hi, kids! do you like styling? want me to grab a spare webpage and take you through my pain? on today's special devlog post, i'll be talking about a topic i've had a lot of thought put into, that being my Junior year Web Design class. despite being only a few months long, the class felt like more of a waste of time than any other class, including Journalism. it's quite the miracle that i learned HTML and CSS beforehand, because i would've gotten nowhere otherwise.

to put it simply, my Web Design class was a complete waste of time, similar to another class i've ranted about previously.

you're probably thinking something like, "hey LG, why did you take a class for stuff you already know?" well, i'm not exactly the smartest guy around. it's a miracle i even got a grasp on basic web design in the first place. i wanted a proper education, especially for Javascript, which i still don't know much about.
yeah i know, for a guy who moans and b*tches about school so much, he actually wants an education? what a shocking turn of events! well, enough beating around the bush, time to rip a mean one all over my atrociously confusing, painfully useless, one-semester Web Design class.

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for starters, what does the class actually aim to teach? it goes through the basics of HTML and CSS, and gives students a "head start" in Javascript. so i might as well rip the bandaid off and tell you that the teacher didn't actually teach us anything. in fact, she never actually did ANY teaching herself. instead, she relied entirely on two-minute youtube videos and presentations she never made herself.
most of our days consisted of the teacher blocking our computer access for twenty minutes, playing us a youtube video (then stopping it halfway through) or stumbling her way through a presentation, then giving us a handout for us to copy word for word as an "assignment". the videos were the only thing that actually went even slightly in-depth, but then the teacher would just have us copy down more of her code.

like, what is the point in any of this if she's neither explaining how/when to use it nor letting us experiment on our own? how are we supposed to take this information and use it when she doesn't even bother to explain the difference between absolute and fixed positioning? at least with HTML we trudged our way through most of the important stuff, but learned jack about CSS.
we didn't cover margins and padding, we didn't cover shorthand properties, we didn't cover combinators—heck, we didn't even cover rounded corners! welp, guess you just had to know those beforehand! instead, we learned about baby's first color theory and... filters??? she couldn't even cover THOSE properly, instead resorting to, once again, having us copy down more code. that's not an "assignment", it's just an enormous waste of time. yeah, i understand one semester isn't a lot of time, but missing this much and more is inexcusable.

don't get me started on our Javascript lessons. we spent two classes straight on some dumbass website going over console.log(). then, she had us complete a "tic-tac-toe" assignment by copying down code she already wrote. she didn't even bother explaining at all what that code actually DID. in fact, when many students had trouble getting the program to actually work, the teacher actually told them to email her so she could fix it herself. like, what in the mother of Christ is that? who does that?
not only do the students not have a clue as to what's going on, but the teacher is actively doing the work for them! like, how do you expect students to get ANYTHING out of this if they don't even know the f***ing syntax? copying down prewritten programs doesn't do anything, it just confuses them even more when it doesn't work! i swear, the kids were probably scratching their heads 'til they damn started bleeding. it's made a whole lot worse in the fact that this is Javascript, which is infinitely more complex in both syntax and capabilities.

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it feels like the teacher only gave us the resources to learn, rather than actually teaching us anything herself. which, if you don't know, defeats the ENTIRE PURPOSE of the whole damn CLASS! like, what does she expect students are going to get out of this?
look, i know i already knew a lot of this stuff going into the class. but it taught me absolutely nothing outside of that. i'm not terribly advanced at anything it covers (especially JS), but the fact that i felt and learned zilch coming out of it? yes, i get most people taking the class probably just needed something to fill out their schedule. as for me? i'd been waiting over a year to take that class, and coming home every day having not learned anything new really sucks.

to put it simply, the teacher isn't fit to be teaching. i haven't talked much about her up until now, other than the fact that she doesn't actually teach much. she stumbles around the class and talks in the most confusing way possible. yeah, English may not be her first language, but it's not just the way she talks. her presentations are laughably bad. you can tell she barely reviews the Google Slides she pulls online, as she usually ends up paraphrasing to high heaven and skips through a majority of the slides, missing the entire point. it's even worse in her AP CSP class, but that's getting out of hand.
when she interacts with students, most of the time it's just awkward and kinda uncomfortable. if you ask her a question, she'll linger around far too long and end up asking you stuff totally unrelated to what you even asked. she's also really bad at answering questions as a whole, since half the time she'll completely ignore students raising their hand.

i will say, however, the students in the class weren't helping things. some of them were rude, a few were always asleep, and the rest looked bored out of their minds. they were also really obnoxious at times, definitely getting on the teacher's nerves. one notable example being this one kid Johnny, who would constantly talk back to her and not do any of the work. at the same time, however, students were just plain lost most of the time. i can't exactly say what it was like to be in their shoes, since i know a hell of a lot more about HTML and CSS than they do.
the teacher didn't make an effort to really teach anything herself. the youtube videos she played went too fast, her presentations were lackluster, and she was also terrible at explaining things, period. even in AP CSP, there's a good chance i get completely lost on what we're even supposed to be doing. she'll introduce a topic, but then not even bother to properly delve into it. not to mention, her Python lessons were so damn confusing. it's a blessing that i learned anything about it at all, even if i've forgotten half of it by now.

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so, after over a year of waiting, a year of continuing to teach myself the stuff i planned to learn in school, i got what i asked for. a class all about Web Design and at least ten fun facts about it. to be honest, even if the teacher wasn't so painfully below average, the class probably wouldn't have been much better. although i don't know if the class actually has a curriculum or if the teacher just pulled all of it out of her ass.
all i know for sure is that i am absolutely NOT taking Game Design. it hasn't been offered since like, ever, and the third time won't be the charm i'm looking for. whatever it is, i can learn it myself. did it with IGM, did it with Scratch, did it with HTML, and i'm sure i can do it again (likely with Godot).

was there any part of the class i actually enjoyed? well, not really. we couldn't listen to music, our assignments were boring as hell, the tests were comically easy, and nothing stood out. it was one big disappointment, even compared to my already lackluster Sophomore year schedule.
you're probably wondering why i made a devlog post on this class in particular. a topic like this would've fit more in the Old Blog, since i didn't really design this blog for one-off, individual topics. well, after making web site version 4.0 and After Hours X, i've done some reflecting on Web Design.

a class so utterly useless that i honestly couldn't tell you what you'd get out of it. i expected to learn at least one new thing from it. is that too high of an expectation? i mean, yeah, this stuff comes to me easily. but i actually wanted to be taught it properly. after trudging through that class, i realize that just going through W3Schools' HTML course would get me farther than that class ever would. that right there is pretty damn sad.

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what is the point of this whole post, anyway? why am i tearing apart a class from an entire semester ago? why i am insulting my teacher and her lack of teaching skills? why is it 2,000 words long? all great questions. basically, i'm just a little ticked off, is all. that whole experience rubbed me the wrong way so much that i couldn't help but land it a devlog post.
if you couldn't tell, i'm actually fairly passionate about web design as a whole. i've had roots in it since twenty-freaking-nineteen! this web site, both Labyrinth games, After Hours X, all three SMS games; projects spanning back years and years! all i needed to make these were a couple crappy laptops and W3Schools. that's kinda how i like to look at this class: would it have helped me back then? back in elementary school? even if the teacher spoke fluent English, i doubt it would've changed much.

look, i definitely don't know how to teach. my dad's a teacher, and i'm sure there's a hell of a lot more going on in that class of his than i know. but for a class in one of the top schools in the area? a school that costs thousands upon thousands of dollars a year to attend? what a sick joke. just feels like an entire chunk of a semester wasted.
i wonder if any other student there has had the same feelings as i do. i doubt any of them have a seven-year-long history of making stupid Idle Game Maker games. but for someone who has had the experience and actually gained an appreciation for it? let's just say i feel a tad... let down.

anyway, thanks for tuning into my rant. see you in a few weeks where i cry about social anxiety.

^{double checked, game design isn't even offered anymore. shame}