First Year Part 3- Experience is that marvelous thing that enables you to recognize a mistake when you make it again. -Franklin P. Jones
Have you experienced petitioning for the removal of a professor?
The second semester of the first year left me with a valuable lesson which could be
summarized in one or two statements. Never sign a petition with a pen, use a pencil. :)
Know the people who are initiating the petition if you are not the originator.
Calm down, earthlings, I will elaborate.
For the second semester, our batch shrunk by more than 10 per cent. Many scholars
were not able to maintain the average grade. They were kicked out. The students
blamed it on some professors who were not only feeling high and mighty but were “kurips” (stingy) of the grade. These were the
“Thank-your-goddess-for-receiving-2.50 –from-me-because-that-is the highest-grade-that –I give-otherwise-you-are-better-than-I- am professors or the I-do-not-exempt-anybody-from-the-finals-I-just-eliminate-some-to-make-paper-
checking-easier type.
I was one of those eliminated. A close friend of mine who opted to take the exam regretted her decision to take. That was interpreted to be a challenge to the professor. Her grade was reduced to 3.00. (that’s 75).
On the first day of our second semester meeting with a professor who was popular as
a terror, a new classmate from another class approached us to sign a petition to remove him as a faculty.This stiff-necked classmate of ours explained that they were their professor in the first semester and the highest grade that they got was 2.5.
Our group signed the petition with pen while the classmate soliciting signatures signed with a pencil. I noted that. I failed to hear my brain’s “ding-ding-ding” sound of warning that something’s definitely wrong. Stupid us! We had not even met yet the professor.
The professor failed to come on the first meeting. The petition letter was submitted to the Dean's office according to the classmate who was speaking as if he was a president-elect of the class.
On the second meeting, a 40 yish, medium height and with a hair gelled to his scalp species from Mars entered the classroom. I thought at first, he was a barber. Nyehehe.
He was wearing a collarless white bush shirt. His brows were knitted and his eyes were those of an angry man. LAGOT. He was our professor.
He sat at the edge of the desk and called the roll. But wait, it was not a roll call. There were only eight. Maybe he’s not done yet before he commanded for those called to follow him in his office. I thought we would be called by group. The Math Wizard whispered to me what I thought about the guy after telling me his. Mukha raw di professor. He looked like his barber. Maybe because of what he was wearing. Mukhang uniporme ng barbero. Tehehehe.
Inside the office, we were made to sit at the reception area while one by one we were called to join him in the office. I was the first to be called. It was not alphabetical.
Then I saw the petition letter. There were about 15 of us, the first eight were the names of our group. The names of the stiff-necked classmate and his own band of noise-makers (they were always talking and laughing among themselves) were not included. I smelled Judas again . The other seven were also our classmates in the previous semester.
The professor asked me why I signed the petition. I said I was persuaded by the classmate. He did not believe because the name was not there.
He made me look more stupid when he asked why I signed when I had not met him yet. GUILTY me. STUPID me. Mini me if I could shrink myself in embarrassment, I could have done it at that moment.
Except that we’re branded CLUELESS, a mild label for stupid, no disciplinary action was taken against. We were sent back to the classroom with an instruction not to tell any classmate of what transpired during the “interrogation”. We were consistent in our responses that the professor realized that we were merely used. He knew the instigator.
The professor stayed the whole semester and the following semesters. I realized that a
professor is not removed on the basis of petition by the students. That I remembered when I was already in the academe. Later.
He became friendly to us, the group of eight. He was cold to the group identified who wanted him to go. But he did not retaliate though.
At the end of the semester, he was already our friend. We were free to stay in his office and play scrabble and chess. He did not use gel anymore. I told him what the Math Wizard’s impression about him during our first meeting. He just laughed and slapped math wizard’s back. The math wizard said that it was so hard that he almost coughed out a piano. He called me Judas for squealing.
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