People like to talk shit
Today I was having coffee minding my own business when the table next to me were loudly discussing their students (i'm assuming they're college lecturers) They were ridiculing their students and carried on to complain about their bosses who are so stern and don't seem to understand why their class isn't performing.
I was kinda pissed off halfway into the conversation.
Education to me is a very serious topic. There is no other job in the world imo which is more important than educating the younger generation who will be the leaders of tomorrow. Listening to these "lecturers" talk made me so frustrated at the current state of our tertiary education system. We have so few truly good professors left in this country.
To be honest, I myself have fallen victim to this sort of "lecturers". But i've always regarded tertiary education as a privilege and did not feel self-entitled to be taught everything. Where lecturers fall short, I fill in the blanks and learnt on my own.
UNFORTUNATELY, not everybody has the same study style as I have. Not everybody is as self-motivating. And that is what university professors and lecturers are for! For guidance for goodness sake.
But what do these group of lecturers do in their spare time? Gather for coffee and gossip loudly about how stupid students are these days and how lazy they are? Lamenting on how in the "good old days" they would never behave like that?
I think sometimes people tend to forget that the simplest form of learning is mimicry. Have educators considered that students mimic what is demonstrated to them? Have these educators considered the true impact of the "unwritten" curriculum as opposed to the one they read off the start of each semester?
I expect college lecturers and professors to be of a higher social strata than mere gossipers like this group. I felt it was very unbecoming of them to ridicule an underperforming class when they should be auditing their own work and wondering why students are not learning course material as well compared to peers.
A bit of self-reflection is indeed called for.
It goes back to my original doctrine that if you are dispassionate about what you do, you're not just doing yourself injustice but also to those who have the misfortune to come within your line of work!
And in the case of Medicine and Education, the result could be catastrophic and longer lasting than everyday jobs.
When my chance comes to take on an educating role, may this conversation burn brightly in my mind to remind myself of the person I never want to become. Regardless the circumstance.
I was kinda pissed off halfway into the conversation.
Education to me is a very serious topic. There is no other job in the world imo which is more important than educating the younger generation who will be the leaders of tomorrow. Listening to these "lecturers" talk made me so frustrated at the current state of our tertiary education system. We have so few truly good professors left in this country.
To be honest, I myself have fallen victim to this sort of "lecturers". But i've always regarded tertiary education as a privilege and did not feel self-entitled to be taught everything. Where lecturers fall short, I fill in the blanks and learnt on my own.
UNFORTUNATELY, not everybody has the same study style as I have. Not everybody is as self-motivating. And that is what university professors and lecturers are for! For guidance for goodness sake.
But what do these group of lecturers do in their spare time? Gather for coffee and gossip loudly about how stupid students are these days and how lazy they are? Lamenting on how in the "good old days" they would never behave like that?
I think sometimes people tend to forget that the simplest form of learning is mimicry. Have educators considered that students mimic what is demonstrated to them? Have these educators considered the true impact of the "unwritten" curriculum as opposed to the one they read off the start of each semester?
I expect college lecturers and professors to be of a higher social strata than mere gossipers like this group. I felt it was very unbecoming of them to ridicule an underperforming class when they should be auditing their own work and wondering why students are not learning course material as well compared to peers.
A bit of self-reflection is indeed called for.
It goes back to my original doctrine that if you are dispassionate about what you do, you're not just doing yourself injustice but also to those who have the misfortune to come within your line of work!
And in the case of Medicine and Education, the result could be catastrophic and longer lasting than everyday jobs.
When my chance comes to take on an educating role, may this conversation burn brightly in my mind to remind myself of the person I never want to become. Regardless the circumstance.
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