Too Large
by Jay
Sunday, February 9, 2003 - 10:45 PM
This is the last comic having to
do with the beginning of the semester. I figure by the time
this gets placed in the school newspaper it will be one month since
we started the spring semester. One month is a little past my window
of opportunity for potential humor on any subject. As for the
topic, I'm not too fond of having large stadium classes. I'm
also not too fond of talking dinosaurs wearing blue sweaters but
that's beside the point. Being an art major, I have the luxury
of being in classes with as little as 5 people in them. In
fact, other than my core freshman drawing class, I haven't had more
than 12 people in any of my art classes. And most of the time
it's the same 12 people in each of my classes. This small
number of students gives teachers the opportunity to speak to each
individual and develop a relationship with him. In an
(liberal) art class this is almost required because every student
needs to develop their own individual style and that is rather hard
to accomplish when you're sitting in a stadium listening to a
teacher ramble on completely unaware of your existence. And
people wonder why so few students pass these large classes... I had
a rather small "stadium" class of 40 people once, and at the end of
the semester there was only 10 of us left, and I think only 6 of
those 10 passed the class. You won't find such a large failure
rate in art classes, for the most part if someone fails it is
because they just didn't do their work regardless of the teacher
trying to reach them. I know comparing science classes to art
classes is like comparing apples and oranges, but I think if you had
a science teacher who had an individual relationship with each
person in their class their would be a better passing/failing rate.
In fact I know it's true due to personal experience. I took a
biology class where the teacher held study sessions for anyone who
wanted help, and he even gave out his personal phone telling us to
call him when we needed help with the material. The class went
from 27 people failing the first test to only 3 people failing the
last test because of this, and I think almost everyone passed the
class in the end. On the other end of the spectrum I had a
class of around 100 people once, and due to certain events beyond my
control I was five minutes late coming to class one day.
Unfortunately, that was the day we turned in a take-home test.
I turned the test in after the lecture and when I got it back the
teacher had given me a zero for being late. My grade went from
a 98 to a 78 in five minutes. When I tried to talk to the
teacher he wouldn't even listen to me, he just didn't care that I
had other (band) obligations before his class that I couldn't avoid.
I ended up with a B in the class but to this day I'm still pissed
about the whole thing and I still don't like the teacher. Most
of my art teachers are quite understanding about personal
obligations and they wouldn't do something as harsh as that. And
that's why I prefer the small classes to the large impersonal
classes.
A special mention goes out to "The Mic" for his technical help in a
field I'm too lazy to enter. You keep on carving those rats
and I'll keep on drawing them...
- J, the caviling, puling art student
