Do we have valid complaints?

[peytonsmom]

Honestly I don't think my classmates are overreacting w/ our current situation but I could be wrong. I'm going to give you a little run down of our class tonight and let me know if this is seriously how other schools are ran or if we just got "lucky".

Backstory: We have 3 kinds of tests in our nursing class, med-term, math, and big exams. If you have a question about an exam question you have to fill out a challenge form blah blah blah, but if you have a question on med-term or math you were told to just speak to the prof that made up that test.

The last medterm tests every person that had test "c" had a word on it that was absolutely NOT in our book or any of the study information they gave us. This part of our class is 100% learn on your own so all we have is our book, the study guides they give us and what they tell us is going to be covered. So obviously we all complained. When you only have 20 questions and a 90% is a B every question counts. In addition to that several of us were marked wrong on a question and we had the solid proof in our hands to show her that our answer was actually right (as in it was right in the book).

So we take our most recent medterm test and there is same issue. People started to complain and she told them that she wasn't even discussing it right now. Okaaaay. We figure will go over it when we get our tests back.

Well tonight she walks in and informs us that we're getting our medterm and math tests back tomorrow and that we are not allowed to so much as ask any questions about the tests. She said the tests were graded "fairly" and that was the end of the story, grades are final, and she will not talk to anyone about anything on the test and aparently the professor that does the math tests said the same thing about the math one. Her EXACT words were "you drive us crazy w/ all your questions". This weekend someone tried to ask her about a question on the test, NOT about her grade, not arguing about the question, just simply wanting to know what the answer was since it wasn't in our book. Professor kept interrupting her to tell her that she was not discussing this test in any way. NICE. SO apparently we point out the mistakes on the test and now we're screwed because she got her panties in a twist over it and now we have no recourse if we think an answer is wrong.

So this is how she started off the class. Everyone obviously was not thrilled w/ that and was a bit disgruntled. Then she proceeded on to her "lecture". By lecture I mean that she takes the pre-printed power points from the books publisher and then proceeds to stand behind a podium and read the thing WORD FOR FLIPPING WORD. When someone asks for clarification her usual answer is "this is all in your book". So again, we're really agitated because we're spending close to two hours bored out of our minds listening to the monotony of her reading and learning NOTHING that we can't read right from the book ourselves BUT our attendance is reflected in our grade.

So tonight after the lovely speech about our tests and then her lovely lecture (which btw, we swear she doesn't even read those power points before class because she spends half of the lecture stopping and re-reading what she said trying to figure out what they mean), we were pretty irritated. THere was lots of whispering going around as people were making cracks and commenting on what a waste of time this was. She made a comment about people talking and it quieted down for all of five minutes and when the whispering started up again she told us she was done and class was over. Someone asked her if she was going to go over the worksheets so she starts rattling off the answers and when the entire class objected to one of the answers her response was "look, I print these off from the book's website, these are the answers they said were right. If you dont agree then fine as long as you are confident you have the right asnwer, then fine but i'm am not in the mood for this right now". Yup.

Other issues w/ this professor:

She has made some snotty and unprofessional comments to more than one student in the middle of their checkoff's (one of mine included).

She starts each clinical off with the comment that "don't believe everything you hear about me, i'm not as bad as they say" which in turn, makes me think that if you actually have to verbalize that over and over, there probably is some truth to what everyone is saying!!

People are actually afraid to ask her questions in class because her general method of "teaching" is to intimidate you or try and make you look like a giant butt infront of the class.

She has apparently made a comment on two different occasions infront of two different students that she doesn't think men should be nurses. I did not personally hear this, but I am in her clinical group and last weekend in our clinical a nurse asked for two students to help w/ a bedbath and she initially chose a girl and the only guy in our group but then said "oh wait, the patient is a women" and chose a 2nd girl to go instead of our guy. Now keep in mind this patient had NOT said one word about not wanting a male nursing student to bathe her and this same professor had no problem sending two girls in to do a bed bath on a male patient. Had the patient stated she didn't want a male bathing her that would have been one thing, but that was not the case here.

I'm really getting frustraited as are a lot of my classmates. We just don't feel that we really need to be treated like the children of the village idiots and that while we may know jack about nursing as of yet, we should still be treated w/ at least a little bit of respect and dignity if for no other reason than we are all adults here. Treating us like children and being demeaning is no way to teach us how to be nurses. If this is how nursing school is then no wonder nurses eat their young! By the time you get out of nursing school you're so sick of being treated like crap and degraded that you pass it on!

Now i'm not saying it was not rude and disrespectful for people to be whispering in class as it WAS rude. But i'm not sure what she really expects of us when she walks in w/ a big 'ole attitude problem like she does. I'm NOT looking forward to clinical next weekend because I am oh so lucky to have her as my clinical instructer as well as lecturer. I was NOT one of the people talking but I was sure sitting there cracking up over it which i'm certain she noticed. By that point I was just so irritated and in total disbelief that she and the school really finds this behavior acceptable that it was either laugh or say something that i'd probably regret later.

So obviously this is really long so kudos if you made it through, but honestly are we out of line here thinking that for what we pay in tution (private catholic school) that we should at least get something more out of lecture then a reading of the power point and an attitude problem? THe other GREAT news is that we get to keep this same instructor for our next THREE semesters! *sigh* This is the only accredited ADN program in the area so it's not like we can just hop on over to another school. Not only that but it's the only nights & weekends program in teh area as well. They seem to know this and expect us to take whatever they want to give because they know we're stuck there. *double sigh*

[itsmejuli]

Well, we started with 50 students and of that I'd say 22 graduated on time, some were held back while others gave up or were kicked out after the first quarter for poor performance.

But as far as grading papers and challenging questions, we never had an issue. Plus the majority of our instructors were very fair and good teachers.

[~Mi Vida Loca~RN, ASN, RN]

Everything that you just said seems so insane to me. I am so grateful for my school. I would start tape recording all this crap and not back down it sounds like their are enough people for the higher ups to listen when also presented with proof.

Other then that I don't know what to say, I don't think I would waist my money on a school like that.