Riddle me this...

...does watching videos on the history of jazz for 80 minutes of a 90 minute class period count as teaching or is it just me???

Because that is what my Tuesday's American Humanities class was comprised of.  No, I am not kidding.  And, more or less, that's how the last several weeks have been--mostly video clips on the history of music or musical theater or art, etc.  So my interest level in going to class is z e r o. 

This sucks because I would normally be very interested in the subjects I'm supposedly learning about, but this teacher just drives me up a freaking wall.  I've had him before-2 years ago for a 101 Humanities class (after I had taken 202 and 201 classes) and it was awful then, as well.  The problem is he treats everything like it is the most important, reverent, sacred, beautiful, exquisite thing ever created; and he talks in a hushed voice all class.  Another problem is his teaching style: in this class, it feels so scattered and I don't really feel like there is a core base to the semester, that I'm just floundering about in readings by Mark Twain and the international skyscraper style in Chicago.  This was a problem in his 101 class--he would glaze over topics I thought were important and then spend days on one subject.  I swear, we spent a week and a half on the elements and principles of design (which I have already learned in my art classes that semester).

I didn't mean for this to turn into a rant, but I have a lot of feelings about this.  One class period we were supposed to all briefly share about an LDS artist in some artistic field, which was fine...Until class was over and not everyone had gone, so the teacher decided it would be more important to continue the discussion the next class rather than talk about something actually pertaining to American history, like, I don't know, s l a v e r y.  Yeah.  Things like that just bother me.  We're also supposed to have 3 memorizations-2 of our own choosing, 1 being the Gettysburg address.  He must have talked about the importance of memorizing the glorious, beautifully worded Gettysburg address about 10 times in one class.  (No offense, I think the G.A. is awesome, but I had a rough time memorizing it because I was going to get graded on it--my heart wasn't into it, which I think is the wrong idea-to push the students to do it, rather than presenting an opportunity)

In conclusion, I loathe my professor.  I think he is an awful teacher and cannot wait until I don't have to be stuck in his class for 90 minutes.  The only reason I have for going to his class, more or less, is to talk to my friend, whom I feel bad for leaving alone (since we share the same opinion about the class) when I can't handle the teacher.

7 more classes.  Ugh.