Completely Beside The Point
Hi. This has nothing to do with anything, except that I’m sitting here proctoring a final exam in a night class. And I like his class. They’re adults. They’re serious.
This afternoon wasn’t so wonderful. In two classes, one for upperclassmen, nobody–and I mean nobody–knew who Gadhaffi was. I just don’t know if that’s how we’re spelling it.
What was worse was the thing that makes me sometimes feel that this is not worthwhile. That’s my one remedial class, where they don’t bother to take notes, don’t know how to use Blackboard, won’t bother to ask in the writing center to find out, won’t buy their books, and then when they’re given an assignment suddenly freak an go “but that’s not in the book.”
Apparently a fair number of teachers just read out of the textbook. I don’t.
I am, at any rate, really depressed at the moment. And it’s late. And I have to get up VERY early tomorrow.
And I’ll miss this class I’ve got right now.
Bleh.
2 Responses to 'Completely Beside The Point'
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Eh, don’t mind. I’ve heard engineering seniors whine about “that’s not in the book” and “we never solved that problem in class.” But no need to worry, your bridges are mostly being designed by software these days.
abgrund
20 Oct 11 at 8:28 pm
And I shall treasure the Education major explaining that she’d never had to read a book for a class before.
But we may have a serious problem with news feeds. Fifty years ago, you had to sit through the international news to get the sports scores, and a newsreel went along with the movie. Now, the same technological advances which let me completely excise sports news from my life let those students miss completely any war we’re engaged in, or any dictator not featured on “Dancing with the Stars.” I noticed a demand from the Occupy Wall Street crowd which effectively demanded the entire nation be paid above the per capita GDP. I’d like to think that means they don’t know the per capita GDP.
We may be near the level of ignorance at which a democracy can’t function.
robert_piepenbrink
20 Oct 11 at 10:27 pm