Ranty McRant Thread 2

Anything not relating to the X-Universe games (general tech talk, other games...) belongs here. Please read the rules before posting.

Moderator: Moderators for English X Forum

Post Reply
User avatar
mrbadger
Posts: 14226
Joined: Fri, 28. Oct 05, 17:27
x3tc

Ranty McRant Thread 2

Post by mrbadger » Mon, 11. Dec 17, 17:22

The first one seems to have lain unused for a few years, unless I just couldn't find it, in which case, just, can whichever mod first looks at this move it to the right place please :)

Now that's out of the way.

Ok. My students are at least nominally adults. It's fair to assume that having arrived at university they are:
A: capable of following basic written instructions.
B: as final year students, reasonably well versed in their subject.

So why is it, year after year, I have this same 'I've left everything till the last minute and now I'm stuck because I didn't come to the lectures or do any work and I don't know what I'm doing' crap?

And somehow this is my fault? Or they seem to feel it should be.

Not every student does this. Some students excel. This year some have done so well they've caused me to re-evaluate my marking scheme because it doesn't take into account the level of work they've done.

The assignment involves working with a real world code-base, so it's a 'live' thing, not exactly easy to get perfect, and the good students keep finding new ways to screw with my marking scheme and boost their grades.

Yes it's hard, it's supposed to be hard.

So it's not all bad, but I do get so fed up with trying to figure out how to get through to the kids who won't do the work till the last minute.

They're about to graduate, you'd have thought they'd have learned by now, but some of them seem actively hostile to the concept of self directed study, which is, to my mind, the entire point of university.

And that's not just because I'm old. I was a student myself just a few years ago, and my good students have the exact same viewpoint.

The world will not follow these people around and help them when they get stuck. I've tried, subtly, to point this out.

I could be less blunt, but I imagine the little snowflakes (oh, were not supposed to call them that, are we, bless their little hearts) might get offended.
If an injury has to be done to a man it should be so severe that his vengeance need not be feared. ... Niccolò Machiavelli

CBJ
EGOSOFT
EGOSOFT
Posts: 51740
Joined: Tue, 29. Apr 03, 00:56
x4

Post by CBJ » Mon, 11. Dec 17, 17:34

I don't think much has changed with regard to how students approach their studies. There have always been those who didn't attend lectures and/or didn't put in the work, and who winged it through the final assessments and exams with varying degrees of success (or lack thereof). However I don't think many of those who didn't succeed were particularly surprised by their situation, or tried to suggest that it was anyone else's fault but their own. What seems to have got somewhat worse is people's willingness to take responsibility for the situations they create for themselves, and for working out what to do to get themselves out of those situations. I also don't think it's limited to young people; many older people seem to have slipped into the same mindset.

Bishop149
Posts: 7232
Joined: Fri, 9. Apr 04, 21:19
x3

Re: Ranty McRant Thread 2

Post by Bishop149 » Mon, 11. Dec 17, 17:34

mrbadger wrote:So why is it, year after year, I have this same 'I've left everything till the last minute and now I'm stuck because I didn't come to the lectures or do any work and I don't know what I'm doing' crap?
Being an adult has nothing to do with it. This attitude can be found throughout the supposedly "adult" world.
I am increasingly convinced that the whole idea of "growing up" is basically a myth, in my experience humans rarely seem to develop the complete set of behaviours that might be given that over-arching term.
I recently witnessed a group of 60+ women at a party behave in a way that was all but indistinguishable from a group of 2 year olds in a similar situation.
"Shoot for the Moon. If you miss, you'll end up co-orbiting the Sun alongside Earth, living out your days alone in the void within sight of the lush, welcoming home you left behind." - XKCD

burger1
Posts: 3003
Joined: Fri, 21. Aug 09, 22:51
x3tc

Post by burger1 » Mon, 11. Dec 17, 17:36

It's normal. My sister is a University professor and she has sent people to psychiatrists in vain attempts to help. Sending people to psychologists (not psychiatrists) or counselors usually makes them worse which makes sense since they don't really have the resources to fix stuff. Her grad students are the same also. They wreck equipment, waste chemicals/resources repeatedly doing the same experiment wrong again and again because they can't ask for help/figure it out/follow directions. They have trouble with deadlines and attending meetings and showing up for work.

User avatar
mrbadger
Posts: 14226
Joined: Fri, 28. Oct 05, 17:27
x3tc

Post by mrbadger » Mon, 11. Dec 17, 17:46

What is so different about me then? I never missed deadlines.

When I was given an assignment I started work on it that day.

If the lecturer hadn't started teaching us what we needed to know to do it, I'd go find the information myself, and treat the lectures as an extra resource, not the primary one.

Yes I was a mature student in my thirties, but I have students in my lecture in their early twenties who are doing the same thing.

One of them only seems to come to my lectures to use the computers, because he's essentially finished all the modules goals sufficiently to get a good first class grade ages ago, without my help.
If an injury has to be done to a man it should be so severe that his vengeance need not be feared. ... Niccolò Machiavelli

CBJ
EGOSOFT
EGOSOFT
Posts: 51740
Joined: Tue, 29. Apr 03, 00:56
x4

Post by CBJ » Mon, 11. Dec 17, 17:50

mrbadger wrote:What is so different about me then? I never missed deadlines.

When I was given an assignment I started work on it that day.
Not everyone is like you. I don't remember missing any deadlines but, with a few exceptions, I was never one for starting assignments any earlier than I really had to. I still find that I work better under time pressure than I do when there there is plenty of time available, and I don't think I'm particularly unusual in that regard.

pjknibbs
Posts: 41359
Joined: Wed, 6. Nov 02, 20:31
x4

Post by pjknibbs » Mon, 11. Dec 17, 17:55

I have to say I'm a bit surprised students are still like that. Back when I went to university you didn't have to pay tuition fees and you'd generally get a full government grant to live on, so it wasn't surprising students would treat it as an opportunity to booze for three years--after all, for most of them it would be their first time out from under Mummy's thumb. These days, when there's an actual cost associated with going to Uni, you'd think they'd have more sense.

User avatar
mrbadger
Posts: 14226
Joined: Fri, 28. Oct 05, 17:27
x3tc

Post by mrbadger » Mon, 11. Dec 17, 18:11

CBJ wrote:
mrbadger wrote:What is so different about me then? I never missed deadlines.

When I was given an assignment I started work on it that day.
Not everyone is like you. I don't remember missing any deadlines but, with a few exceptions, I was never one for starting assignments any earlier than I really had to. I still find that I work better under time pressure than I do when there there is plenty of time available, and I don't think I'm particularly unusual in that regard.
I had to pay £12,000 for my time at uni. I'm still repaying it, but it was well worth it.

I worked out exactly how much each day of uni cost me, I think it was £25, and I got to university at 09:00, and left at 17:00, sometimes just to eat then come back to the labs and carry on working, since my room had no internet. Not always though, since after a while I had a pretty good collection of textbooks in my room.

I gatecrashed every tutorial I could, regardless of what module it was for, to the extent the lecturers just used to make me help once I was a second year, which got me plenty of experience for my future career. Some first years even used to think I was a lecturer. Of course a few years later that would be true, but not then.

I was determined to get full value for my twelve grand, and I think I did.

These time wasting students are spending close to fifty grand, and learning next to nothing. Worse, they don't even seem to realise that's what they're doing.
If an injury has to be done to a man it should be so severe that his vengeance need not be feared. ... Niccolò Machiavelli

CBJ
EGOSOFT
EGOSOFT
Posts: 51740
Joined: Tue, 29. Apr 03, 00:56
x4

Post by CBJ » Mon, 11. Dec 17, 18:19

Again, not everyone is like you. When I was that age I didn't know many 18-year-olds with either that kind of work ethic, nor with the foresight to think through the consequences sufficiently to enable them to prioritise attending lectures over a heavy night at the Student's Union bar. And I'm not going to try and pretend I was much different.

I take pjknibbs' point about who pays for their study, but bearing in mind that the majority of students are just taking out a loan, and that the debt culture these days doesn't exactly put much emphasis on thinking through the consequences of taking out that debt, I really don't see it making much difference.

Skism
Posts: 2539
Joined: Mon, 22. Mar 10, 21:36
x3tc

Post by Skism » Mon, 11. Dec 17, 18:49

CBJ wrote:
mrbadger wrote:What is so different about me then? I never missed deadlines.

When I was given an assignment I started work on it that day.
Not everyone is like you. I don't remember missing any deadlines but, with a few exceptions, I was never one for starting assignments any earlier than I really had to. I still find that I work better under time pressure than I do when there there is plenty of time available, and I don't think I'm particularly unusual in that regard.
I agree.

Back when I was 18- 22 I was a disorganized little shit - who would occasionally put in spurts of work.

Now that I'm approaching 30 I'm a hell of a lot more self directed and pick my own goals.

Personally Mr Badger I would tell them they are going to fail if they don't buck up their ideas - espically if thats true.

Yer the snowflakes might get offended - they should be more offended at being 50K in debt and nothing to show for it!

(cavat don't do anything that gets you kicked out of your Uni obviously ;)
"He who dares not offend cannot be honest."

-Thomas Paine-

User avatar
mrbadger
Posts: 14226
Joined: Fri, 28. Oct 05, 17:27
x3tc

Post by mrbadger » Mon, 11. Dec 17, 19:24

I don't like to fail them, but only because that makes my module look really bad, and it is a very nice module.

Unless they've really done nothing, which has happened.

So for the less capable I have in place a 'simpler' route. With a fair grade cap.

One that means you won't get a very good grade, but you will at least get enough to pass the module, and can get up to a 2.1.

I tend to shunt students onto it depending on what they submit, rather than through talking to them, because the ones who talk to me and engage tend not to be the ones who will get shunted onto it. And by that point talking tends to have little effect anyway.

I get lots of irritated emails. Usually along the lines of 'why can't I have a first class grade for my half arsed late attempt at the work?'

I'm getting good at ignoring those.

My issue this year is some students who said they were weak at programming deliberately took this route, and proceeded to excel, frankly sh%tting all over my marking scheme by doing things I didn't know you could on that route (an issue when your assignment is based on a real world open source product), and causing me a bit of a headache.

I have yet to figure out how to deal with them.
If an injury has to be done to a man it should be so severe that his vengeance need not be feared. ... Niccolò Machiavelli

User avatar
euclid
Moderator (Script&Mod)
Moderator (Script&Mod)
Posts: 13289
Joined: Sun, 15. Feb 04, 20:12
x4

Post by euclid » Mon, 11. Dec 17, 19:36

Unfortunately universities have become more of a factory for academic degrees. Universities' income depends heavily on students
(in particular on those from abroad because their fees are much higher) and hence it has become difficult to motivate student by "threats".

I do remember to have been asked by the HoD to re-revise my exams markings due to an "unwritten regulation" to achieve a fail quota
not less than 40% (I had 55% and that was justified not only because some lazy students but because of many students with lacking aptitude).

There was also a corresponding negative feedback from the quality assessment (you know, where students have a say how good the lecturer had
performed). Funny part is that those who "complained" never or rarely showed up for the example classes I had organized.

So, Mr Badger, take it easy and be assured that it is not your fault and that you are not alone with this problem ;-)

Cheers Euclid
"In any special doctrine of nature there can be only as much proper science as there is mathematics therein.”
- Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), Metaphysical Foundations of the Science of Nature, 4:470, 1786

User avatar
mrbadger
Posts: 14226
Joined: Fri, 28. Oct 05, 17:27
x3tc

Post by mrbadger » Mon, 11. Dec 17, 20:01

My class feedback this year notably included multiple comments of 'not enough personal feedback'.

And yet week after week I sit alone in my feedback session which is just before my class.

And in my class, which is often half empty, few students other than the keen ones approach me.

Another is that my lectures don't cover everything needed to teach them the subject.

Well what subject can be taught in ten lectures? I can't think of any.

And how would they know what subjects would be the best to cover? Them or me? I'm going to side with me.

This year has been a particularly wearing one, I have to admit, hard work, and with the exceptionally low feedback score, our worst ever, I am unamused, and even less willing to put up with the crap from the people asking for last minute help, since I know they will be the ones who marked us down.
If an injury has to be done to a man it should be so severe that his vengeance need not be feared. ... Niccolò Machiavelli

User avatar
red assassin
Posts: 4613
Joined: Sun, 15. Feb 04, 15:11
x3

Post by red assassin » Mon, 11. Dec 17, 20:46

Some thoughts, with no promises given about level of structure:


I didn't develop anything resembling a healthy work ethic until I was out of university and in an actual job. It wasn't that I didn't want to work, or didn't feel terrible about every half-assed problem sheet or missed lecture, or promise myself every late night that it wasn't going to happen again. I just hadn't learnt the time management skills or awareness of my own psychological "quirks" necessary to actually structure my time usefully. I wouldn't claim to be a paragon of organisation now either, but at least I've got the hang of things enough to generally be fairly successful.

Sometimes I wonder what it would be like going back to university now, with the benefit of everything I've learnt in the last decade. But I'm not looking for a career change and I don't need another degree for my current career, so I guess I'm not going to find out.

That said, it's not your responsibility to teach people how to function (I'm not even sure that's something that can really be taught), and it's certainly not easy to tell people who are trying and just in a vicious cycle of screwing everything up apart from people who are genuinely being lazy.

I also don't think the money is as much of a motivator as you think it is - for one thing financial responsibility is also something that has to be learnt, but for another student loans now are for all intents and purposes a 30-year graduate tax - almost nobody will actually pay them off, so it doesn't really feel like spending £50k on something.


On the other side of the fence, as a teacher I get really annoyed by people who don't seem to be putting the effort in (The pre-reading is two chapters! Do the pre-reading! // If you had been paying attention to me talking rather than doing other stuff, you wouldn't be stuck on this lab question!) so I definitely empathise. At least we get fewer of those in a professional environment.

And I've complained in this forum before about the average standard of people coming off computer science degrees. (Yes, being able to figure things out for yourself is a requirement. If you can't do that, go write somebody's boring Java business logic for the rest of your life. Ugh. This is why I like natural scientists - at least they're taught with the ultimate goal of being able to face problems that literally don't have answers yet and figure them out!)
A still more glorious dawn awaits, not a sunrise, but a galaxy rise, a morning filled with 400 billion suns - the rising of the Milky Way

User avatar
mrbadger
Posts: 14226
Joined: Fri, 28. Oct 05, 17:27
x3tc

Post by mrbadger » Mon, 11. Dec 17, 21:21

As for telling the people who are stuck from the people who are lazy, well that's practically impossible, especially on an 11 week module.

My only options are:

1: are the turning up.
2: are they asking for help.

If they are doing the first that's good, but if they aren't doing the second and the class size is such that I don't notice they're struggling (not hard to do if they don't actually talk to me), I still can't tell.

There are too many people who are better suited to college being pushed instead to university, and they can't handle the difference.

I'm not trying to be unfair to college. I'm just saying they sit below University in their entry requirements for a reason.

College is, as far as I understand it for kids their age, school plus. University definitely isn't.

I used College as a stepping stone to university in my twenties, it was fun, but nowhere near as hard.

I have my easier route, but my job is still to produce people ready for jobs in industry, not people with "I wented to youniversitee and drunked a lot" certificates.
If an injury has to be done to a man it should be so severe that his vengeance need not be feared. ... Niccolò Machiavelli

User avatar
Chips
Posts: 4873
Joined: Fri, 19. Mar 04, 19:46
x4

Post by Chips » Mon, 11. Dec 17, 22:19

Guessing you do say something akin to "and you've started your assessment material by now" and "my office hours are x" (feedback session equivalent) and "read through it, any questions, come ask me in my office hours/via email" etc.

My supervisor had bad students, and some would try to ask for help. Others blatantly wouldn't, but when panic sets in children do blame others for their own circumstances. They know it's their fault, but they cast about slugging others with it instead.

My favourite was the "i need more time because x happened" to which the response was "When did that happen? Last week? The work was given out 2 months ago, why did you not start it? I mentioned it in every lecture... and you didn't come to see me at the time about this scenario, only now the day it's due - wanting an extension. Can you show me what you've achieved so far?"

The level of squirm as all their missed opportunities, lack of engagement and how they're ultimately responsible, wasn't pleasant. It didn't stop them blaming others (despite the fact they would admit it's their own fault to their friends)...

User avatar
mrbadger
Posts: 14226
Joined: Fri, 28. Oct 05, 17:27
x3tc

Post by mrbadger » Mon, 11. Dec 17, 23:16

I had a student asking for help today on a worksheet that should take at most four hours to complete, and was supposed to have been done ten weeks ago. I repeatedly said 'this must be done now' in the first few weeks, and it is one of only two compulsory ones out of seven.

Thing is, without doing it, none of the rest of the work that can raise a grade over 45-50% can be done.

So, at least their work will be easy to mark.

I'd describe the problem they were having, but that would possibly be identifiable, so I'd best not. Suffice to say a reasonably capable first year student would not have had the same problem.

Suffice only to say that for some it seems the Linux command line is a thing akin to forbidden knowledge of the ancient masters, forever unknowable to mere mortals.
Last edited by mrbadger on Mon, 11. Dec 17, 23:26, edited 1 time in total.
If an injury has to be done to a man it should be so severe that his vengeance need not be feared. ... Niccolò Machiavelli

User avatar
Morkonan
Posts: 10113
Joined: Sun, 25. Sep 11, 04:33
x3tc

Re: Ranty McRant Thread 2

Post by Morkonan » Mon, 11. Dec 17, 23:24

mrbadger wrote:....So why is it, year after year, I have this same 'I've left everything till the last minute and now I'm stuck because I didn't come to the lectures or do any work and I don't know what I'm doing' crap?
How many times a night do you have to tell your stepdaughter that "it's time for bed" just to make her stop whatever she's doing and realize she has to wake up for school the next day? How often do your stepkids do things that don't make sense and surely don't demonstrate that they have any sense of personal responsibility? Do they make "bad decisions" or "childish mistakes?"
And somehow this is my fault? Or they seem to feel it should be.
As it should be... You should not have put that cookie jar where they could reach it. Why did you make the sun come up so early in the day? Don't you realize that the most important thing in their life is Justin Bieber and if you keep them from worshiping him, they will actually, for realz, die?
...So it's not all bad, but I do get so fed up with trying to figure out how to get through to the kids who won't do the work till the last minute.
What may seem like "the last minute" to you seems like the perfect time to work on this, since I really want to do this other thing, right now, and then I want to go do this other thing, too, and need, desperately, to go with my friends to do something else and it's going to be so great and surely it won't be any problem at all for me to finish that boring work assignment for that professor that has no clue how stressful and hectic my life is right now and doesn't understand all the obligations I have...

So, what's the answer?

They are adolescents.

The human brain doesn't really become an "adult" brain until the early 20's. Even then, there are a lot of outside distractions for an early-adult to cope with that they have never encountered before.

An adolescent brain doesn't cope well with situations that require good decision-making ability. It's inclined to take risks and enjoys doing so. It has a lot of difficulty with "planning" things and it often does not do a good job of realistically and objectively running cause/effect and reward/punishment scenarios in order to come to a decision or to plan a process. "Logic" to an adolescent brain is largely circumstantial and it finds it difficult to actually define it due to many age-related, social and physiological factors that, in truth, don't have anything to do with what it's considering.

Do you want to pick a crewmember to leap through the hatch into the vacuum of space in a faulty spacesuit so they can re-align the antenna so the rest may live when its likely they will surely die?

Pick an adolescent and they will enthusiastically leap, not fully understanding the risks - The eternal optimist. Who... doesn't survive long in "the real world."

And, let's say you did that. What would the adult members of the crew think of you? They'd think you were a "monster", right? They'd likely think that anyone who would allow an adolescent to engage in such risky behavior is a terrible person, since everyone with any sense knows that adolescents aren't normally capable of logical reasoning and avoiding pitfalls and risk-taking behavior.... right?

But, they're supposed to leave their gradeschools and, with usually not more than a "student handbook" expect to adopt graduate-student behaviors overnight?

/sigh :)

You don't have to push them out the airlock, you have to keep them from leaping out of it! :)

That's the first part of the answer - The majority of your students are likely to still be adolescents and still under the strain of having to cope with adult-like responsibilities armed only with a hunk of squishy meat that hasn't yet finished deciding what it is going to become and is ill-equipped to do much else than pay attention to eating, pooping, sleeping, trying to make babies and feed its constant need for stimuli.

I also think that adults often forget their own body of experience when examining the actions of young people.

"Why didn't they realize that was a bad decision?"

Because - They've never made a decision like that, before. They've never encountered that situation. Their library of experience is limited to a few small, tattered, periodicals and pamphlets, most of which no longer apply to any experience they're likely to encounter. It's the first time they've "fallen in love," the first time they've been in a position of leadership in their social group, the first time they've ever encountered people like that, the first time they've ever "been in charge" of their own life, the first time they've been able to choose to stay out all night and party or... not.

As old, crotchety, "get the hell off my lawn" adults, do we remember all of those "first times" for ourselves? Not likely. (Well, some, like "first loves" are hard to forget. But...)

When was the first really bad decision you ever made? What was it? And, how do you judge just what made it a "bad" decision, using your values today or those you considered at the time when you were making it as an adolescent?

How "important" was that bad decision? I don't mean "the worst one" you ever made, I mean the very first one. If someone had told you that it would have long-lasting consequences that could follow you around for the rest of your life... Well, did anyone tell you that and did you, at the time, truly realize that may be the case? Or, did you think that no matter what happened, the sun would rise tomorrow and you'd go to school, eat your lunch, and play with your friends again at recess?

So, we've got adolescent brains with little or no practical experience in dealing with situations and variables that will have long-lasting consequences, sometimes on the course of their very lives.

And, they aren't responsible enough to study every night, show up for every early-morning class, engage enthusiastically and studiously in self-guided learning activities? :)

Questions lead to solutions, so no answers would be complete without proffered solutions.

1) Incorporate the relatively recently acquired knowledge of human neurological development into our scholastic programs, particularly in early and late adolescence. In various times in Western civilization, children and adolescents have been treated both as "little adults" and "blank slates" with sometimes horrifying consequences. In short - We do not have a good history, judged by "today's standards" when it comes to dealing with children. By today's standards, again, we suck at it. Truly. We now have the tools that prove, beyond a doubt, the differences in the adult, adolescent and child brain, if not function, at least in capability and requirements. We must take heed of the knowledge revealed and plan accordingly.

2) Entering college/university for many children is akin to a bird having its cage door opened for the very first time. Free! FREE! Free??

How many children have engaged in self-directed study before entering into the "adult world" of true academia? How many children have been taught how to study? Sure, they have studied, but by-and-large their sum total of experience in true "studying" has been subjected to only a limited number of "pass/fail" situations, where they are left on their own to figure out a process that actually "works." And then, they're moved into another subject, where previous successful self-directed processes are not necessarily suitable for that area of study. When presented with mathematics, the student that excels in history may not have realize that the path to success in mathematics is... "doing" instead of "observing."

3) For most adolescents, this period is their true introduction to adult-like life. For many, they will be making their own decisions regarding how they spend their time, how much they dedicate themselves to study and how much energy they will put into this entire process which will, of course, effect the rest of their lives.

"Oh, you're not familiar with hand-grenades? No worries! Here's a blue one, a yellow one and a red one. Pull the pin on one of them and set it at your feet."

We, in my opinion, do not do a good job in preparing children for this point in their lives. Sure, we stress how important it is, but in doing so we're much like Trump:

"Oh, it's very important. So important. You can't believe how awesomely important it is. Very important."

"So, what do I do?"

"Oh, your decisions are so important! Very important. Unbelievably important! Importantly."

...

Students need to be better prepared before entering the adult world of academia. I don't mean in their knowledge of applicable subject material, but in the knowledge of "how to adult." Further, they need experience in doing so and need to have their solutions critiqued. They need to have experience, in safety, in planning their study habits, making long-term, practical, decisions, again in safety with little true consequence, and they need to learn how to examine themselves, their own thoughts, and to apply what they know of "reality" in order to determine whether or not they've correctly examined a decision and come to a reasonable one.

Not easy, of course. We suck at the whole "building children" thing, by today's standards. (We have lofty expectations of ourselves, don't we?)

But, we keep the same old models, insist that no matter how they fail to provide what's desired, we continue to doggedly pursue them.

And then, armed with their little adolescent brains surrounded by a stew of emotional goop, unfathomable responsibilities and primal hormones, under assault by every new experience and under the constant pressure of "importantliness", they're thrust into the adult world and expected to make logical, reasonable, rational decisions and are expected to always sufficiently handle the responsibility of planning the rest of their lives on their own, with their newfound... freedom.

User avatar
mrbadger
Posts: 14226
Joined: Fri, 28. Oct 05, 17:27
x3tc

Post by mrbadger » Mon, 11. Dec 17, 23:43

I was thinking about why I didn't understand my weaker students total inability to grasp the consequence of their inaction.

I think I might have it.

It's not that I'm some great and wonderful person.

I am profoundly Dyspraxic. Severely so. In fact when I was finally properly diagnosed at university the person who did it said she was the worse case she had ever seen.

I already knew I was probably unsafe to drive, after that diagnosis I was officially not allowed to drive. And I was so profoundly dyslexic I literally had to brute force my brain into being able to read and write, because I so desperately wanted to.

That seems to have been the difference. I actually couldn't do well at school. There I was just labelled as educationally sub normal and ignored to the extent that I was just able to spend all day in the library reading books.

Had I not been I might have been just as bad myself.
If an injury has to be done to a man it should be so severe that his vengeance need not be feared. ... Niccolò Machiavelli

User avatar
Morkonan
Posts: 10113
Joined: Sun, 25. Sep 11, 04:33
x3tc

Post by Morkonan » Tue, 12. Dec 17, 00:10

mrbadger wrote:...Had I not been I might have been just as bad myself.
One of my best friends in college was severely dyslexic. Of course, he didn't find out until after he had already started college... He had to take the basic "English" course, "English 101," five times.

Five times.

He spent his entire freshman and sophomore years, practically, in "English 101." When students were studying great English Literature and writing "scholarly works" on why Madame Bovary was really a ****, he was struggling to write a coherent sentence. As a adult.. as an advanced "student" in college.

(Edit:Add - Wow, the forums have a "curse filter!" Who'da thunk it? I used a word that can mean something nasty, but it's also used to mean "jerk" or something like that. Never encountered that before, here. Kinda cool!)

(He had, btw, already passed the "099" course requirements, so they couldn't push him back to that "remedial" English class.)

But, he made it through and graduated. (Business) In fact, through those five times experiencing different approaches in trying to pass the same darn course, somehow he finally "got it." He then applied that experience to other classes and was largely successful.

Yes, like you he had to devote energy differently and more earnestly, in some situations, in order to accomplish what may have been easier for others. But, in finally succeeding, that experience served him well in future courses.

Related, but not directly:

I think every new student should be required to take a series of courses on "how to college/university" and "how to adult." I think they should be instructed how to apply cognitive-behavioral training to their own selves with an aim to improve themselves in both their study habits, being "responsible" people, and in successfully navigating the new world that they have been thrust into.

I think all new students, no matter what age they are or what course of study they're engaging in, should be required to take, attend, and "pass" these classes in order to better prepare themselves to be functioning adult human beings. :)

During such classes, qualified instructors need to examine the performance of students and be prepared to identify and assist those that are struggling, including those with disorders or issues that have, as of yet, failed to have been properly identified.

Post Reply

Return to “Off Topic English”