Sit and nod

As I progress through my undergraduate experience, I've realized a somber truth: many of my peers are either too fearful to discuss concepts, or (more frighteningly) they are generally too inept to follow the instructional process most teachers use.  I was raised and instructed to believe that "there is no such thing as a stupid question" and "if you don't understand speak up" were cardinal rules in education.  Now that I am paying beyond three figures for my education, I intend to make that money count for something beyond credits to earn a degree.

I feel badly for the teachers who have to deal with the indifference and mild entitlement I've seen.  I can't speak towards whether this is a generational phenomenon or if modern higher education has always been plagued thusly, but as I get deeper into college I wonder why so many classes are presented as informative entertainment.  My entomology class is entertaining, but when more than half of a lecture there is spent with the professor playing a BBC documentary series on insects, I wonder if he enjoys instructing this course.  As smart as some BBC documentaries are, or comparative productions from the Discovery channel, can anyone really believe this is really at COLLEGE level instruction?

The teachers I do know well enough to ask how they treat introductory level courses, where the worst level of indifference occurs, usually have ambivalent takes on their situation.  They view their basic courses as a chance to introduce new concepts to students they would otherwise would miss out on and inform their pupils enough to have a conversation in the subject they are attending.  These professors also tend to tell me that they feel most of their lectures fall on deaf ears, with students reading powerpoint slides online before an exam and pass with a "gentleman's C".  Looking back on how tedious retaking calculus classes was in my freshmen year, I wonder how a professor can teach three introductory level courses each semester, year after year.  The word steadfast comes to mind...

 

This whole rant started when I noticed peers afraid to speak up in class, so that's where I'll return to.  Geochemistry is currently my favorite class, in part because Dr. R will call on students and seek an answer from them until he is satisfied.  In there, the silence is often deafening and everyone seems to squirm and feel uncomfortable about being picked out (myself included).  I feel like this keeps me honest in a way that no other course I have this semester lets me get away with, and so when I sit though another class where only a single teacher's pet type is chiming in regularly this makes me self conscious of my own commentary but also baffles me why nobody else seems to care.  It's a catch-22 and its cause is contagious, so I tend to grow partially antisocial in my classes as a result.

I don't think I will ever understand why some people are as cripplingly shy as they are but, in my mind, when the majority of a classroom is silent because nobody wants to answer a non-rhetorical question only the two causes I mentioned earlier could be responsible.  I'm at college to learn and I expect some my peers are just here for the ride and others are figuring out why they're here, but it worries me that so many are spending so much of their parents or their own hard earned money to be mediocre and mute in class.  I know the value of an education and the loving investments my family has put forward for me to be here, and I intend to make them proud.

Photo Credit
Seevas. "The first lecture of biochemistry xD". http://www.flickr.com/photos/seevas/2924350054/