2014 - another year starting with a coal break

The coal break has ended. A while ago. Let it be forgiven that the reckoning was delayed until now, but it took me some time to comprehend the things that happened in the last few days.


I owe a huge confession to my self and everyone.

I do not understand until this day why the notion of the coal break has been called into existence by the university, and I believe it to be an abysmally stupid idea to keep 24-25 degrees Celsius in buildings with modern heating controlled by computers (which, for me, who rather likes chill and is not that sunshine-and-palm-trees type - and who could drown all the little meteorologist girls in a spoonful of water who dare to say that a temperature over 30 degrees Celsius is "nice weather", as no, that is not nice for me, but rather hell itself - results in all-day discomfort), then shut the whole thing down for 2 weeks, and then neatly reheat everything to that good old 24 degrees.

Communicational discordances

By the end of the semester, interactions with the student get an accession, in both direct and indirect forms. I guess I'm coming up with nothing new here if I say that there usually is at least one student in every group who haven't said a word to the topic of the practical course throughout the semester, but now, under the pressure of the imminent end of the semester, they turn into eager little pupils, and seek every possible way of finding the answers to their questions. Even if their questions don't make any sense, and even if they have been answered ten times already, including the previous day.


In these cases, under the horrific pressure I've mentioned earlier, they have no time to think over what they sould express, and so, usually, as I have gently mentioned above, these are the things that usually happen when a desperate student starts to speak:

•  The question has already been answered - multiple times - but they didn't notice.
• They intend what they have to say to be funny, but it isn't. By far not.
• What makes what they have to say funny is that they are serious about the whole thing.
• As a whole, the question has no connection whatsoever to reality as we know it.

To create something? Hell no!

A funny thing happened to me during the semester.

 

I know that the dear students are often living in a pocket dimension of their own, quite remote to reality, where requirements are an endangered species, and everyone is on a big happy picnic on the meadow that is in the place of the deep dark forest which was cut to the ground, and even though it is Summer, they even heated with it out of rage, not to leave a single piece of it, as this was the former home of the evil requirements - no wonder they are on the brink of extinction.

However, they usually just give hidden, indirect signs of these romantic imaginations. For example, such is when it is written on their face, that they simply don't know what to do with the situation, when it turns out that no, the minimum score will not be decreased. Especially not because "pleeeease" or because "I started working at the end of the semester, now I know that it's important", or just because puppy dog eyes covered in tears, that's why.

Excuse Manager BA

It was absoultely no wonder that the previous posts  have been about responsibility shifters all the time. Namely, there's not just a lot of them, but also, their beliefs in their own unaccusableness and in the deepest possible guiltiness of the world are so steadfast, that in my opinion, a separate major should be started for them, like this:

Professor's Assessment

The following story is mostly a work of fiction. But afterwards, it will be easy to find out which two important details are true...

Somewhere, the arbitrary student of the arbitrary university opens his little gummy eyes one morning, and thuds down in front of his computer. And after logging in, what greets him is a message in the educational administration system. A message, that crookedly infiltrates his private space, and demands immediate answers, declarations, and forming of opinions from him.

Why not?

As I've already mentioned in the previous post,when problems emerge concerning the accomplishment of a subject, most people are characterized by a search for scapegoats, pompousness, or an arbitrary linear combination of the two. I just want to picture the things I've mentioned there with a story determinant for me, so as to stick to the swampy ground of reality, not restricting to theory.

It's not even about a test, just being a tiny bit late for class. Yes, just a tiny bit, about 40 minutes. So, let us imagine that a young man with a moderately convincing face falls into class on a practical course - just to clarify, this wasn't in a computer room or such, but in a regular laboratory, with all the tubes and everything, so the experiments carried out in class are cannot really be started with a delay, as the chemical reactions would hang out of schedule, at least as far as I know.

When the professor mentioned the above facts, and also expressed his interest in the causes of the difficulties of arrival, he received the following reply: "It's been a long night."

Excuses & Point Hunters

...if I got to mention retake tests...  there's always that student, who hopes until the very end, and even after that. He/she has the time, why rush?

There will be a retake test? Then it's enough to prepare for that, the first test is just an ornament.

Will there be a retake test?

The situation is the following: without lengthily stating my motivation or explaining embarassingly long how I got here, I'll just put it simple, like in those movies with an "in medias res" beginning, where the picture comes to a halt and the main character starts his narration.

If you teach at a university, startling things may happen to you every day. The most of these events can be connected to the students. When a student turns to his/her professor, usually the requirements of the given course - and within that, the possible decreases of the requirements - are the topic. This is where the title comes from. (The original title of the blog, "Lesz pótZH?", was translated into the title of this post.) To put things graphically:

I gather conclusions such as this, and experiences connected to them day by day - even though I wish to refrain from making generalizations, and writing off all of the students.

So, when you teach at a university, startling things may happen to you every day. And I have come to think that I cannot contain it all in my head anymore. So, to be continued, with conclusions, cutting comments, sniffing around system-level faults, and from time to time, with thought-provoking and / or entertaining actual events that happened.

Announcement

I'm just letting you know, that from this day on, the blog ceremoniously begins its journey to bilingualism, and thus begins my ambitious experiment to break down the language barrier. With this, I am trying to avoid such awkward situations:

The options for switching between languages are on the top of the right side menu. The translations of the previous posts will be continually uploaded.