(no subject)

[ljgeoff]

I've got to start planning my food. I had an english muffin around 8am, and by my 11am chem lecture, I couldn't concentrate. By noon my hands were shaking. It's just a matter of planning.

There are two professors sitting next to me, bitching about the students absences. The way I feel about it is that I'm paying them to teach my ass -- if I want to skip class, that's my thing. It's my responsibility to either get the notes from someone else or read the text. They teach me at my abettance, and their job is to give me the information and then some type of assessment of how well I retained the information.

Ok, shakiness is mostly gone. I had a headache spike, but now that's fading, too. After my coffee, I'm going to go for a walk.


*it seems that abettance isn't a word.

Comments

[hobbitbabe.livejournal.com]

When I bitch about my students' absences, I'm mostly thinking of students much younger and less responsible than you are. I care about them learning and succeeding. I know that many of them overestimate their ability to learn without attending class. And even after almost 10 years, I feel personally disappointed when the students' work shows that they haven't learned what I tried to teach them.

Also, some of my students come from a culture of entitlement such that if they get poor marks, they try to make it my fault. Which means that I see empty seats in lecture as a warning of complaints and accusations after the test.

Do your classmates expect your teachers to put all class notes on the web (or make them available for sale in hard copy) with an almost-guarantee that missing class won't hurt them?

[ljgeoff.livejournal.com]

I was thinking of you as I hit "post". My dear friend Mark teaches, too. You are right - I'm sure that my professors don't have much problem with my skipping class when I need to. I think that I'm either close to the same age or older than all of them.

As far as your question, yes, I think that's true. And perhaps that type of learning works for some students. I like going to class but I don't like most of my lectures. I prefer small group study and doing problems and worksheets - there is one of my lecturers that is excellent, and I like going to his lecture, but the others are just a tired, sometimes monotone, restatement of the text.

I'm fascinated by physiology, somewhat interested in chemistry, bored by anatomy and ...in sync with nutrition (don't know how else to say it).