Stephanie Zavlanos

Learning AP Gov with Zavlanos was not at all enjoyable, almost completely on her part. Even though content-based learning is a large part of the class, Zavlanos is not receptive to questions. Often, when asked a question, she would reply with “Check your notes, ” despite just previously asking students if they had any questions. For our “notes” there is our textbook, which is outdated by almost a decade and it is almost obsolete to use after the 2019 redesign, and the unit planner, which is based off of that same textbook. As with Madigan, students are given the opportunity to ask about questions on the multiple choice tests and improve their FRQ grades being given the chance to provide a solid argument as to A) How their answers could be perceived as correct or B) How the questions could have multiple or no correct answers. Though this might seem to be just an isolated case, more often than not, there are several questions that come up like this, and it isn’t rare for these to be regraded. This isn’t the case with Zavlanos. Several other students and I have dealt with a similar problem regarding her adamency on the FRQ questions. Most often, Zavlanos tends to only accept a few responses and nullify the others, regardless of whether or not they are considered as correct by other teachers. For the few students that do end up still asking, Zavlanos becomes clearly agitated and dismissive. Me and several other students feel that the respect we give to Zavlanos isn’t reciprocated. Often, the classroom environment is very stangant, with nobody wanting to participate in fear of either being ridiculed in front of the class. A combination of an uncomfortable classroom environment, the poor instruction provided, and Zavlanos’s passive-aggressive tone has effectively ruined my experience in the class.