Quote Originally Posted by TwoyTaylor
Well, it is not so much that he seems to teach it incorrectly, he just does not teach much. He sort of fumbles around a few principles every once in a while, and then assigns us programs to write. Considering that we do not get taught much in the class room, it most often becomes nothing but trial, error, and web search. So rather than us learning the logic, we spend unjustified amounts of time fumbling around (as a result of his fumbling) until we get a "finished" product that sort of does what we were told to make it do.
Welcome to programming!!

I was always too early to take any programming classes. They became mandatory for the year after mine in HS, and the year after mine in college. Thus I avoided them all. The result of this is that I was entirely self-taught, and became a biologist who programmed as a hobby. I'd have to say that I had been watching this forum for a few months before I began to believe that I actually was doing what everybody else was doing, rather than just making things up as I went along. I also realized that everybody can learn from the experience of others, or else they will spend inordinate amounts of time re-inventing wheels.

You can't really be taught how to program, just like you can't be taught how to think (I could take a swipe at conservatives here, but they wouldn't get it). Programming is an art. A person can teach you what paints are, and they can teach you how to combine paints and techniques to achieve different hues and textures, but they can't teach you how to paint. I tried painting for a few years, and came to the conclusion that I absolutely suck. I can look at a painting of a tree, and say, "that's a good painting of a tree." I can also look at a painting of a tree closely, and see the brush strokes, but I still can't paint a tree. Similarly, you can learn loops, conditionals, branches, variables, objects, etc, but that won't make you a programmer.

Ultimately, it is the fumbling around that so concerns you that will make you a programmer. And if the members of this forum are any indication, it also requires a love of painting pictures with logic. Even a boring DB front end can have something brilliant in it. If you like to see it take shape, then don't worry too much about fumbling around. Fumble enough, and you will be a programmer.

Your teacher may be a bitter old man, or he may believe that either you have the ability or you don't. He's giving you the tools, and waiting for you to determine whether or not you have the ability. It may not be "teaching", but I'm not sure that it is wrong, either.