A couple weeks ago, my English teacher mentioned a trip she had taken to Australia. The lady in front of me raised her hand and asked :
“What language do they speak in Australia?”
sigh
I’m also taking a course called Business Math, which is an absolute joke. It’s fucking sixth grade math. No, I’m not exaggerating. The funny thing is that half the class is totally lost. Fractions, percentages, decimals. These are the things that mystify my classmates.
double sigh
I took this one class with a bunch of edu majors back when I was one (an elementary ed major). One girl in the class, a fellow education major always kept asking (whining) “Why do we have to know this? When are we going to use this? Why do we have to learn THIS? This is dumb. We’re never gonna use this…and so on and so on…”
I wanted to smack her. I wanted to say, “Where do you plan on teaching, so I can make sure and send my kids elsewhere…”
We had three such offenders in my med school class.
One would spend five minutes at the end of every lecture asking the most inane and convoluted questions imaginable. We had four 50-minute lectures with ten minutes in between; thanks to her, it was often five minutes.
Another would only ask questions once a day or so, but would use it as an opportunity to kiss the prof’s ass. His question was usually prefaced with, “First of all, I’d just like to say that this was a fascinating lecture, and that we all thank you for presenting this topic.” (I’m not exaggerating.)
The third didn’t ask questions, but she kept a running commentary on the lecture to her boyfriend who sat next to her. She’s a brilliant person–her mind was just moving faster than the lecture.
We finally got one of the more diplomatic members of the class to get up and adress the issue in front of everyone. Somehow he got the point across and didn’t piss anyone off. I really want this guy to be involved in the next Israeli peace talks.
Dr. J
Well, I’m not really in a class with this girl, but she frequents my favorite computer lab on campus. She’s an upperclassman, and I think she’s enrolled in some type of Introduction to Java course. And that’s where the stupidity comes in. She has tremendous difficulty understanding the most basic concepts of this programming language; the major one that I could see was her inability to understand how brackets work–she didn’t understand why failing to close off the brackets would result in an error. She asked 5 of the lab consultants for help, but because she didn’t understand what she was doing they couldn’t help her. I thought one of the consultants was going to throw a temper tantrum at the way she kept insisting that the error messages generated by the compiler weren’t really error messages.
Anyway, she wound up nearly crashing the computer.
I go to a rally liberal school and my favorites are those who always think that everything is derivative from the white male power structure that is oppressing everyone.
Genetics Prof: “(Insert general commentary here. ).”
Student: “But isn’t hat just your opinion? I mean that’s a product of centuries of repression!”
Genetics Prof: “Ummmmmm…”
I have to agree with some of the other posters. The two things that piss me off are…
The people who walk in late making a commotion and then repeat all of the questions that have already been posed and answered.
The people who bitch about having to take classes. You are getting a better education than 99% of the world. Suck it up.
Is her name Debbie, by any chance? I had the same person in at least three of my classes 5 years ago, and I still remember her from my File Structures class. IIRC, it ended up with something like this:
Prof: So, using sequential access, the computer reads the records in order from the file.
Debbie: So the computer reads the records in order?
Prof: sigh Yes. Now, if we create an index, we can access the records faster because the operating system is directed to read just that particular part of file.
Debbie: So creating an index means you can access the records faster?
Prof: YES. And we can build multiple indexes if we need to access the file using different keys, but all this indexing takes up extra space.
Debbie: What? Extra space? Why would I want to use up all that extra space? Isn’t a smaller file better?
Classmate: She just said the index makes it faster, moron.
Debbie: Hey, I’m trying to learn here… blah blah blah…
Classmate: Then why don’t you shut up and listen.
Oh, mrblue92, mine’s much worse!
Let’s call her “Darla”. Ok, that’s her name.
Perfect example happened this week. The teacher started off with a 10 minute discussion of regarding us being a day behind in our lectures, and how we can solve it (skipping a lab, moving our test, etc). As a group, we decided that we were better off in the long run moving our test back one day. 15 minutes of discussion total. As soon as he said, ok, we’re moving our test back one day, announces the new date, and writes it on the board, Darla asks if we shouldn’t think about moving the test back a day or not, since we don’t have all the info to do our assignment. She suggested moving the day or taking out the lab.
Gee. What a great idea. Maybe if you’d been paying attention for the last 15 minutes, you might have a clue!!!
Sadly, this happens a lot, but often involving a long and complicated explanation about one of our forumulas. We’ll spend 20 minutes discussing it with diagrams and everything, and as soon as the discussion is over, and the marker has been put down, she’ll turn around from whoever she’s been chatting with for the last 20 minutes, and ask the same question that prompted the 20 minute explanation in the first place.
And you wonder why we’re a whole day behind!!!
For about the first half of the first quarter of school, we had an older (50s-ish) woman in our class. She was rude, obnoxious, self-centered to the point where it was hurting the class, and generally not much fun to be around.
Sample class. (This is Introduction to Radiologic Technology, a no-brainer class)
Instructor: The people allowed to read X-rays are MDs (medical doctors) and DOs (doctors of osteopathy).
Nebby-Nose: What, technically, is the difference between the two?
Instructor: For our purpose, there isn’t any.
NN: What is the difference??!!!
Instructor: Ask me after class, and I’ll explain it to you.
NN continued to DEMAND this information from the instructor. Finally, I spoke up and said, “I can explain the difference, but the rest of the class doesn’t wanna hear it.” Which was true. The instructor, thankfully, moved forward.
About six weeks later, NN developed marital problems and quit school. Thank God.
BTW, Nebby-Nose is my husband’s expression for a general pain in the ass.
Robin
Says you. I think you’re really talking out your ass here.
As I get older, my knowledge base continues to expand. I am able to assimilate and apply new information at a much greater rate than when I was in my teens and twenties. Perhaps the curve will peak and decline at some point, but the statement “it is harder to learn as an adult” is just horse-shit.
I think this is the teacher’s problem, not necessarily the student’s. Why couldn’t the teacher just say, “Because “di” means “two”?”
Sometimes the most obvious solution works very well. When people ask dumb questions just say “That’s a stupid question. Sit back down and shut up.”
You might get some shocked stares but that’s about it.
Says you. Not all stereotypes are untrue.
3 second searching. I can do more, if you’d like.
Thanks, come again.
–Tim
I’m 35 and back in school. I take classes whenever I can fit them into my ever-changing work schedule. I’ve spoken to some of the kids I take classes with, and frankly, I’m concerned. Some of these kids…
I was talking to young woman in a sociology class. She asked a lot of questions in class. She was obviously having some trouble with some of the concepts, and time was running out in the class (there were 2 weeks left). I asked her if the textbook was a problem for her. She told me she hadn’t purchased it yet! I was stunned!
I’m currently taking a basic math class (my worst subject). The instructor does problems on the board and one of my classmates constantly shouts out answers. It wouldn’t be so bad, if only he would get one right every so often!
I read the link. But what exactly is “aged” by human standards? Is it 28? Is it 35? Is it 50? 75?
Now, most of us will concede that sometimes an elderly person loses their mental edge - not that they are feeble-minded, but perhaps it takes longer to retain information. But does this mean that a 35 year old is going to be slower than an 18 year old? I wonder about that. Especially since there are so many other factors to take into consideration.
My sister learned piano when she was in her late 30s. Even though the common belief is that it is much easier to learn the piano when a kid. She was one of the better ones in the class. Most of the students were younger than her. But she was OLD! And there were all these younger students in the class! How can this be?
Also, I think “learning” has a lot to do with dedication, and discipline. Who do you think is going to “learn faster” - the mature person who actually does the work, or an immature person who has trouble focusing? Also - which person will “learn faster” - a smart, disciplined “old” person, or a perky, but immature and dumb-as-dirt young person?
I have taken more than a few classes where I was older than many of the other students, but also did better than they did. How could this be possible? Also, I started learning the computer a relatively short amount of time ago. (Less than three years.) I am no techie, but I get around better on a computer than a lot of people I know. A lot of YOUNGER people I know. But I was OLD when I started to learn. How is this possible?
There are so many variables to this. I think it would be incorrect to just assume that an older person is usually going to learn slower than a younger person.
Well, duh, but that doesn’t change the fact that, in general, age has a detrimental effect on learning ability. It’s just the way the human brain is wired.
Oh gee, maybe more innate talent, harder work, whatever… However, if she had started learning younger, she would have probably had an easier time.
Well, whenever you throw “dumb-as-dirt” into the equation, you’re going to get some confounds. I don’t think anyone here is claiming that every single young pereson on the face of the earth learns faster than every single older person on the face of the earth. The issues here are tendency, correlation, and generality. If you have a smart, disciplined young person and a smart, disciplined older person, my money is going on the young person.
Yeah, that’s what the study shows. And I am not disputing the truth of that, technically. What I am trying to say that with human beings (not animals) there are other factors to consider. Emotional factors, for instance. An older person has other experiences to draw upon, and motivations, that a younger person may not have. So while perhaps, “technically”, a younger person’s brain may learn faster, an older person has other advantages that may even things out a bit.
I wrote:
Your response:
How ironic that you use the term “innate talent”. My other sister and I got piano lessons when we were young. The sister I am mentioning (the one who learned when she was in her 30s) did not get lessons, because she showed no “innate talent” compared to the rest of us. (My mom is an accomplished pianist, and I guess she considered this one sister hopeless.) So, no, she did not have an “easier time” when she was young. She was deemed as “hopeless” when she was young. How can this be?
Hmmm…perhaps. But as I said before, there are other human factors to consider, like experiences, motivations, etc. And people who do not fit into the “tendency” or “generality”, like my sister.
Like pepperlandgirl (a fellow Beatle fanatic), I’ve had my share of idiots in high school:
Geography, 9th grade:
Mr. H: Some people say Southerners are ignorant.
Crystal: We ain’t ignorant!
Honors English, 12th grade (which a lot of people who don’t need to be in an Honors class took and are failing or have D’s):
Mrs. D: Pick out all the nouns in the sentences.
Coley: What’s a noun?
HOW LONG HAVE YOU HAD ENGLISH, DUMBASS? SINCE (censored) KINDERGARTEN, HOW IN HELL CAN YOU NOT KNOW WHAT A (censored) NOUN IS?