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I have this habit that I cannot seem to get rid of: I roll my eyes the second I become annoyed. Understandably, this unavoidable habit can create awkwardness when acceptable social standards exist. Nonetheless, I cannot get past this habit, and sometimes I find justification for it.
The list of annoyances is long and wide-ranging: There are the crazed mating rituals on exhibit at the Malibu Inn on Tuesdays, the wolf-like cries of my neighbors in the shower when they think no one can hear them, the life-altering fascination and obsession with Facebook at Pepperdine, and last on my lists is the nonstop mewing by certain (read “most”) Pepperdine students during lectures and classroom discussions.
Many students are quite eager to participate, but sadly, many forget to think before speaking. Words cannot do my pain justice. For example:
Professor: “So how to do you feel about euthanasia in extreme circumstances?”
Student: “Like, my dog got really sick when I was in middle school, and, like, he was in pain, so like, we had to put him to sleep, and that made me really sad, and it was hard on my family because, you know, he was gone.”
Upon further reflection, I have determined the root of this annoyance — the grading system of many professors. Several professors implement policies in their respective syllabi that award up to 20 percent for class participation. What these policies do not clarify is if the professor is looking for quality or quantity, although most students seem to assume the latter. Perhaps most troubling is professor’s response to these outbursts. I cannot recall an instance when a professor discounted a student’s opinion.
I have determined several categories of students. The first group is namedropper, the one who memorizes pages from Wikipedia and cnn.com and spits up useless, random facts. There is also the student who has the uncle/expert lawyer whom he considers infallible on anything across the globe. And of course, there is the student who has religious/moral absolutes that are the basis and defense for any argument. “I believe in God, the Bible says this. Therefore, you are wrong.”
A classmate of mine casually confronts her professor. What was his laissez-faire response? Any discussion is considered good discussion as it engages students into the material. And since most of his students would become financial analysts before career ethicists, the fact that his students have any opinion is terrific and educational.
I admit, lively and animated discussions are critical to the learning process. The keyword here, however, is “discussion.” The egoistic-narcissistic student who grabs 15 seconds of airtime does not contribute to this discussion. Conversely, the student who speaks occasionally may be thinking carefully and offering the most useful, intelligent and articulate thoughts of the entire sessions.
The travesty against all reason is that the student who generally makes the most noise also generally receives the highest participation scores. Those geniuses who contribute rarely are historically relegated to the “B-range.”
Professors who soley offer points for comments need to draw a line and end these tangential rants by students and make the discussion more focused. Students cut short by their revolutionary teachers should be thankful that they are informed of the relative irrelevance of their comments. Were I talking from the lower rear of my body, I would hope my professor would inform me, much as I would hope my best friend would tell me if I left the house in drag.
No amount of nicety or politeness aids the true intellectual. If humiliating students seems rash, then I quote one of the biggest “babblers” who ever lived, Mohammad Ali. “Silence is golden when you can’t think of a good answer.”
Submitted 11-10-2005
MALIBU, CA
