What should I do?

My face

I promise this isn’t just another post where I just bitch and complain about how hard one of my classes is and then go on to get a solid A at the end of the term.  This is a cry for help.  That said, I have a bit of complaining to do first, just to get you in the right mindset before I ask the big question.  So I'll get right to it...

My calc II professor is probably the worst professor I have ever had.  She is the kind of professor that singlehandedly ends math careers and fosters the kind of aversion to math that 99% of the population seems to have.   I am comfortable admitting that she has successfully ousted my previously titled “worst professor ever” outright.  An impressive task, as when I wrote his review, I included such key phrases as “The university should be ashamed to have him teach under their name” and “His contempt for students, whether he is lecturing, answering questions, or simply conversing with them, is intense and palpable.”

Months ago, foolishly thinking I would have a choice as to which Calc II class to take, I looked around and found a shocking concentration of poor reviews for her class.  “It’s calc II," I remember thinking.  "It isn’t easy.  People bitch about hard classes.  No big deal.” But now I see how wrong I was.

Since I’ll be referencing it later, here is the most poignant review:

“[name removed] is the head of the math department and her teaching style shows that she is not afraid to lose her job.  She goes out of her way to not accommodate students who deserve better, and even though she makes mistakes on the board, she has very strict standards for formatting.  Her method of communicating those standards is to knock points off without telling anyone in advance how to do it right”  -- ratemyprofessors.com

The first few weeks, we blew through material at a blinding speed without any explanation of how to do the problems, which formulas to use, or why any of it works—just example after unrelated, confounding example for two and a half hours twice a week.  It was obvious that her preparation for the class was minimal, as her errors on the board were frequent and severe, with many problems ending at a dead-end situation and her moving on with a quick “Well, you get the idea.”

Unsurprisingly, and indicative of the quality of our instruction, the first test was a complete failure.  The class averaged 61%, and call me crazy, but I think that says a lot more about the instruction than it does about the students.  This fact, however served only to anger her, as she spent the first half hour of the next class delivering an sloppy tirade, in which she said that we deserved to fail, that we are one of the worst groups of students she has had, and that all of our previous math instructors were failures as well if we had made it this far.  Funny, since the ONLY problem I didn’t lose points on was the one that didn’t involve material from Calc II.  However, I did get the privilege of being called out and berated in front of the entire class for using my calculator on the test, even through we were advised to do so and I got one of the highest grades in the class because of it.   Also, as if the review above were some sort of perverse prophecy, I got the correct answer for every question on the test and received a C.  

Now, with the test behind us, we are back on the warpath, blazing through example problems without even the slightest of explanations.  There are probably still glaring errors, but now the class can't understand the problems well enough to spot them.  I guess that once we have the next test it should be pretty clear whether this teaching method is working out. 

I could really continue on like this for hours, but I have a serious question:  What the fuck am I supposed to do?  I am so frustrated by this entire class.  What I am describing here isn’t ok, but no one is doing anything about it!  I hate coming to class.  I’m pretty sure it’s obvious how frustrated, angry, and confused I am during “lecture” given intensity of my stare/scowl and volume of my sighs and groans.  Every day I have to attend this class, I leave feeling completely defeated and discouraged and I know I am not the only one.  Every rational part of my brain is screaming at me to go to her office hours, but then what would I say???

What should I do?  I mean, I have to go to her office hours… I have to say something, but I’m so upset about virtually every aspect of the class that I wouldn’t even know where to start, and I am afraid that my well-intentioned frustration and desire for a better education might come across as disrespectful.  Especially if I burst through the wall like the kool-aid man, rip some of my hair out, get all frothy-mouthed, and start throwing things, which is all very liable to happen.

So here's the big decision: do I:

A) Do what’s right.  Talk to her.  Voice my concerns, for the betterment of my education and the educations of others?

 B) Smile, and nod, continue to get screwed, and hope I can make it through the term without having aneurism or a sudden SIDs flare-up?

Jokes aside, I would love some advice.  What would you do?  Is there any way to professionally bring any of this up in office hours?