It’s too much to expect anything out of us, but it is nothing to expect everything out of others. I am not a model student by any means, I day dream, I don’t take notes, I don’t pay attention in class, (I’m writing my blog post instead), I don’t come to class and often I am openly insolent to my teachers. I am not alone. That’s the rest of my class for you as well. How did we get this way? We got jaded, by teachers who are terrible, who are biased, who know nothing, for whom teaching is the last resort. Agreed, and then for some of us there are the rest of us as well. If our teachers are bad, we are worse. We wallow in self-pity and self-entitlement and refuse to take charge of our lives and our futures. I don’t think we deserve any better than the teachers we bully, dominate, look down upon and deride.
In my three years over here I have compered conferences and numerous lectures, and I am appalled by the Student behaviour at these occasions. Here is an opportunity to learn, to listen to others, to people from across the world who have flown into your measly little town with the thought of sharing some of their knowledge, and all the students can do is sleep (if they’re nice) or gossip loudly, interrupt the speaker, distract her, ignore the jokes and laugh at the wrong times.
So you don’t listen to the lousy teachers because they’re lousy, but why don’t you listen to the eminent scholars? Because they’re good?
Make up your mind or change your reason. Maybe you don’t listen because you don’t give two hoots, because despite what you told (actually yelled and cribbed) your teacher, “that you want to learn, go beyond schoolroom teaching” you don’t care about anything beyond who’s going out with whom or what Blair wore in the last episode of gossip girl. Maybe you don’t listen because the eminent speaker rambles on and is hard to understand. Well didn’t you just tell (read yell and crib) your teacher that he wasn’t capable of moulding your superior minds, well possessor of a superior mind what good is that damn thing if you can’t use it to unravel one simple lecture. Maybe I’m wronging them, maybe they don’t listen and sleep instead because in their dreams they are visited by much more eminent and interesting persons (like Blair or their crush) who are much better suited to mould their magnificent (superior) minds.
You want to be treated like an adult, “no more classroom teaching”, “We’re in college!”, “We’re 20!” “the teachers don’t know a thing” “ the teachers are biased” “I’m jaded” “the teacher needs to be engaging”.
Well what about us? Do we behave like adults? No, my dear young adults, our behaviour in the conference hall would put even kids to shame, we act like babies. Do we truly not want classroom teaching? Of course we do, we want everything handed to us on a platter, the syllabus, the test questions, the model answer, a perfect lecture. The brave teacher that tries an interesting discussion based syllabus gets shot down immediately (yaaar...... We’re adults, with busy adult schedules, we don’t have time for this). The teachers don’t know a thing.......................... and neither do we by the way (because we haven’t listened to a word all semester, we passed because of the one poor kid who listened through our disturbances and painstakingly took down notes which we photocopied). The teachers are biased................................ and we’re cheaters (we get our 8 CGPA by copying those photocopied notes hidden under our table while the kid who took those notes struggles to remember what the teacher had said because the class had been so noisy that day).The teacher needs to be more engaging, and we need to .......? oh yeah, we need to do nothing.
I wanted to be a teacher, I foolishly mentioned it in front of my professor grandparents, aunts and uncles. They made me cry that day. I would still like to be a teacher, I know the pay is lousy but the deal breaker isn’t that the pay isn’t enough to live on, it’s the fact that it doesn’t compensate for the lousy students.
In my three years over here I have compered conferences and numerous lectures, and I am appalled by the Student behaviour at these occasions. Here is an opportunity to learn, to listen to others, to people from across the world who have flown into your measly little town with the thought of sharing some of their knowledge, and all the students can do is sleep (if they’re nice) or gossip loudly, interrupt the speaker, distract her, ignore the jokes and laugh at the wrong times.
So you don’t listen to the lousy teachers because they’re lousy, but why don’t you listen to the eminent scholars? Because they’re good?
Make up your mind or change your reason. Maybe you don’t listen because you don’t give two hoots, because despite what you told (actually yelled and cribbed) your teacher, “that you want to learn, go beyond schoolroom teaching” you don’t care about anything beyond who’s going out with whom or what Blair wore in the last episode of gossip girl. Maybe you don’t listen because the eminent speaker rambles on and is hard to understand. Well didn’t you just tell (read yell and crib) your teacher that he wasn’t capable of moulding your superior minds, well possessor of a superior mind what good is that damn thing if you can’t use it to unravel one simple lecture. Maybe I’m wronging them, maybe they don’t listen and sleep instead because in their dreams they are visited by much more eminent and interesting persons (like Blair or their crush) who are much better suited to mould their magnificent (superior) minds.
You want to be treated like an adult, “no more classroom teaching”, “We’re in college!”, “We’re 20!” “the teachers don’t know a thing” “ the teachers are biased” “I’m jaded” “the teacher needs to be engaging”.
Well what about us? Do we behave like adults? No, my dear young adults, our behaviour in the conference hall would put even kids to shame, we act like babies. Do we truly not want classroom teaching? Of course we do, we want everything handed to us on a platter, the syllabus, the test questions, the model answer, a perfect lecture. The brave teacher that tries an interesting discussion based syllabus gets shot down immediately (yaaar...... We’re adults, with busy adult schedules, we don’t have time for this). The teachers don’t know a thing.......................... and neither do we by the way (because we haven’t listened to a word all semester, we passed because of the one poor kid who listened through our disturbances and painstakingly took down notes which we photocopied). The teachers are biased................................ and we’re cheaters (we get our 8 CGPA by copying those photocopied notes hidden under our table while the kid who took those notes struggles to remember what the teacher had said because the class had been so noisy that day).The teacher needs to be more engaging, and we need to .......? oh yeah, we need to do nothing.
I wanted to be a teacher, I foolishly mentioned it in front of my professor grandparents, aunts and uncles. They made me cry that day. I would still like to be a teacher, I know the pay is lousy but the deal breaker isn’t that the pay isn’t enough to live on, it’s the fact that it doesn’t compensate for the lousy students.
