Getting a PhD in teaching

Stephanie Schoch

You would think that in coming to college, the over $10,000 a year going toward our education would at least get us a few perks. No parents, social skills, aka beer pong for some of you go-getters out there, a chance at making manager instead of having toilet-cleaning duty at the local fast food restaurant down the road: there are plenty of wondrous and magical things embedded in the experiences of college. Teachers here are even called professors, and contrary to popular belief, having a PhD does not stand for Pizza Hut driver for rabid, munchy college students. But quite honestly, some days they would probably be better at driving a car around, collecting a measly tip, and sheepishly whispering “have a good day” before doing it all over again.

I’m just going to say it. Some teachers suck. They could try their hardest and still make me feel as though I’ve in fact lost brain cells by sitting through such a worthless lecture. Sorry not sorry, but a PhD doesn’t mean that someone is truly qualified to teach. Yeah yeah yeah, they had a lot of schooling and had to work hard to get such a high degree, but the only thing that a PhD really says about a person is that they are a.) certified, and b.) they have the ability to be a good student: student, not teacher.

Many teachers simply know that they were born to teach. They have a certain level of passion that they are able to cultivate, mold, and relay to their students, whether they mean to or not.

But then, of course, on the other hand there are those inevitable teachers that believe that it is just a job. Their level of commitment hardly ever goes from the red to the yellow zone, much less into the green. Teaching people is a hard task, so if you as a professor don’t want to teach, don’t, because, coming from a student’s perspective, we don’t want you there. If you talk about how qualified you are? Yeah, I don’t really care. If you talk about the fact that you’re published, or that you’ve had students that have gone on to do great things? Fan-freaking-tasic for you, but if you start to read the powerpoint word for word, don’t get angry when I’m skipping class every other week.

Just because some people were stupid enough (or maybe smart enough, we can never really be sure) to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars for three wimpy letters (although two out of the three must be important, because they’re capitalized), doesn’t mean that they’re good at teaching. So calm down, I’ll do my homework: but I can only be as enthusiastic as you are, professors.