not even in elementary school

One of the mandatory classes for all the first-year students in our program is the fall Excursion course, which consists of two three-day field trips and a presentation. I wasn't especially perturbed by the lack of any sort of release form or insurance paperwork—maybe the Netherlands is just refreshingly non-litigious, I figured. It wasn't especially surprising that we were running a half-hour late by the time we started the vans each day, or that the lag had become a matter of a few hours by each afternoon—running behind schedule is a regular feature of field trips anywhere in the world. And it didn't even really register that one of the vans was driven by a student for the duration of one trip.

The actual problems lay in other directions. Despite the class being mandatory for the English-language master's program, we shared the trip with bachelor students who were more comfortable speaking Dutch. So surely they were pleased to find out that the guides at the majority of our stops gave their presentations in Dutch, allowing one of our professors to give a brief translation every few minutes. Also in Dutch was the majority of our field manual. Which we were supposed to read before each of our stops. We got this manual the first morning of each trip.

Even all that would have constituted mildly interesting challenges, if it weren't for the dismal standard of organization and communication among the professors. We were told at the outset that we could pick partners for our project, and submit a ranked list of the sites we would most like to present on. While we couldn't count on getting our first choice—there were two or three sites that were far and away the most interesting, and everyone would try to nab them—but presumably we'd get something in our top five or six choices. This made sense, so we all took notes accordingly (i. e., we spaced out on the especially boring locations, and took careful notes and lots of photos at the ones that struck our interest).

Immediately after the last site tour, the head professor, Henk Kars, gathered us together, and proceeded to flout the prior arrangement. Not only did he hand out assignments without asking us about our preferences, but he also paired us up with no input from us. And he paired us such that the Dutch students were working together and the international students working together. Which meant that half the groups could read the background information about each site, and the other half couldn't. And at least two of the assignments included areas that we hadn't actually visited, so they would require extra research.

I had one of those sites, a peat area that was being restored to its old conditions and held no interest for me at all. Henk wanted us to add information about a Neolithic trackway that we hadn't seen, and for which little information was available online. From the department administrator we managed to get some materials, all but one paper in Dutch, and I translated them as best I could. Dominik and Ricardo were assigned an area for which essentially no information existed in English, and asked the Henk what they should do. He altered their assignment to be something much vaguer but potentially more do-able, then penalized them during the presentation for deviating from their original topic.

The reason I know about Henk's criticism of another group's presentation isn't becuase they told me about it. It's because Henk told the entire class.

After all of the presentations had finished, he and the other two professors asked us to wait in the hallway while they discussed grades. We weren't sure what we were waiting for—surely they could discuss after we had all left, and email the grades to us later?—but milled about until we were called back in.

The next ten minutes were straight out some bizarro, archaeology-themed reality show. Group by group, Henk laid out the strengths and weaknesses (mostly the latter) of the presentations, and announced that group's grade. He did this with a jovial, almost gleeful attitude, as if we should be considering this performance a real treat.

We did not.

I was shocked at first—why did he think it was appropriate to discuss students' grades in front of the rest of the class? Then, as his criticisms became more and more off the mark ("the background of your slides made them too hard to read" could be valid feedback, but generally isn't used as a criterion for deducting points) and it became clear that he was running through the list from highest grade to lowest, I stopped being shocked and started getting mad. Not only was he taking away students' right to privacy about their grades, he was also singling out certain students for what amounted to an uncalled-for scolding. Some of the students in the class were 18 or 19, true, but none of us had any reason to expect to be disrespected publicly.

I was not angry because I got graded harshly; I actually didn't get much criticism at all. I was angry because the head of my program was doing something utterly inappropriate, and clearly had no concept of how unprofessional he was being. If this was the standard he set for his department, I hoped the other professors would have enough class not to follow it.

Coming up on Lowered Expectations: Henk Kars sinks to new lows of unacceptable scholastic behavior.