Is AUTHOR wrong in the post ? POST : Resubmitted, first one got removed because I used AMITA instead of AITA. 

Using a throwaway because idk if anyone I know browses this subreddit. This is a pretty specific story, and I don't want anyone I know finding my reddit user. I'm starting to think that this is one of those cases where I wasn't the asshole initially, but the way I dealt with it made me one. This is gonna be kinda long, theres a few important points here, (theres a TLDR at the end). 

So pretty much, I just finished the worst class I've ever taken. It was so horrible because of who taught it. I cant even say "the professor who taught it" because the prof who should have taught it didnt actually teach it. He had his SON teach it. His son (will be referred to as Dr. sometimes) has a PhD in the field, but hasnt had any actual teaching experience aside from a couple stand alone lectures nor does he work for the university I go to. For some reason the prof assigned to the course wanted his son to take care of teaching the course, instead of doing it himself. This is understandable, and tbh I don't see it as an entirely bad thing. Its a good opportunity for Dr. to learn how to teach/run a course which is good for him and his future students. Unfortunately, the execution of this was extremely poor.

Prof pretty much let his son have full control over running the class, and we ended up learning next to nothing. It was a course on Special Relativity (SR), which when first introduced is supposed to be a more conceptual thing with some math thrown in to it because its so damn weird (seriously if youre ever in the mood for your mind to be blown look it up its so cool). Every single professor and grad student I've spoken to (so A LOT) is in full agreement with this, including professors who taught the course in past years. But instead of that, he ended up teaching it like a theoretical math class (this is a second year introductory class btw). The course was 3 months, and we spent most of it being taught other things and only ended up doing SR in the last 2/2.5 weeks of the course, and there are a few aspects of it that we didnt even cover. The rest of the class was modified Newtonian dynamics (changing the classical equations to fit what we see in real life) which just included a bunch of math; other math stuff; and particle physics (which upper years in the 4th year particle physics class didnt even know how to do). To be fair, this is important stuff, but it's not the point of the course. We ended up learning next to nothing about SR, and what we did learn was crammed in to the last few weeks of the course so we didnt even have enough time to actually digest what we were learning. SR is REALLY weird and completely un-intuitive, so to really get it you have to spend time sitting with the subject matter and thinking through it and doing some conceptual problems (I was told all this by profs and grad students). We did none of this. Everything I know about the subject I learned using online resources I found myself, and theres still a lot left to learn about it. So we may have learned some other random stuff that is important to physics, but we didnt learn what the course was meant to teach us.

Not only that, but the professor who was supposed to teach it was repeatedly told by other professors before the class started not to let his son teach it. The department head said that the son could teach the tutorial section of the class, and that the professor should teach the rest. He was also advised not to let the son teach by other professors in the department. Fast forward past the first few weeks of the course, and it got back to the department head and other professors that he was letting Dr. teach the class. He was told to cut it out. He didnt. The class representatives went to him on behalf of the students to ask him to cut it out because of how bad the course was going. He still didnt. Then we wrote the first test, and it went horribly. Do you think he cut it out? NOPE. He still let his son teach, but made the 2nd and 3rd tests pretty easy so the average would be higher. The class was still running horribly, and he was still being told to cut it out (some professors even went to the Dean to complain on behalf of the students) and he never took over the class. He said it was going fine becuase the averages were higher on the 2nd and eventually 3rd test, but that was only becuase he made them easy enough so if you went to class only some of the time you could do well. He even started treating students who complained about the course like crap after this. If anyone went to him for any advice about the class, he would baisaclly tell them to drop the class, and be rude to them. He just started to brush off everyone's concerns because "well the 2nd test was good". So I'm mad.

Anyways, we wrote the exam the other day and we had some extra time left. So some of my classmates and I wrote letters to him on our exams. Mine was 2 pages (single spaced) and included the following general messege/some lines (not exactly, only what I remember):

*- I was looking forward to this because I had heard great things about you, but it turned out to be worse than the horrible first year mandatory classes taught by professors who didnt know how to teach becuase we didnt learn anything*

*- You had an obligation to us but you failed miserably.*

*- You thought you knew better than everyone in the department. Open your eyes, you didnt. You should have listened.*

*- You treated your students horribly. You owe the class representatives an apology, and I have no words for how you treated some of my classmates when they went to you for advice.*

*- You made everyone in the class feel stupid, and pushed people to drop out of the program completely.*

*- We learned next to nothing about SR, despite that being what the class was meant to teach and us pouring hours of time in to this class*

*- Its appalling to me that you let it get this bad.*

*- I'm extremely disappointed at how this whole class played out. We will be going to the Dean about this.*

*- I hope you're happy at how this turned out, none of the students are.*

*- I hope your son can learn something from this experience, at least one good thing would come out of it in that case.*

There may have been some other stuff, but I just don't remember. I think that was the worst of it.

The thing that just REALLY makes me mad is that he doesnt get how horrible that class was. I don't know what hes on, but he doesnt seem to get it. I spoke with another professor about this and he said that our concerns were heard by everyone in the department. Hes right that they were heard by everyone. All of the other professors have been more than willing to help us out with this, and have been apologizing to us about it even though it wasnt their fault. It was so bad that the department head ensured us that we would all finish with good grades, but tbh its not even the grade that I care about. Its the fact that we didnt learn what we were supposed to. Its like everyone but the prof  heard us, and understood how bad it was. If he did, he would have cut this shit out a long time ago.

The thing is, hes usually a pretty nice prof. I've heard nothing but good things about him, about how he is inside and outside of the classroom. I do have respect for him, I just think what he did was absolutely despicable... and it seems that he doesnt see anything wrong with it. And its that specific part that just really gets to me.

I know that I tend to go off on things when I get mad. It's something I've been working on but I'm starting to feel like this was one of those times where I said things that I really shouldn't have said. My classmates and I will be going to the Dean to speak with them about this, and I'm starting to feel like it was best to just voice my concerns at that meeting (now that I've calmed down and talked to a prof about it). I also filled out a course evaluation where I called his class a "cluster fuck" among other things, its just that I don't like to hide behind the anonymity of the course evaluation (I did point out that I called it that in the letter). Everything I said on there I would say to his (and the Dean's) face, and fully intend to repeat what I wrote in my course evaluation/letter to their faces. Everything I said was true. But I do feel like I was being an ass writing that letter. Like it just wasnt appropriate not because it wasnt true, but because it wasnt the right time. I also didn't exactly make a huge effort to go about this in the nicest way (what I wanted to say included lots of colourful language and was much meaner, but I do actually respect the prof so...)

**TD:DR a professor had is son (who has a PhD) teach a class, when the son has no experience and doesnt work for the university. This was against the advice of literally everyone in the department (including his boss). The class went terribly, we didnt learn what we were supposed to, but he made the tests easy enough that the average was decent. He started being an ass to students who went to him for advice. If you had anything bad to say about the course, he would treat you badly. Classmates and I wrote him letters on the exam about this (some of what I said I included above) and will be meeting with the Dean about how bad this was. Now I'm starting to feel like I didnt handle it well.**

So AMITA for calling out my should-have-been-professor on the exam? Or should I have just left it to the course evaluation/meeting with the Dean? Also, was the way I put bad or should I have made more of an effort to be nicer about it? Thanks for your input! 

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