Unfortunately, it's not a valid excuse to blame poor grades on poor teaching. Teaching ended after high school. In college, professors are hired for research, and lecture classes in order to fulfill their duty to the school. After high school, you are supposed to have learned how to teach yourself by then, which is what college is supposed to be like. You teach yourself, with the benefit of having a lecturer (in most cases, PhD) who is an expert in the field...hence most professors will have a graduate degree in the field, vs. just a bachelors/certificate required for teaching in high school and below. Office hours come into much greater importance in college, since the professors are now a resource to be used to clarify on things you couldn't understand yourself vs. someone who teaches, but not an expert in the field where you can come for more complicated issues (like in hs). They're not supposed to teach, but rather just guide, but if you have issues, office hours is where they'll 'teach' you how to see things in a brighter light.
That's why people are always throwing around "bad teachers, i got a poor grade, only one person got an A, blah blah blah". That sounded completely normal to me not too long ago, but then 2 of my professors from different universities told me of that awful truth. They're there for their research...then they may even get tenured, which in a lot of cases is worse, since they don't have to worry about getting any smack for their teaching abilities; this is why visiting professors are usually better at teaching. They're there to teach and depend on those surveys you fill out at the end of the course to remain teaching there. The university professors, however, aren't affected much by those surveys and their research is held to a higher degree.
