they don't need to memorize. Like the areas, or differences between the dynasties. She does not go into detail like the different pottery in the neolithic era, and then doesn't mention pottery during the later eras. We are one month into the class, no midterm yet, and she's already over half the Chinese art history. Gone over 3500 years in about 6 class periods. I believe I can teach the class a lot better than her (not trying to get ahead of myself) and I'm only a student taking the course only once!!
Another thing that makes matters worse is I learned a few things about the previous professor, Robert Fisher. He donated all his slides, most of them he took over the years with his camera when he was studying abroad and visiting China, Japan, India, South Asia. He has countless slides. One filing drawer could hold maybe a thousand, and he has cabinet after cabinet after cabinet. I never knew there were so many slides. Just donated. He also only taught at our college for one year, but taught at another for 20-30 years. Even all the students voted to keep him here because he was excellent at teaching the subject. The reason why he didn't teach this year because the STAFF wanted someone more familiar with art in the middle eastern area.. like Islamic art, or in Afghanistan because of the global issues going on. True, he said that he said he would teach for a few years and step down if they found someone more expert than him on the subject, but who is!!?? He was being modest! I would understand if he were mad of the situation because I am. >.<
How can you turn down a professor who knows what they are doing and donated their slides! And the professor now isn't even checking out his slides!!! Maybe she would have more of an understanding of the subject.
I'm just ranting.. Maybe I'll start a petition to get Robert Fisher to come back. I looked up to him in the first year I came to this school. Come back...

Mel

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