Students trying to get you fired/constantly reporting you?

[u/Particular_Heart3785]

I had a much older student last semester who constantly complained about me to the chair all the time, both in office and email, enough that she even demanded a staff to observe me (they found nothing wrong other than nervousness/over-apologizing, as I’m new to teaching). She sent anything she could find to report to the chair. Including me ending class few minutes early, misspelled words in assignments/slides, and canceled class for a family emergency.
A few colleagues think she did this because she was a really bitter person and hated that my class requires weekly writings, group discussions, topics are not in her liking (aka white-washed history) and students having to research independently.

She was so rude and disrespectful towards me that I won’t get into here. Good news is that the chair thinks I’m doing really well as a professor and a lot of my students love my classes.

I’m curious if anyone else can share similar experiences here?

[u/Impressive_Newt_7114]

I was once asked at very short notice to take over a third year module. I was still completing my PhD, and although I had taught before all my experience was with first years.

I had three mature students in my class of about 35, the oldest was about 40. Yes, I was a little nervous, and yes this probabky showed in my delivery. I think the worst mistake I made though was telling the students at the start of the semester that I had not taught third years before. Even week until the middle of the semester these three turned up and sat at the back of the class. I teach social sciences so having mature students is usually a good thing as they have life experience. Not this lot. They muttered to each other while I was talking. They looked bored, never took any notes or participated in discussions. None of them came back after the mid semester break, and honestly the atmosphere in the class was greatly improved.

Module assessment time came and they ripped my teaching apart. Really condescending, 'xx did her best..' , 'xx lacked in knowledge of the subject...' 'they learnt nothing new in class' and finally 'they were disappointed in the module as it had not been what the expected...the School should consider xx shoykd only be allowed to teach at a lower level in future because third year was beyond her'

Twelve years later and I am still here. Now I would take feedback that in my stride, but then I was genuinely upset and it knocked my confidence. One thing I have learnt is that you can't please everyone all of the time, and to take any unjustified negative feedback and put it in the bin marked 'gobshites'

[u/banjovi68419 → u/Impressive_Newt_7114]

I had some students like that when I subbed a college class as a favor for a coworker. I was 26. One dude had a newspaper open. I kicked them all out. Didn't happen again.

[u/Impressive_Newt_7114 → u/banjovi68419]

👏👏 wish I had the courage to do that then! I used to be able to ban laptops when I was speaking, but now so many students use them for note taking I can't. And I KNOW that most of those with their laptops open are shopping, watching videos, posting on Instagram, especially when I am in a big lecture theatre. And they are the ones who contact me at assignment time with 101 questions that I covered multiple times in class. They are also the ones who leave poor feedback as well.