Tuesday, March 11, 2008
We have all been there before. Sitting in an auditorium class where 300 to 400 students are sleeping, doing the Sudoku or crossword puzzle, and minds are drifting away from the subject being taught.
An hour, maybe an hour and 15 minutes drift by, and then you suddenly snap when the teacher says there will be a quiz next time on this lecture.
You try to recall what he or she was even talking about. You go in panic mode but later realize that you have your usually dreaded discussion session of the course. You breathe a sigh of relief and, under your breath, whisper, “Thank God for the TA’s.”
Teaching assistants, perhaps an under-appreciated group of people, are there to save the day when your inattentiveness consumes most of your class time. If I had $5 for every time a teacher said I was inattentive, I would have about $100, but the point is that my mind tends to wander into the great beyond during class. With this thought in mind, I recite my silent ode to the TA’s.
I’m glad you are here to help me learn about the uninteresting topics that I don’t care about, and I’m glad that you understand that because you were in my shoes maybe only five years ago, perhaps with a disinterest in a different subject.
I’m glad that you make a hard and honest effort to get me to learn the subjects at hand so that I won’t get hindered by a subject that is not even related to my selected major.
I’m glad that someone who knows what I’m going through and can really relate to me will guide me through these perilous times of mind-boggling algebraic formulas and the ever-changing lines made up in a graph for supply and demand in economics.
I’m glad that you can speak with the students directly, practically face-to-face, and discuss the matters at hand. It feels like a friend who will not quit until you understand the subject.
Granted, all of you TA’s haven’t been so kind. There have been some of you who have been short with me and the rest of the class.
In doing so, you have only goaded us to not listen to you and to ignore the subject altogether. It doesn’t, seem that you hold the student’s intelligence high in regard to your teaching methods.
By doing this, you are only crippling yourself, seeing as how you are making yourself an incapable teacher to the majority of the students.
For the most part, I can’t complain. Many of you T.A.’s have been understanding, insightful, and, thankfully, humorous. You are actually able to retain our attention and, in time, our respect and admiration.
May you carry this on as you become a teacher or professor and are able to enlighten young minds into learning.
Brown is a Lee’s Summit, Mo., junior in journalism.
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