I'll try to explain this the best way I can since the psychological atmosphere in her classes is something that is very hard to explain.
I have a female domestic language teacher. She's in her mid 50 I think. Now, my concern is that she is a bad influence on the class and I want to hear your opinions and maybe get a few tips on how to get along with her. Please note that this is my view point.
First of all, she wants it all her way. No opinions are appreciated. She wants us to share her opinions about everything,about opinions on life,morality and even book characters.(She spends A LOT of time holding monologues about her view point on everything). The students who support her opinions get rewarded with attention,good marks and praises. Those who oppose her opinion rarely get a chance to speak up and when they do it looks like they are talking to the walls, most often she just replies "Ok" and goes to her "more likeable" students. Frankly,those who speak her way,to me it just seems unnatural for them,like they are sucking up to her. I have stopped being active in classes since I noticed that and am very demotivated to even pay attention.
Second,the self-love and glorification she makes of herself is disgusting. She spends tons of time talking about her charity activities, her teaching records, creative work,her everyday life accomplishments,etc. We all know her daily routine by now and she constantly explains to us how she needs everything to be in perfect pitch in order for her to function. She constantly remarks how she is a perfectionist and that everything she starts doing turns out to be above everyone else. In one situation she made my gut turn from disgust: She's an early bird and makes fun of students who sleep longer. Once she called out a student and asked about her mother. She said that her mother was sleeping right now since she had a late night at work.It was 9 in the morning. She started mocking that student for having a mother that can "afford" to sleep that long and went on to make sarcastic jokes about it. She even at one point asked the student if she heard an old song that goes like this "...and she can sleep - Do you know that song ?" Obviously alluding to her mother who,again,can sleep while she has to work. You could almost take a picture of her self-content face,she was so amazed how her cognitive capabilities were able to make such an allegoric like statement. The sole fact that somebody can sleep while she sleeps is unbearable,even though she doesn't "need" the money from the job because,I can assure you,we all know she has a rich husband and can afford being unemployed since that's something she tells us about 90% of the time when she mentions money problems in our country. She can quit her job,but she "loves" kids so much and wants to help them that she continues teaching regardless of "the miserable payment teachers get".
The thing is I believe she get satisfaction and feeds of her authority over us. She controls a certain domain. That domain are students whom she teaches and has authority over them since she grades them. She often threatens us with bad grades in case of mischief and tells how she keep discipline in school. She freaks out at every incorrect answer and takes every incorrect answer as a personal insult and an assault on her authority. In her mind,a student who didn't know the correct answer is a student who doesn't respect (read fear)her enough to sit down and study. She makes opinions about students based on their one time incorrect answers and lets those subjective opinions be the most major,if not only, criteria when it comes to grades.
Since I mentioned opinions,she invades privacy in an inadequate and aggressive way. The persona of a student is more important to her than the actual knowledge he possesses. For instance,she once shut out a student for two years for not reporting not reading an obligatory book. She went on to call the student by his number,not name,because,like I said, every single little act a student does against her system (read dictatorship),like avoiding getting a bad mark,as a personal insult. In an another case,she ripped of a sheet of paper out of a student's notebook because he didn't write his homework in a correct manner. Also,she constantly mentions how she was "worse" in the past and how she by time learned to keep her temper "down" when a student is behaving "inappropriately". An indicator to me she had/has a personality disorder she know of,besides her blatantly obvious narcistic p. disorder.
To get back to the privacy invasion and,oh boy, you'll like this. So, she tells us we can talk to her about anything anytime. More often than not,she calls out students (just girls) who she sees as vulnerable and that have tender personalities,so to say, and points out their flaws,since she is such an established psychologist and has a fertile understanding of the human mind, in order to help them get better and be more successful in life. Please note, she does it in the middle of class, without regard if the student is obviously uncomfortable to talk or express his/her emotions. So, this is how it goes : She picks out a student she sees to be shy and nervous during classes. She confronts the student about their problems and why they can't adjust and relax in class. Almost every single time,she tells the student what the problem is. She comes up with auto-suggestive questions/answers : "It's your confidence,isn't it?" and the students always agrees since they just want to get off the hot chair. That even more heats her up,she goes all-out Freud and explains how the student fells and how she can help him. Of course, she won't miss the chance to glorify her abilities and tell how no teacher is like her: kind and caring. To me it looks like she sees herself as Mesiah,sent to help people in their time of need,to be precise,shovel help down their throat until it's all eaten up. There is also this one time,but I can't guarantee,as I am sceptic about it, when our teacher supposedly told one of the parents that their child is expressing anti-social behaviour,how she doesn't listen in classes,is absent minded and takes most of the teacher's time by telling her personal problems. That same supposed student didn't meet any of the accused criteria as far as I have noticed (and I would have noticed her taking about her problems in class). Her father didn't really believe much of that story from his daughter's teacher because she is known in town as being extreme and even being called psychotic by some people. Frankly, that students was really underachieving at that point in school and some time later during the same year her grades went up and our teacher took personal pleasure in letting her parents know how she helped her overcome her (made up) problems. Now,don't know if story is true,but there was also a similar case in an another class with the the same teacher and different student. Also,this one time she called up a student who was not really active in classes. She opened her interrogation like this : "You are not comfortable in this class because -- ?" and she replied : "Because I haven't yet adjusted to the new environment.", "No.It's because you have low self-confidence." and went on to explain her problems to her. I taught there were no incorrect answers on this one.
One last example, our teacher makes us do creative work. Students write and act in their own dramas. All good. But when we perform the plays she applauds the effort in two sentences and goes on for 20 minutes calling out students who didn't participate and sometimes threatening them that she will lower their final grades if they don't participate. When she writes plays, whoever she calls out must participate,it's not like you have a choice,you are never given any. So,this one time a student who has been participating in her plays for two years decides to not act in her play. That was a first timer. She was stunned,everybody turned to him. It was like we couldn't believe our ears. He turned her down !? This sounds stupid but that was an act of valor. She was shocked and after a few seconds said "Ok" and furiously turned the other way and said "Why did I ask you in the first place !?". A friend of mine who participated in the play told me after their first practice that she said that the student won't have the best grade in her class at the end of the year and it was just the second month of school. After the year,she said to one of her favorite suck up students that she started hating that student from the point he turned her down.
Sorry,for the long post but I fell so relieved right now.Any tips ?