Do teachers think there a better teacher by being a jerk?

Maybe you should look at those ridiculously strict professors in a different light. Maybe they are trying to show you inexperienced kids that the world out there isn't very nice. Maybe they are ridiculously strict because your work place will probably be as well. Maybe they aren't uptight at all. Maybe they are just very serious about educating youth for the future. Maybe they are so serious about what they do, they get a little pissed when young, inexperienced, kids come waltzing in the room with an attitude. Maybe it infuriates them that so many of their students just don't care about the subject matter or their college education...they just go to class so their parents will continue paying their room and board at the frat house/party house. Maybe they really have a passion for learning and education, but it depresses them when so many walk in the door that can't spell, that don't have basic skills, and treat them with so much disrespect just by slouching in their chairs and talking during their lectures. They don't get paid to entertain you. They don't get paid to be your friend. They are professionals that have worked hard for years to get their position as an educator in an institution of higher learning. They want to teach! They really desire students with passion. They probably would smile if they saw more students come in ready to work, prepared, sitting up straight, attentive, and engaged in the class. Maybe if more students would pay more attention to them and less to their makeup case or the kid next to them...then they would smile. Often your cool professors just don't care whether you get it or not. They just like collecting their pay check. Maybe they are too stoned to care. Just do what you need to do to make your grade and get credit for the class. Stop worrying about who has personality and who doesn't. You can please some of the people some of the time. They don't care what you think and they have all the power. For you to complain and whine about their unpleasant attitudes is petty and childish. Try going to class with the proper attitude yourself. Try engaging a professor about the subject during class one day after you have really prepared for his/her lecture. ....you will see a change. Even the most serious professors warm up to a student that is serious about their class. Not everyone has a personality and it is not necessary to teach. Intelligence, passion for your subject, and fairness are the best qualities of any professor. Who cares if they are cool? No I'm not a college professor, but I did go to college and I did take it seriously. As a result I got on very well with all of my professors....even the ones I thought were boring. Thing is I respected what they had to do and the hard work they put into their course. I overlooked personality. I cared about professionalism and the material taught. I think you are focusing on the wrong things and as a result you may not do well. You need to view everything differently maybe.

I think that some people in positions of authority forget that they owe every human being a certain amount of respect, regardless of age and social position. The bottom line is that they can get away with being rude to students, whereas if a student is rude in return (s)he is automatically in the wrong.

Funny - I was talking with a couple of college profs the other day, and they were saying that some of their students had ridiculously (they were college professors so they knew how to spell that word...) ridiculously snappy and had unpleasant attitudes. And they wondered why students with attitudes like that even bothered to come to college because they thought they knew it all and certainly weren't amenable to listening to lectures or doing more than a haphazard job on assignments.

oh silly ryan, they just don't like you. thats all

Some people are just jerks...being a teacher or professor has nothing to do with it. I wonder what you mean by ridiculously strict. My niece was complaining about a professor who refused to grant her an extension on an essay. I agreed with the professor. All of the students were balancing coursework and were given the same assignment. For her to be given extra time would have been an unfair advantage. I'm not sure if that's the kind of thing you're talking about, but just learn to go along with whatever the professor requires and you'll do fine. Ignore them when they're being pompous or arrogant. After you graduate, you'll be asking the same thing about bosses. You'll miss your strict professors once you get a jerk for a boss.

No, I think they are just upset with you because you are in college and have not learned how to spell they're or you're yet.

I am an elementary teacher. I always felt like my college prof. were crappy teachers...well most of them. The ones who actually understood education were pretty good. But they were my education prof. Most just knew how to stand their and talk while 1/2 the people in the class feel asleep. Now I am a teacher and I am pretty nice most of the time, but I am human and have jerky moments. When I act like a jerk I feel like one, and often end up apologizing to my students...they are 6 and 7 years old...its quite humbling so I try my best not to be a jerk. But I do know teachers that are jerks all the time. I really feel they are control freaks and/or power hungry. Its sad when adults are treated like crap, its just pathetic when children, young children are treated that way. My advice is to do what you have to do to get the grade you want...no more, no less. There will always be jerks in the world. It my be a college prof.., someone you work with your boss, the guy next door. Whoever it is, you have to learn to make the best of it and try your best not to let their piss poor attitude pull you down. Good luck...when in doubt just smile and agree with them. Its a lot easier to let them think they are right and KNOW you are right.

I think that sometimes their insecurity and boredom with their lives are presented as hubris. Just bear in mind that they are only that important in their own minds! Funny thing is that I found the TA's to be far more arrogant than the profs. But the truth is that the vast majority of them were very good and did not have a steroidal ego problem. They were there for all the right reasons. Ignore the idiots.