Quarter Life Crisis

The world according to Sven-S. Porst

« Subpixel Anti-Aliasing Follow-UpMainSexist Shopping »

Stress Testing

244 words on

Sometimes you just have to wonder… Our freshers had to take a litte exam. Not really an exam, but more of an easy half-hour test just to keep them stressed enough to actually revise a little and keep up.

I’m not sure whether they actually revised, but at least the stress aspect worked. I was quite surprised to see people turn up for this with loads of pens and mountains of chocolate to get themselves through those thirty minutes. I was even more surprised that there are people who are on their second or third attempt to pass the course and who were really stressed by this. Even if maths is just their second subject for becoming a teacher, how can they possibly come out of this as a good teacher? Won’t they become the teachers who ruin maths for their pupils?

With all the ‘stress’ the irony is of course that classes (and probably any uni course) are operated on a ‘Don’t be Evil’ policy. Nobody wants the students to fail and they get all the help they want if only they care. And at least the students I am teaching heard me tell them quite explicitly that they should really know this or that definition when exams are coming. Most of them took the hint, it seems. Just one of them let me know that he didn’t but he revised them after the test. Which, I suppose, does the job as well.

November 27, 2007, 10:32

Tagged as uni.

Add your comment

« Subpixel Anti-Aliasing Follow-UpMainSexist Shopping »

Comments on

Photos

Categories

Me

This page

Out & About

pinboard Links

People

Ego-Linking