"But...but...you HAVE to help me!"

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

My second year in college, I had a guy in my biology class who asked me if I'd look over some of his work.

It was a hell of a fun class. We'd go on field trips for our labs, to places like a wind farm, a nuclear power plant, or just riding around the countryside in the school bus while the professor pointed out different land and soil formations to us. I'd BS with my classmates on the bus and have snacks and sodas and it was about the easiest A I ever got in college. Or we'd go out to the creek behind the building and test the water and look for critters or something. Then we would have to write an essay about what we learned or answer a bunch of questions (for the latter he'd want several complete sentences to answer each question thoroughly).

And here was my classmate turning in about one sentence for each question as his answer. Actually, I take that back. Sentences need a subject, a predicate, a noun and a verb, and many of his answers were missing one or more of those things.

Plus he never seemed to get the hang of when to use a period and when to use a comma.

Granted, this was just community college, but the sad thing is once I left there and moved on to a university, the quality of the writing from some of my classmates didn't get too much better.

[HawaiianShirts]

Yeah, I still don't understand those people who don't do anything required by an instructor (of any kind) and complain about a bad grade. I've heard some argue that, since they are paying for their education, they should get whatever grade they want, regardless of their attendance or classwork. One even tried likening it to going to a restaurant: "When you order a steak, you tell the server how you want it cooked, and they have to cook it that way because you're the one paying for the steak. College should work the same way."

This explains my interest in the classroom, since it absolutely infuriates me when I run into someone who, after the age of 10, still has problems with the "their, there, and they're" problem. Same goes for "to, two, and too" since mistakes like that tend to make me want to run towards the nearest living thing and kill it.

It's the rampant abuse of the innocent apostrophe that bothers me the most. It's becoming almost physically painful to see someone pluralize something with an apostrophe (as in: "Closed Saturday's") or, worse, stab one into a verb (as in: "He say's that all the time.").

In that same vein, I was in a class with a would-be middle school English teacher who, throughout the entire semester, never once used your or you're correctly and once asked me if the word season should be capitalized.

[KhirasHY]

In that same vein, I was in a class with a would-be middle school English teacher who, throughout the entire semester, never once used your or you're correctly and once asked me if the word season should be capitalized.

I think I'm going to cry...

[Hyndis]

I got this all the time during middle and high school. I'm always reading something for fun. Most of my classmates in the little hick town I lived in teased me over it, saying that I was only reading that Really Long Book because it made me "look smart". Or there was no way that I could have finished the reading assignment a week before it was due. Never mind that I read at a college level by the time I got to middle school.

I actually had a teacher take books away from me in school. I was in the 3rd or 4th grade and reading at the college level, thus, reading lengthy novels in the 500-700 page range. I was getting through these various books during breaks or lunch, and one of the teachers there saw me reading a full blown novel and took it away from me because it was too complicated for me to understand or some such nonsense.

[LadyAndreca]

I actually had a teacher take books away from me in school. I was in the 3rd or 4th grade and reading at the college level, thus, reading lengthy novels in the 500-700 page range. I was getting through these various books during breaks or lunch, and one of the teachers there saw me reading a full blown novel and took it away from me because it was too complicated for me to understand or some such nonsense.

When my family moved to Alabama, my parents met with my teachers before school started and specifically instructed them to take my books away if they caught me reading them. My teachers were absolutely horrified that any parent would suggest depriving a student with the desire to read and learn of their books, and scolded my parents for being so negligent with their daughter's education.

...until about halfway through my first year, when they FINALLY realized that if they didn't I wouldn't pay a lick of attention to their class if they didn't. (Well, unless they were teaching something I didn't know yet.)

My parents' response at the first teacher conference after that discovery was "We DID warn you..."

[JoitheArtist]

The girl who graduated as salutatorian in my high school owned no books, and never read anything if not for school.

Even my Sunday School teachers would sometimes make fun of me for knowing unusual verses or daring to have a thought that wasn't in their lesson plans. And most of them were teachers. I would pack huge books on trips, and answer questions hundreds of times about why I'd rather read than play some stupid game in the back of the bus.

Fortunately, my parents rock. We didn't have much money, but we were always buying used books and going to the library. And they never said anything was above my reading level--just assumed that if it was too hard I'd drop it on my own. We all had stacks of books piled around the house. Had a college reading level before age 11, and quickly learned how to entertain myself in classes because I almost always got done with the work before anyone else. Very rarely met anyone else who liked books and learning that much, but there was one funny incident in high school. I was sitting in a hallway at church one evening, happily engrossed in reading Atlas Shrugged. A guy I only barely knew passed by, looked at the cover of the book, pointed to me, and said, "Who is John Galt!" Then he just grinned and moved on.

One of my fav profs was a drawing/painting teacher, who took no nonsense from people. In fact, during basic drawing class freshman year, he got tired of people coming to class late, so at 5 minutes past the hour, he would simply lock the door and record the absences. Students learned to get to class on time.

[BroSCFischer]

I got this all the time during middle and high school. I'm always reading something for fun. Most of my classmates in the little hick town I lived in teased me over it, saying that I was only reading that Really Long Book because it made me "look smart".

[Threadjack]

1. My Favorite Novel - The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas Translated by Robin Buss. (Yes, I have a preferred translation)

Length 1071 pages (not including Preface and Footnotes) Unabridged.

Times read 5 or 6

2. When in Middle School (and sometimes to this day) I was somewhat known for reading and walking. And I don't mean pacing back and forth while reading, I mean reading and entire 50 page book on the walk home from school, including crossing streets. I stopped at every street, looked up, looked both ways, then nose in book again.

Can anyone tell that I love to read?

[/threadjack]

I just don't understand why people don't like reading. It never made any sense to me.

SC

[Tigress]

2. When in Middle School (and sometimes to this day) I was somewhat known for reading and walking. And I don't mean pacing back and forth while reading, I mean reading and entire 50 page book on the walk home from school, including crossing streets. I stopped at every street, looked up, looked both ways, then nose in book again.

I did/do that a lot as well.

I just don't understand why people don't like reading. It never made any sense to me.

Because people don't like engaging their brains, probably.

[JoitheArtist]

[Threadjack]
(Yes, I have a preferred translation)

*L* That's nothing, I have 2 preferred translations (Pinsky for emotion, Sayers for preserving the original rhyme scheme) of the Divine Comedy. And a favorite illustrator of it, as well (Dore.)

Oh, and another peeve: the number of times that people think the Inferno is the entirety of the Commedia, and don't believe me when I tell them about Purgatorio and Paradiso!!

*headdesk*

Sheesh.

*attempting to restrain further book-geekiness on her part*

[BroSCFischer]

Oh, and another peeve: the number of times that people think the Inferno is the entirety of the Commedia, and don't believe me when I tell them about Purgatorio and Paradiso!!

*headdesk*

Sheesh.

*attempting to restrain further book-geekiness on her part*

I must confess that until I read the Count, I didn't know about the other two parts of the Divine Comedie.

As for further book geekiness, I objected to some statements made about characters in the Count in the preface of Robin Buss' translation, and wrote a two page objection to it. Just because I wanted to, not for any class.

I freely confess to being weird. My trainer on the Night Audit looked at me weird for reading Mark Twain (see my sig.) for fun! You just can't beat the classics!

SC

[Filmwench]

[Threadjack]
2. When in Middle School (and sometimes to this day) I was somewhat known for reading and walking. And I don't mean pacing back and forth while reading, I mean reading and entire 50 page book on the walk home from school, including crossing streets. I stopped at every street, looked up, looked both ways, then nose in book again.

*raises hand* I used to do that too - hell, the only reason I don't anymore is because I have to walk home at night, through a dodgy neighborhood.

I got in trouble for reading in class when I was 8 years old - I used to read with a book on my lap, sneakily reading it under the desk. My teacher that year was awesome, and figured that so long as I kept getting A's in class, it really didn't matter. But he had to step in when I started doing it by pushing my chair back and resting my forehead on the desk (I couldn't help it, I was reading Jurassic Park, it was engrossing at the time - even if I did have to skip all the exposition-y bits about genetics because I didn't really understand them...). After a couple of days of that he just hollered "[Filmwench], if you're going to read in class, at least make it less obvious!"

[Jester]

I've been known to be a bit of a bookworm myself, though not so much this year. Hell, most people know that as soon as they walk in the front door into my library living room. And of course, like most of you, I got some grief and some confusion, and not just in school, either. When my friends and I would go to Mexico for a few days, in the morning, when everyone (including myself) would be recovering from their hangovers, I would be sitting there on the beach, reading.

Specifically, "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich."

You know, LIGHT reading.

One of my favorite English professors in history would tell every class that, if we failed to produce a satisfactory paper, we would be revising it until he felt it met his criteria. Several people left the class immediately, while I simply smiled and treated that statement as a direct challenge.

Of course, more than half of that class also failed, since he was considered the nightmare of the English department.

Oh man, you reminded me of one of my favorite teachers of all time, Big Mike P. I had him for high school chemistry, which was a junior-year course in that high school. I was a sophomore, and decided to take both biology and chemistry my sophomore year. The school agreed to let me, since they knew I could pull it off. Amusingly, there were only three non-juniors in the class: one dopey senior, myself, and the girl who just happened to be My First Big Crush, also a sophomore.

Well, Big Mike P (who was about my size, but called himself Big Mike) was hilarious. He told us from day one a few things:

1. In his 20 years of teaching, NO ONE had ever gotten a perfect score on any of his tests. I took this as a direct challenge. I didn't ever do it myself, but I DID come closer than anyone else ever had, thank you very much.

2. Anything we wrote on our book covers for that chapter would be fair game for use on the test. This quickly showed itself to be of very little to no use, considering the time we had for each test, for all but one chapter test, which was purely memorization of formulas and such.

3. If we did not like our test scores, we could take it again with just the multiple choice answer sheet, but no questions, to see if we could do better. Many people tried this route, and some actually improved their scores.

I often had the highest score in the class, vaguely annoying the juniors since I was "ruining the curve." (He DID grade on a curve, but I wasn't really ruining it.) My First Big Crush usually had the high score when I did not, and virtually always had the second highest score when I did. I felt kind of bad about the times my scores were higher, since she worked her ass off and was very smart, and I really didn't work all that hard, especially in that class.

For those of you who are wondering how tough this guy was, I'll use the final exam to demonstrate. For the final, we were allowed to use any and all book covers from the whole year. One person shrunk down each chapter to a book cover, so he basically had the whole book at his disposal. It didn't help. And it didn't take long for it to be come apparent that it didn't help. People started bailing on their book covers quickly, and some gave up on the question sheet altogether and filled in the multiple choice answer sheet randomly, praying for a passing grade. The two highest scores in the class, not surprising to anyone, were myself and MFBC. She had the second highest score, with 33 out of 75 right. I had the highest, with 50 out of 75. Yeah, THAT tough.

But Big Mike P was FUN. Half of each class we would go over that day's lesson, and the other half we would just sit there and bullshit about whatever, often vaguely sexual stuff. He was hilarious, and he took no shit from anyone, and even the people who would normally give him shit learned early on that it just wouldn't work. And he seemed to have a thing for, or get a bit bothered by, a girl who sat just in front of me, whose name was Tracey Sinn....and trust me when I say her looks fit her name, and I understood why she seemed to fluster him somewhat. She certainly fit her pornstar name!

Nope, I'll never forget Big Mike P. And I can't recall the names of most of my high school teachers, especially since I went to THREE high schools. Big Mike P was tough, but he was such a character!

There was a guy in my college freshman class who had a .2XX GPA. Yes, that decimal is in the right place. He was not in my sophomore class.

Dean Vernon Wormer: Mr. Dorfman?
Flounder: Hello!
Dean Vernon Wormer: Zero point two... Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, son.

"When you order a steak, you tell the server how you want it cooked, and they have to cook it that way because you're the one paying for the steak. College should work the same way."

And people wonder why the American educational system is in the crapper.......

[KhirasHY]

When my family moved to Alabama, my parents met with my teachers before school started and specifically instructed them to take my books away if they caught me reading them. My teachers were absolutely horrified that any parent would suggest depriving a student with the desire to read and learn of their books, and scolded my parents for being so negligent with their daughter's education.

...until about halfway through my first year, when they FINALLY realized that if they didn't I wouldn't pay a lick of attention to their class if they didn't. (Well, unless they were teaching something I didn't know yet.)

My parents' response at the first teacher conference after that discovery was "We DID warn you..."

I actually had a teacher take books away from me in school. I was in the 3rd or 4th grade and reading at the college level, thus, reading lengthy novels in the 500-700 page range. I was getting through these various books during breaks or lunch, and one of the teachers there saw me reading a full blown novel and took it away from me because it was too complicated for me to understand or some such nonsense.

Bless you...

I just don't understand why people don't like reading. It never made any sense to me.

There are some sad, sad people out there who just never had their imaginations nurtured, that's my theory anyway. To really enjoy a good book, you have to be able to live in that book's world...without an imagination, the words are nothing but symbols on a page. The world never exists for them, so they can never care enough to learn what lives there.

It saddens me.

[eltf177]

[Threadjack]

1. My Favorite Novel - The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas Translated by Robin Buss. (Yes, I have a preferred translation)SC

Read and reread THE THREE MUSKETEERS but not COUNT.

My favorite novel? GONE WITH THE WIND by Margaret Mitchell (over 1,000 pages!). Hate the movie though.

[LingualMonkey]

My father used to get on my case because I read science fiction when I should be spending more time reading the classics. One day, I realized that what he meant by "classic" was "book he liked from his generation." I also realized that I had read far more true classics than he had, and we stopped having that conversation. And while science fiction and good horror are still my first loves, I've recently (as in the last 3 months) re-read The Aeneid, The Odyssey, and The Illiad as well as Conrad's Lord Jim (which ROCKS).

I can't brag about favorite novel length, though. My favorite is High Rise by J.G. Ballard--it's about 150 pages.

My younger daughter is just on the cusp of learning to read (she's 5). My older one (she's 10) understands that at any given time, she's supposed to be somewhere in a book, and she reads a couple hundred pages every week.

A sad percentage of my students, when asked for their favorite book on the first day of class, respond with "I don't have a favorite book. I hate reading." However, I'm encouraged by the number who not only have a favorite book, they have a favorite book that's actually a great one. There's hope. Based on just this quarter, the reading public still outweighs the non-reading public.