Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Confessions of a doubtless mind

"Sir, I've a doubt...."
"Very good question, Mr. XYZ"
A very common scenario in a typical classroom. We can classify a classroom of students into two broad categories: students who frequently raise doubts/questions during lectures and those who don’t ask any doubts or questions – let’s call them - Doubtless Species. We can classify this second category of students or the doubtless species further into two categories: the ones who have doubts in their minds but they hesitate to raise their questions in front of the whole class and the ones who don't even have doubts in their minds – sheer doubtless minds! 

These doubtless minds can again be classified further into two categories: the ones who don’t understand what is being taught in the lecture and the ones who understand most of what is being taught in the lecture, but questions simply refuse to pop up in their minds. In my opinion, asking questions in the classroom is an art in itself. One doesn't need to understand the topic being discussed in the classroom to ask questions or doubts. One of my friends used to take several naps during most of the lectures. But after getting up from the naps (due to some disturbances such as a piece of chalk thrown at him by the prof), he would always have a question or two ready to ask to the prof, many-a-times getting the very-good-question compliment. I wonder if he dreamt of the topic being discussed while napping. However, there’s a special category of students who, instead of asking questions, observe the behavior of students in the classroom and then write blogs on that. Which category do you fall into, eh?