Bad Educator Stories

I heard a couple of stories about educators at lunch today.

Marc was taking a Computer Science class at PSU. He was also working, so he had limited time to actually work on his homework. When he did get a chance to sit down at the university's computer to work on his assignment, the system was down. He eventually completed the assignment, but because of the downtime, he was late turning it in, so he got no credit. He got an A on the final, but because of the missing assignment (a mid-term equivalent, maybe?) he got a D for the class. He needed to get a C to get reimbursed for the class, so he talked to the instructor. The instructor told him he needed to talk to the Dean, so he did. Marc made the argument that he was there for an education and since the school was in the education business, he should get credit for what he had learned. The Dean replied, no, you are in error, we are not in the education business, we are in the certification business. That was it for Marc. He quit.

Glenn's story was about some electronics classes he took at PCC. He took two introductory classes, and then he looks at the description of the next class and it doesn't sound like there is anything new. So he asks the instructor, and the instructor tells him that, yes, there is a bunch of new material in this third class. So he takes it. There isn't any new material. At the end of the term, in spite of getting all A's on his work, he get's a B for the class. When he asks the instructor why, he tells him that he didn't learn anything.

How much of education is actually learning the material, and how much is learning how to play the game?