classroom squabbles

Whenever I deal with Complex Variables, I always feel like there's a war going on. An insidious guerilla war. Here's the scoop: Prof. B is an extremely young professor (Early 30s) who's lecturing this class for the second time, and Prof. T is a not so young professor (Early 70s-80s) who teaches recitation and had previously been the lecturer for many semesters before B took over.

In the first recitation, T taught various little methods that B covered in his next lecture...and B was probably surprised as to why everyone looked bored...T is a master of the sly, teaching everything his own way and making occaisonal subtle remarks such as "This problem on the problem set was actually mine." B is not unaware and comments, "I had intended T to cover this in recitation, but I guess I'll go over it again." There's a not-so-subtle power struggle going on.

One problem is that neither one lectures particularly well. B has problems teaching such a low-level class, and has a tendency to mumble at the end of his sentences. He also apologizes incessantly and has frequent sign errors (not uncommon among math professors). It's this apparent lack of self-confidence on the outside that bothers me. Since he's a professor here, I fail to see on what grounds he could possibly lack self-confidence. Clearly, B is quite brilliant, but he's nervous and just not fun to listen to.

T speaks and gesticulates loudly, although he also has the tendency to speak too quickly. He is fond of doing arithematic on the board, and dumbing concepts down. He does get a point, because I don't fall asleep quite as often in his recitation as I do in lecture.

For young professors, they always feel like there's something to prove. Case in point: writing a retarded problem set that is pretty impossible to do. Older professors are sometimes too complacent, too sure of themselves, too stuck in their own way. Everything's a struggle. Between you and someone else. Between you and the problem set.