MY PROFESSOR RECENTLY FOUND OUT THAT I WASN’T showing up in class. She knew it when she checked the examination papers and found one name unfamiliar to her. So one Monday morning, she summoned me to her office for a grilling.
I was more than prepared. The whole weekend, in between playing dota and checking my email, I had already studied my arguments and rehearsed my lines. I had to. I couldn’t allow myself to lose by not standing up for what I believe is right.
When I walked into her room, I was very confident. She was sitting at the end of the table and had her eyes and mind focused on her laptop. Four guys, a gang of student assistants, were gathered at the other end, busy in a half-serious discussion.
I walked closer to my professor and after greeting her, I handed my Form 5.
“When was the last time you were in class?” she demanded to know.
“Sorry I can’t remember, miss,” I answered
“Do you think not coming to class is helping you?”
“Of course not, but I don’t think attending your class is helping me either.”
“Why don’t you attend classes?”
“I get bored by listening to you, miss.”
That’s it, boredom. If I were to ditribute the blame, some of it would go to me, some would go to my teacher, and the rest would go to boredom. Had boredom not sat right next to me as I listened to this professor’s lectures, I wouldn’t have made so many unexplained disappearances from class.
But boredom loves my company. He accompanies me whenever the professors, who wowed me with thier poise and fluent speeches during seminars last semester, greet me in class in thier monotonous and fractured English.
Boredom always makes me lie down in sleepy pastures when I expect my teachers to help me understand the theories and jargons and they fail to do so during the two-and-a half-hour lectures.
One time, this professor called two students to the front of the class. She let the first guy walk straight toward me, and the other guy to my right. Then she asked me where the second guy moved. I answered that it was to my right. she asked the first guy where the same motion brought the second guy. She said it was further to her left.
I know our professor was trying to to demonstarte concept of relative motion, but even that knowledge made me wonder if it was worth the effort. I was left with the question of whether it really added anything to what I already Knew.
All these many years that boredom has been my seatmate, we have never understood why many lectures in school don’t make man more human. Could it be because in a difficult science course like physics, you don’t talk about being human and you only discuss how the physical world behaves and what makes it behave that way? And of course, it excludes such issues like what makes you bored and why you get bored.
All these years that bordom and i have kept each other company and after putting up with so many tiring classes and teachers, we have lost our appetite for attending classes. So instead of falling asleep in a chair in front of my teacher, I chose not show up in class and I fall asleep instead in a comfortable bed inside my own room. Anyway, our more comfortable home does not run out of things to learn. I can read the airline magazine and plan a trip for the semestral break, drown myself in YouTube videos, chat with british in Skype, write my blog, and do a dozen other interesting things. At least during such times, there is no professor, no boredom, and relative motion demo to piss me off even if the real subject is math.
“You can’t be absent again,” my professor was telling me.
“I won’t, miss,” I promised. ” But we have to make a deal. You can be less boring, and I can be more attentive”.
“No,” she told me firmly. “It’s up to you.”
She wouldn’t compromise. If I attended her class and did not learn anything, it’s because I did not pay more attention. If I came and mastered the subject, it’s because I listened to her, studied hard, or simply I have the aptitude for math.
The truth is, it’s never up to the students alone. My professor has forgotten that learning is a give-and-take process, one that must be driven by interest and not by the sorry consequences of not learning. A student can always come to class, but that doesn’t guarantee fruitful results.
I have been attending classes since last week. I have managed to do it by scaring myself that failing to atted her class won’t help me have a better future, and assuring myself that my professor would take a 180-degree turn from dull to remarkable.
But back in class, I quickly realized that boredom is not my problem alone. Several classmate of mine have the same problem. After a few moments of pretending to be interested in the day’s lesson, they find themselves half-concious on thier desks. To protest the torture, I do the same thing.
If only my professor could be more dynamic by delivering a two-and-a half hour lecture and wrapping it up by confession “I lied” the class would surely come wide awake and walk out of the room with a smile. If she could have more passion and stop mouthing many things all at the same time, if she could impress the class by doing somersaults, wearing costumes, or making faces, if she would invite another teacher to show her how to do it. Im sure everyone in class would perfom better.
In the meantime, I continue to console myself with thought that my professor, just like me, might be bored as well. And that one day soon, I might see her with her mouth wide open, her eyeballs all white and her head slumped forward on her table. On that day, I am sure my classmates will join me in waging war against boring teachers. And the world will no longer waste away in boredom.
