English Major Hack
This entry is tl;dr bo-ring me ranting about Anatomy I class, so instead, why don't you LOL at some RP inside(ish) jokes?
One of the downsides of having a recent grad as a teacher is that she's presenting the material as she would study it. I'm getting a sense of how she did it: drill, drill, drill.
She's saying "it's all memorization" about the anatomy thing, but I just can't agree with that. It's not just memorization. I know it isn't. The only non-psych science class I ever did spectacularly in was Freshman year biology, wherein our teacher would make awful jokes and go off on tangents. Of course all teachers don't have to be entertainers, and a whole lot of them just can't be. But those weren't just jokes and stories. They were left-brain learning devices.
But back to Anatomy I.
When given a bunch of abstract concepts to memorize - the derp is located in the derpina and there are three Herpsections of the derpina, the Derp the Herp and the Derpherple - you may as well be taking pictures of alphabet soup and saying "memorize how these are put together." Er... wait, what?
"I know it's difficult, but you just have to memorize it, guys" she said to us apologetically.
But it's just not true! I know it isn't!
When I'm on my own, I look up the etymology of the word if I don't know it. I draw pictures and label them. Sometimes I even look at youtube videos and then it's not just memorizing a bunch of theoretical words.
And why shouldn't we be doing it like that? This isn't Shoggoth anatomy, you guys. We all Have Goddamned bodies.
Tonight was a perfect example.
In class: "The ventral cavity of the body has three cavities. The thoracic, abdominal, and pelvic. The thoracic cavity has three parts. Mediasteinum, Pleural cavity, Pericardial cavity" Write it down and memorize it, you guys. Use flash cards if you need to.
DULL
DRY
I could not understand a fecking word I was writing.
I go home and look at the pictures and draw some. I wrote it out on my new whiteboard. I go to the etymology dictionary and learn that "Mediasteinum" is Greek for roughly "middle passage". It's the space between the two lungs. Pleura is the side of the body or the rib. Pleural cavity is where the ribs are. Peri = around (Perenium; Parietal, which means wall) Cardial = heart.
And all of a sudden, I don't feel like have a shaky grasp on this information and I'm going to have to just hold it in my arms and pray none of it falls out of my hands before the test. I feel like I've lived it. The teacher's like "here, don't spill this" giving us a cup of water. She says "now the best way to do this is to hold it perfectly above your head and don't move and just keep making sure it's on top of your head".
And I'm like... "Yeah, I'm gonna go ahead and drink this water so my cells can retain it." And why not? We're going to use the water anyway. Either that or it'll evaporate.
One of the downsides of having a recent grad as a teacher is that she's presenting the material as she would study it. I'm getting a sense of how she did it: drill, drill, drill.
She's saying "it's all memorization" about the anatomy thing, but I just can't agree with that. It's not just memorization. I know it isn't. The only non-psych science class I ever did spectacularly in was Freshman year biology, wherein our teacher would make awful jokes and go off on tangents. Of course all teachers don't have to be entertainers, and a whole lot of them just can't be. But those weren't just jokes and stories. They were left-brain learning devices.
But back to Anatomy I.
When given a bunch of abstract concepts to memorize - the derp is located in the derpina and there are three Herpsections of the derpina, the Derp the Herp and the Derpherple - you may as well be taking pictures of alphabet soup and saying "memorize how these are put together." Er... wait, what?
"I know it's difficult, but you just have to memorize it, guys" she said to us apologetically.
But it's just not true! I know it isn't!
When I'm on my own, I look up the etymology of the word if I don't know it. I draw pictures and label them. Sometimes I even look at youtube videos and then it's not just memorizing a bunch of theoretical words.
And why shouldn't we be doing it like that? This isn't Shoggoth anatomy, you guys. We all Have Goddamned bodies.
Tonight was a perfect example.
In class: "The ventral cavity of the body has three cavities. The thoracic, abdominal, and pelvic. The thoracic cavity has three parts. Mediasteinum, Pleural cavity, Pericardial cavity" Write it down and memorize it, you guys. Use flash cards if you need to.
DULL
DRY
I could not understand a fecking word I was writing.
I go home and look at the pictures and draw some. I wrote it out on my new whiteboard. I go to the etymology dictionary and learn that "Mediasteinum" is Greek for roughly "middle passage". It's the space between the two lungs. Pleura is the side of the body or the rib. Pleural cavity is where the ribs are. Peri = around (Perenium; Parietal, which means wall) Cardial = heart.
And all of a sudden, I don't feel like have a shaky grasp on this information and I'm going to have to just hold it in my arms and pray none of it falls out of my hands before the test. I feel like I've lived it. The teacher's like "here, don't spill this" giving us a cup of water. She says "now the best way to do this is to hold it perfectly above your head and don't move and just keep making sure it's on top of your head".
And I'm like... "Yeah, I'm gonna go ahead and drink this water so my cells can retain it." And why not? We're going to use the water anyway. Either that or it'll evaporate.