Student "edition" found at {csi dot journalspace dot com}.

Maybe I shouldn't have started this blog now, not with everything that's been going on.

During the finals of my Introduction to Electricity and Magnetism class, there were still some students who were not clear on what they were supposed to do even though we already had sample solutions during their last week of lectures, and at that time I specifically said that this would exactly be the types of problems I would be giving for the finals.

Since eighty percent of the students there were repeaters (that I failed last term), I did not hesitate in telling them the part which was just like when I berated them during a similar exam them last term, with people coming up to me asking me if these two resistors were in series or in parallel or whether a point was a node or not – basic concepts that showed me they didn’t study or review the samples beforehand.

What’s funny is that last time, I prefaced my announcement with an apology, telling them I was sorry but I will have to include the topic again in their next exam, because they were indicating to me – even before I checked the papers - that they had not mastered the topic.

Just like with my ultimatum with a certain student last term (only this one mention) that I could not give him a crucial formula needed to complete the solution for one problem in his test because he just showed me the limit of his capability, and that he would be graded on that.

If I gave him the equation he was asking for, I would end up scoring him on MY knowledge, and on what he had not bothered to study.

I don’t know if this is the method that they are being taught in their high schools nowadays (their teachers then letting them ask fundamental questions during the exams so they feel no need to study much anymore) which is why they carry it into their college years.

The teacher may be their friend ninety nine percent of the time helping them out at every turn, but during the exam, the teacher is their enemy, and will be dispassionately observing them on how much they have absorbed and paid attention outside that one percent.

Session 1445 assumed the teacher will be helpful a hundred percent of the time. Class dismissed.