Dumbing of Age Book Twelve

Dumbing of Age

A college webcomic by David Willis
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June 24, 2026

Studier

by David M Willis on April 17, 2015 at 12:01 am
  • 03 - The Butterflies Won't Fly Away
└ Tags: mike, walky

Discussion (153) ¬

[ Comments RSS ]
  1. DarkoNeko
    DarkoNeko
    April 17, 2015 at 12:01 am | #

    [general announcement]

    Y’know, I’ve noticed the comment section ambiance has been kinda… cranky, recently.

    So if you feel the urge to go on a rant on one character or the other, PLEASE, remember : this is “dumbing of age”.

    Every characters will do dumb things sometimes.
    It’s in the title.

    • Van Dyne
      Van Dyne
      April 17, 2015 at 12:03 am | #

      Dumbing Dumbing dumbing dumbing….

      when you say the word a lot it kind of loses its meaning.

      • Rich
        Rich
        April 17, 2015 at 7:51 am | #

        Dab dab dab

    • MM
      MM
      April 17, 2015 at 12:03 am | #

      You realize if Mike were in the comment section, he’d eat you alive right now, right?

      • DarkoNeko
        DarkoNeko
        April 17, 2015 at 12:07 am | #

        I’m taking my chances 😀

        (speaking of Mike, woah, the avatar just above Oo)

      • John
        John
        April 17, 2015 at 12:07 am | #

        Really Mike would say what DarkoNeko said, what better way to sow discord than by telling cranky people they shouldn’t be cranky?

        • DarkoNeko
          DarkoNeko
          April 17, 2015 at 12:12 am | #

          Damn, there goes my secret plan.

    • HeinousActsZX
      HeinousActsZX
      April 17, 2015 at 12:37 am | #

      “why doesn’t this character always act perfectly logically 100% of the time I always do harga blarga blarga”

      Am I doing it right?

      • Disloyal Subject
        Disloyal Subject
        April 17, 2015 at 4:56 am | #

        It IS fun to dissect motives sometimes, though.

        • Rich
          Rich
          April 17, 2015 at 8:17 am | #

          Dissection is fine. When it gets to vivisection without benefit of anesthesia that may be going too far.

          • Torechwen
            Torechwen
            April 17, 2015 at 9:10 am | #

            Ouch. Quite a picture.

    • Tenn
      Tenn
      April 17, 2015 at 5:26 pm | #

      You are not Jen Aside and so I do not trust you.

      😛

  2. Nono
    Nono
    April 17, 2015 at 12:02 am | #

    Boy, Walky sure is smart, putting his nose to the grindstone!

    And that Mike sure is helpful, pointing out Walky could use more progress in his studying!

    • JessWitt
      JessWitt
      April 17, 2015 at 12:15 am | #

      I imagine “nose to the grindstone” came to be an expression from a hilariously dumb accident.

      • Safgaftsa
        Safgaftsa
        April 17, 2015 at 12:34 am | #

        It involved Galasso.

      • Bill
        Bill
        April 17, 2015 at 1:14 am | #

        Keep your shoulder to the wheel, your ear to the ground, your eye on the ball, and your nose to the grindstone.
        Now try working in that position.

        • HiEv
          HiEv
          April 17, 2015 at 7:50 pm | #

          OK, OK, I’m putting my foot down before this gets out of hand.

      • Rycan
        Rycan
        April 17, 2015 at 1:27 am | #

        I prefer not to think about it. That would be gruesome.

    • Tenn
      Tenn
      April 17, 2015 at 5:28 pm | #

      Get up, get out, you lazy lout,
      Get into your working clothes!
      Up to your knees in oil and grease
      And a grindstone to your nose!

  3. Kernanator
    Kernanator
    April 17, 2015 at 12:02 am | #

    Oh, hey there me.

    How are you doing?

  4. Stephen Bierce
    Stephen Bierce
    April 17, 2015 at 12:02 am | #

    Metadata is very important, especially now! If you don’t respect it, it will end you.

    • Doctor_Who
      Doctor_Who
      April 17, 2015 at 12:05 am | #

      This amuses me because I work for a company that sells college textbooks, and I’m currently writing software that will look up metadata automatically online, because some of our sources think Title and Price are all the customer needs, so why send us anything else?

      “Durr, Edition? Why would college students ever need to know what edition this is?”

      • Bagge
        Bagge
        April 17, 2015 at 12:07 am | #

        If someone tried to sell me a textbook without telling me the edition I would assume it was an older edition and they try to pull one over me.

        • Bagge
          Bagge
          April 17, 2015 at 12:08 am | #

          Well, shame on me – Walky would never be fooled like that

          • Yet_One_More_Idiot
            Yet_One_More_Idiot
            April 17, 2015 at 5:16 am | #

            You know you’re old when….current students’ text books were printed closer to the present day then to when you left school. 😛

            • Rich
              Rich
              April 17, 2015 at 7:56 am | #

              You know you’re old when…you have an electronics textbook that spends two chapters on rotary phone technology.

              • Deanatay
                Deanatay
                April 17, 2015 at 9:25 am | #

                Actually, engineering students should learn about rotary phones, it’s a pretty neat engineering trick.

                • Rich
                  Rich
                  April 17, 2015 at 10:58 am | #

                  Tue, but two chapters still seems a bit much, barring some kind of “history of technology” course. One of them also deals with 1940’s era switchboard operations, which is kind of nifty but really not very useful these days.

                • Khrene
                  Khrene
                  April 17, 2015 at 11:50 am | #

                  But without extensive knowledge on 40’s tech, how am I supposed to make Folk-Swing Dubstep???

                • Rich
                  Rich
                  April 17, 2015 at 4:39 pm | #

                  Interesting concept. I would pay good money to see someone DJ using a modified old-fashioned manual switchboard to switch between tracks. The tech could probably be made compatible – different “phone lines” feeding different speakers, etc.

              • Opus the Poet
                Opus the Poet
                April 17, 2015 at 12:49 pm | #

                You know you’re old when you have an electronics textbook with several chapters on tube circuits. And 8 bit computers.

                • Yet_One_More_Idiot
                  Yet_One_More_Idiot
                  April 17, 2015 at 8:06 pm | #

                  My school lent us science textbooks that said copyright 1975. Wouldn’t have been so bad if I was at school in the 70s, but given I was born in 1982, well you can do the maths…! 😛

            • Ex_Ian
              Ex_Ian
              April 17, 2015 at 12:44 pm | #

              That happens at 3 years. New editions come fast and furious.

              • fogel
                fogel
                April 18, 2015 at 5:57 pm | #

                Otherwise students could use used textbooks ….

  5. otusasio451
    otusasio451
    April 17, 2015 at 12:02 am | #

    He is Captain W: The Study Master!

    • Deanatay
      Deanatay
      April 17, 2015 at 9:25 am | #

      Captain Study McStudly!

  6. Kris
    Kris
    April 17, 2015 at 12:02 am | #

    Study study study….it has lost its meaning! ö_ö

    • John
      John
      April 17, 2015 at 12:08 am | #

      Now it sounds like something I should say to myself while trying to balance a unicycle on a rope.

      • awkweirdness
        awkweirdness
        April 17, 2015 at 12:12 am | #

        While juggling bananas of course!

    • fogel
      fogel
      April 17, 2015 at 12:14 am | #

      Вот большевиков говорить! Сам Ленин сказал: Учиться, учиться и учиться “.

      • Kris
        Kris
        April 17, 2015 at 12:39 am | #

        Hey! I stuck this in translate and now feel inclined to learn Russian! Maybe Lenin was right! Thanks! 😀

  7. Felent
    Felent
    April 17, 2015 at 12:03 am | #

    Poor dude.

    • Kris
      Kris
      April 17, 2015 at 12:11 am | #

      I don’t feel bad for him. The answer is so easy! Dorothy Walky. Fricken ask her!

      • Rycan
        Rycan
        April 17, 2015 at 1:32 am | #

        That won’t help his test grades, however. Dorothy can’t take his tests for him (and wouldn’t even if she could).

        • Kris
          Kris
          April 17, 2015 at 1:39 am | #

          Studying. She can definitly help him with that. If that doesn’t improve his test score then I don’t know what will.

          • John
            John
            April 17, 2015 at 1:50 am | #

            Going to class?

            • No Name
              No Name
              April 17, 2015 at 3:04 am | #

              Yeah, well, the way Professor Rees teaches, all that will accomplish is telling him what to study.

              • Nono
                Nono
                April 17, 2015 at 8:59 am | #

                That’s how Jason tutors, we don’t know how Rees lectures.

                • Rich
                  Rich
                  April 17, 2015 at 1:14 pm | #

                  Badly, according to Penny. She and Jason had an exchange about how Rees is awful at teaching and how teaching didn’t matter anyway.

            • Kamino Neko
              Kamino Neko
              April 17, 2015 at 10:45 am | #

              When have we been given any indication that Walky doesn’t go to class?

              • No Name
                No Name
                April 17, 2015 at 12:24 pm | #

                He skipped once after his night with Dorothy. I don’t think he’s done it since, but if it weren’t for that 26 he got on the test he took the day after he skipped class, he might have done it again.

              • John
                John
                April 17, 2015 at 7:02 pm | #

                February 28th, 2014, aka Monday.

                • Kamino Neko
                  Kamino Neko
                  April 19, 2015 at 9:46 am | #

                  Missing one class and discovering that he can actually do that without getting yelled at is not the same thing as skipping classes with any regularity.

                  In fact, we see him in class immediately after his epiphany.

  8. A Scientist
    A Scientist
    April 17, 2015 at 12:03 am | #

    This boy needs study buddies.

    • DarkoNeko
      DarkoNeko
      April 17, 2015 at 12:27 am | #

      Joyce ! Definitly not Dorothy. Well, not until she accidentally discover the truth

  9. Plasma Mongoose
    Plasma Mongoose
    April 17, 2015 at 12:04 am | #

    Is STUDY STUDY STUDY the new WHORES WHORES WHORES?

    • DarkoNeko
      DarkoNeko
      April 17, 2015 at 12:11 am | #

      BROS BROS BROS BROS ?

    • Smiling Cat
      Smiling Cat
      April 17, 2015 at 3:20 am | #

      At least since Golden Boy…

      • Plasma Mongoose
        Plasma Mongoose
        April 17, 2015 at 9:10 am | #

        Not sure hugging toilets would help Walky in any way… 😀

  10. Spencer
    Spencer
    April 17, 2015 at 12:04 am | #

    There’s already too much Mike in this arc.

    • Cerberus
      Cerberus
      April 17, 2015 at 2:28 pm | #

      Heh. Yeah, he’s being actually pretty nice (for Mike) so far, just pointing out what isn’t working rather than undermining Walky’s self-esteem.

  11. Vex Godglove
    Vex Godglove
    April 17, 2015 at 12:04 am | #

    I sympathize with Walky. I breezed through high school and freshman year of college just by being smart, I never learned how to study. Once I got into the second half of uni, it came back to bite mibin the ass. Still don’t know how to do it, I just have to get by on what I absorb naturally.

    • TheLurkerAbove
      TheLurkerAbove
      April 17, 2015 at 12:16 am | #

      Yea, sorta hit me too, but before university. Walky’s learning it rather late, so he’s going to really struggle here.

    • Regalli
      Regalli
      April 17, 2015 at 12:18 am | #

      Ditto. I at least make up for it by absorbing a LOT by nature, but when I get in over my head I usually don’t recognize how bad it is until it’s way too late. (Particularly since you’re supposed to, like, pace yourself in writing papers and the like, and I can really only write maybe a sentence in a whole day or ten pages in one sitting with no in-between, but I’m a strong enough writer that I still don’t score below 84 unless something’s gone really wrong. End result? I routinely get gripped with anxiety and paralysis the day before a paper’s due because I didn’t work on it until then, and end up finally starting working on it right around 10 PM. When fear of the deadline stopped being enough to get through the fear of failure last year, I kind of completely shut down and had to finish two classes I objectively should have withdrawn from well before I realized I needed to and couldn’t.)

      • Disloyal Subject
        Disloyal Subject
        April 17, 2015 at 5:03 am | #

        Ah… My brethren.
        I did learn how to study, since the schools kind of forced it on us, but I hardly ever need to, so I rarely bother until I’m forced to notice that something has somehow gone horribly wrong, rather like Wally here.

      • Eyebrow
        Eyebrow
        April 17, 2015 at 9:02 am | #

        It’s so good to know you’re not alone. 10pm to 4am before the deadline.

    • podian
      podian
      April 17, 2015 at 6:38 am | #

      Same here. First year of uni, and I suddenly discover that I actually have to study stuff…

      • DarkoNeko
        DarkoNeko
        April 17, 2015 at 7:27 am | #

        A pretty cringy for a lot of us, it seems ^^;

    • Govanator
      Govanator
      April 17, 2015 at 9:09 am | #

      I’ve almost finished my degree and I *still* don’t know how to study. By this point, I doubt I’ll ever learn properly.

    • fogel
      fogel
      April 18, 2015 at 6:02 pm | #

      See how wonderful the American high school system is!!!!

  12. Bagge
    Bagge
    April 17, 2015 at 12:05 am | #

    Study the SHIT out of that page.

    This is kinda like a cargo cult. He doesn’t know HOW to study but he knows that people who do it spend lots of time reading books, so Walky develops the general mannerism without understanding the true mechanics behind it.

    • MeghanTheWorldEater
      MeghanTheWorldEater
      April 17, 2015 at 12:09 am | #

      Story of my life.

    • Carms
      Carms
      April 17, 2015 at 12:24 am | #

      I appreciate this cargo cult analogy

      (mentions of cargo cults always remind me of terry pratchett….)

      • StClair
        StClair
        April 17, 2015 at 12:55 am | #

        Dream Park, here.

        • Rich
          Rich
          April 17, 2015 at 8:01 am | #

          Me too. Some of my grandfather’s stories about his service time in the Pacific, too.

          Should really re-read my Niven books. Been quite a while.

    • Dean
      Dean
      April 17, 2015 at 12:46 am | #

      Walky has built a primitive imitation desk from bamboo and palm leaves.

    • fogel
      fogel
      April 18, 2015 at 6:05 pm | #

      I belong to a cargo cult. It’s called Amazon Prime. There’s a button on this thing I’m holding right now; I click it and 2 days later I find cargo on the front porch!

  13. Dean
    Dean
    April 17, 2015 at 12:07 am | #

    The word ‘study’ definitely has no meaning when Walky says it.

  14. JessWitt
    JessWitt
    April 17, 2015 at 12:08 am | #

    Don’t burn out, Walky! It’s not fun. And I’ve still yet to recover completely.

    • Regalli
      Regalli
      April 17, 2015 at 12:21 am | #

      Augh, tell me about it. I’m starting to wonder whether I have some other medical crap going on or if I genuinely did some sort of permanent damage when I crashed last year, because my energy’s still so much less than it was before.

      • Carms
        Carms
        April 17, 2015 at 12:25 am | #

        man, yea.
        Maybe we should talk to people. professional types.

        • Rabid Rabbit
          Rabid Rabbit
          April 17, 2015 at 12:48 am | #

          Your first port of call should, of course, be your smiling/scowling bipolar drunken depressed RA, who will provide excellent advice. Though possibly while removing your femurs.

          • segnosaur
            segnosaur
            April 17, 2015 at 8:00 am | #

            Minor point: I’m assume you are referring to Ruth. But from what I understand, she is only the RA for the women’s side of the floor

            • DarkoNeko
              DarkoNeko
              April 17, 2015 at 4:07 pm | #

              Yeah, they have the huge star trek fan for the men side. (same guy as it’s walky I recon)

    • Rycan
      Rycan
      April 17, 2015 at 1:39 am | #

      And most definitely avoid burning out on the title page.

  15. tim gueguen
    tim gueguen
    April 17, 2015 at 12:09 am | #

    I wonder if Mike actually studies.

    • Koms
      Koms
      April 17, 2015 at 12:13 am | #

      He studies moms…

      • DarkoNeko
        DarkoNeko
        April 17, 2015 at 12:23 am | #

        And economics.

    • Kris
      Kris
      April 17, 2015 at 12:14 am | #

      Oh Mike studies. He studies your mom.

    • Willoughby Chase
      Willoughby Chase
      April 17, 2015 at 3:52 am | #

      He studies the art of the burn.

      • Disloyal Subject
        Disloyal Subject
        April 17, 2015 at 5:05 am | #

        I’d think he teaches it by now.

        • Tacos
          Tacos
          April 17, 2015 at 5:46 am | #

          At this point, I think he has a PhD.

  16. Blue
    Blue
    April 17, 2015 at 12:11 am | #

    Is the hovertext intended to be a play on the year this comic started? 😛

    • Opus the Poet
      Opus the Poet
      April 17, 2015 at 12:16 am | #

      you caught that!

    • JessWitt
      JessWitt
      April 17, 2015 at 12:17 am | #

      That sounds right. I didn’t catch on to that !

    • Random832
      Random832
      April 17, 2015 at 10:04 am | #

      I just went back to the first comic to check and OH MY GOD WHAT’S WRONG WITH BECKY’S FACE.

      On further analysis: Willis’ art style is mostly mature, so 2010 DOA isn’t nearly as unrecognizably different as, say, Roomies, but the way he draws non-sclera eyes has changed significantly over the last five years. They’re like little pinholes staring into my soul. And it’s not just Becky – Walky and Asma two strips later have the same issue. It’s like they’re being impersonated by Ditto.

  17. Cerberus
    Cerberus
    April 17, 2015 at 12:12 am | #

    Now all he needs is for the next quiz to be about that title page and he’s solid.

    • awkweirdness
      awkweirdness
      April 17, 2015 at 12:19 am | #

      and the copyright information! Hello?!

  18. kimmibeans
    kimmibeans
    April 17, 2015 at 12:18 am | #

    I think I’ve seen where this is going to go https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1tZ7NZf394

  19. Litch Opus the Poet
    Litch Opus the Poet
    April 17, 2015 at 12:19 am | #

    Hi, me again. This comic is much funnier than the one on my side, Walky and Ben are beating Mike up with cricket bats there. Ben is demanding to know where the nickels are.

    • Opus the Poet
      Opus the Poet
      April 17, 2015 at 12:22 am | #

      Neat, I get his grav when I post on the DoA on his side. His bike is black and has fangs. And his skin is pretty much the same color as my jersey.

      • Opus the Poet
        Opus the Poet
        April 17, 2015 at 12:57 pm | #

        And I forgot to say that Ben still has red hair and freckles, but instead of being curvy like Becky he is built like a swimmer with lots of musculature showing but not heavily built. Except his abs, his six pack shows through a winter coat… 😉

  20. Urukak
    Urukak
    April 17, 2015 at 12:24 am | #

    Strawman strawman, strawman strawman strawman.

    (I hope this counts as using it correctly)

    • Deanatay
      Deanatay
      April 17, 2015 at 9:32 am | #

      As ‘strawman’ can be a noun, a verb, AND an adjective, you can pull the old ‘buffalo’ trick:

      Strawman strawman strawman strawman strawman strawman strawman strawman.

      • Random832
        Random832
        April 17, 2015 at 9:59 am | #

        Not really. The buffalo trick relies on the fact that it can also be a plural noun not requiring an article.

        • Random832
          Random832
          April 17, 2015 at 9:59 am | #

          Nor an “s” on the agreeing verb form.

        • Tenn
          Tenn
          April 17, 2015 at 5:34 pm | #

          And as far as I know, there isn’t any town or city called Strawman.

          • No Name
            No Name
            April 17, 2015 at 6:27 pm | #

            No, but there is a brewery in London.

            Google maps is your friend.

  21. Twilightomens
    Twilightomens
    April 17, 2015 at 12:25 am | #

    I’m usually not a big Walky fan, but I can relate to him here.
    Studying is scary

  22. Keeveet
    Keeveet
    April 17, 2015 at 12:29 am | #

    I’m really happy we have this storyline. Having a character be effortlessly smart is one thing – it just means he learns and remembers easily and has a knack for logic puzzles. Having him effortlessly *know everything* is not so believable.

    If we’re heading towards that alternate Walkyverse where he stayed with Dorothy, or something like it, he might yet learn to study and become a doctor.

  23. Idon'tcarenomore
    Idon'tcarenomore
    April 17, 2015 at 12:31 am | #

    New editions can really be a problem. Especially if they are written by the one teaching the class.
    I went completely through HS years ago, without an error being found in my science- earth thru chemistry/English/German/poly-si/histories/math geo. thru calc.
    My first year of college, my chemisty class prof. wrote the teaching manual. Our first day’s lesson was sitting for the entire class and red penciling the errors in the book: in every chapter and just about every page.
    I’ve often wondered why the expense and cost of new books is permitted. English lit. classes, history classes, language classes, etc. won’t change, so why not stay with a good solid text.

    It would reduce error and cost. But then it would deprive some teacher from getting his master or whatever because he couldn’t write anything better than a hackneyed text book.

    • Hippoman
      Hippoman
      April 17, 2015 at 2:37 am | #

      Actually with History keeping up to date with text books is fairly important. New interpretations and evidence is uncovered all the time (it’s what historians do for a living). If you stick with a book that’s a decade or older then odds are you’re using something that’s out-dated. I assume it’s for other humanities subjects as well.

      • No Name
        No Name
        April 17, 2015 at 3:00 am | #

        Also, as much as we malign the History Channel, history really is made every day. Ten years is a lot of history to not teach.
        With lit though, a good prof doesn’t actually use a text book, just the books you’ll read and write abound in class, maybe a collection of short stories and essays. The whole point of a lit class is draw your own views about the material.

        • Deanatay
          Deanatay
          April 17, 2015 at 9:42 am | #

          Maybe writing a single, monolithic history textbook shouldn’t be done. Write a small, ten or fifteen-page pamphlet for each century or decade. That way, it’s easy to make changes when mistakes are discovered.

          Problem with that is, the way textbook prices are inflated right now, it’d cost a student a fortune. Each pamphlet would cost them $40.

      • ahuh
        ahuh
        April 17, 2015 at 12:03 pm | #

        A lot of humanities classes dispense with textbooks and just assign various essays.

        • Cerberus
          Cerberus
          April 17, 2015 at 2:05 pm | #

          My master’s classes for Biology did that too. The theory was a) if you go further in academia you were going to need to learn to stay abreast in your field by reading the latest academic papers, b) it was better to just do that to make sure students were receiving the latest and more accurate information than making the students pay through the nose for the newest edition every few years, and c) it was easier to have translations to other languages for students who needed it. It also allowed the teacher to swap out an upcoming paper if a really new interesting study was released during the time of the class (I think that ended up happening twice).

          I’m actually very much a fan of this method as textbook costs are kind of obscene and it can be easier to show off intra-discipline debates a lot easier than if you’re using one set of textbooks made by one single megapublisher with its own preferred interpretation.

  24. Tacos
    Tacos
    April 17, 2015 at 1:07 am | #

    Pfft! Studying… who needs it? Not I!

  25. Well_Played
    Well_Played
    April 17, 2015 at 1:45 am | #

    You call that Studying? Pfft! Kintaro Oe laughs at you.

    • Smiling Cat
      Smiling Cat
      April 17, 2015 at 3:29 am | #

      Life is study!

    • Yotsuyasan
      Yotsuyasan
      April 17, 2015 at 7:26 am | #

      Ha! Exactly who I thought of when I read this comic. Hell, I could practically hear his voice in my head in panel 3. I was going through the comments mainly to see if anyone had mentioned him, and to remedy the situation if no one had.

      But you did, so I see I am not needed. Well played, Well_Played.

      • DarkoNeko
        DarkoNeko
        April 17, 2015 at 7:31 am | #

        Now all Walky needs is a trusty bike.

      • Well_Played
        Well_Played
        April 18, 2015 at 1:08 am | #

        Walky will save Japan and maybe the world… Or maybe not.

  26. Leonou
    Leonou
    April 17, 2015 at 1:57 am | #

    The date of first publication is a very important information and I curse the names of all the editors who fail to mention it.

    May their soul burn in Hell !

    • Alex
      Alex
      April 17, 2015 at 8:54 am | #

      Remember when you had to cite a book but the title page left out all the information you actually need.

      Good times.

      G-good times………………….

  27. Joebo
    Joebo
    April 17, 2015 at 2:35 am | #

    This just in, Generalissimo Francesco is still dead.

    • Rich
      Rich
      April 17, 2015 at 8:13 am | #

      Good thing, too. If he wasn’t, narrowing down the list of suspects who might have brought him back would be difficult.

      Well, unless he returned to tell us to bring back Enterprise. That would be a giveaway.

  28. Les
    Les
    April 17, 2015 at 7:51 am | #

    Walky may be justified in memorizing the title page. My first day of high school chemistry, the teacher made us pile all our stuff in the front of the class then gave us each a sheet of paper. The only question on the pop quiz: “What is the name of your textbook and who is the author?” About half the class had apparently been warned she pulled this quiz every year. Unfortunately, I wasn’t one of them so I started off the year with a zero (and yes, the grade counted…).

    • Rich
      Rich
      April 17, 2015 at 8:10 am | #

      Huh wha? Did you get issued your textbooks before the first day of class or something? We always had them handed to us for the first time when we walked in. Sometimes they were late or under-ordered and it would be days or weeks before we got them.

      Regardless, that is an impressively petty teacher.

      • No Name
        No Name
        April 17, 2015 at 8:33 am | #

        Les may have gone to a private school, or else was talking about an experience in college. Both institutions, because the state doesn’t cover their expenses, require the students to acquire their own textbooks. This often means paying for it.

        • Rich
          Rich
          April 17, 2015 at 10:45 am | #

          Ah. Must have been a private school, he did mention it was HS chemistry. Mine was public, and that would have been the late 70s/early 80s so maybe textbook policies have changed even there. Heck, when I went through, we didn’t even have a separate middle school. Grades 7-12 in one building. That was a joy and a half.

          • Opus the Poet
            Opus the Poet
            April 17, 2015 at 1:07 pm | #

            When I was in 7th there was only one American Jr-Sr HS in the entire country and it covered 7-12. It served mostly the US military and the embassy for the country, but we had a few kids from other embassies (the Anglophone countries). There were 57 students in 7th and a graduating class of 14, including the one senior who had to live in the barracks his last semester so that he didn’t have to change schools in the middle of his Senior year. Fun times.

      • Simberto
        Simberto
        April 17, 2015 at 8:34 am | #

        Yes. As someone who is studying to become a teacher, there are so many ways that is a bad idea for a teacher to do that i can’t even begin to start counting them.

        • Cerberus
          Cerberus
          April 17, 2015 at 2:21 pm | #

          As a teacher, I have to disagree, it’s an absolutely fantastic idea for a teacher to do… so long as your only goal as a teacher is to instill a smug sense of superiority over your students and train them to spend the entire class memorizing as much useless bits of data as you can instead of actually learning anything or if you just want your students to hate and mistrust you the full length of the class.

          If any of those are your goal, it’s the greatest method in the world.

    • StClair
      StClair
      April 17, 2015 at 11:41 am | #

      Like others, in my HS (public, 84-87) we got our textbooks in class.

      And since I wouldn’t know the answer from my brief inspection, I’d be really tempted to answer (especially as a smart-aleck kid):

      “What does this information have to do with the science of chemistry? Does it alter the rate of reactions, the formation of bonds, or molecular weight? May we expect similar irrelevant and distracting stunts, focusing on the form of the material rather than the substance, for the rest of the course?”

      • StClair
        StClair
        April 17, 2015 at 1:23 pm | #

        I mean… that’s like having the class do a lab, and then testing them not on the observed reaction, its products, etc, but on the color and shape and dimensions of the bottle(s) the reagents came in.

        • Cerberus
          Cerberus
          April 17, 2015 at 2:25 pm | #

          My first college chem lab graded the labs on how close we got the exact correct amount of products formed, which due to crappy materials and lab equipment was almost a completely random outcome, so instead everyone learned how to falsify lab data by initially calculating what the yield should have been and putting that down for your “observed amount” instead or just straight up copying from previous iterations of the class.

          Luckily my future lab classes did it better and asked for reasons for error to be a significant part of the lab (as it’s a way better lab skill to know why you were inaccurate than to simply always be accurate from the first attempt).

    • Tacos
      Tacos
      April 17, 2015 at 7:57 pm | #

      Wow really? I’d have transferred out of that class if I knew the teacher would do crap like that.

  29. Rich
    Rich
    April 17, 2015 at 11:21 am | #

    The only bad grade we’ve seen from Walky was in Jason’s class, right? Given Sal’s earlier problems there, you think part of the problem might be that Jason really is just a bad (as well as hellishly unethical) teacher? This might just be entirely due Walky slacking off, but I wonder how the class as a whole is doing. Bad teachers turn B and C students into D and F ones very easily IME.

    • Nono
      Nono
      April 17, 2015 at 11:54 am | #

      Jason isn’t the teacher, he’s just a TA. It’s Professor Rees that’s teaching the class, and we haven’t seen any indications that Joyce, Mike or Billie is doing badly.

      • Rich
        Rich
        April 17, 2015 at 1:07 pm | #

        But Penny, Jason’s fellow TA, insisted that Rees is a lousy teacher as well, and she sure doesn’t seem to care about her own duties either. If Rees is doing all the lectures (which isn’t the norm IME – I had a lot of classes from stand-in TAs over the years) then we’ve got a bad prof with bad TAs to boot. Anyone who’s doing well in that environment must be either doing it all on their own or be seeking outside help like Sal wound up doing.

        • Cerberus
          Cerberus
          April 17, 2015 at 2:17 pm | #

          I wonder if Sal and Walky are more auditory learners while the others are either more both or more visual.

          Basically if you are an auditory learner, you learn better from out loud explanations which would be why Sal worked better with Danny giving her better explanations that make more sense for her and Walky did poorly the test after he missed the class and seems to not know how to read his textbook for information. Which means that what Walky might need more than time studying is a tutor and to learn how to take proper non-dinosaur eating a TA notes, which will both be painful hits to how he’s shaped his pride about being “naturally intelligent”.

          Whereas if the others can work well with visual, they can just learn from the book or the diagrams on the board (a lot of bad teachers are of the type to just read off their powerpoint slides or just write on the board with little actual explanation) which is not very engaging.

          Walky’s other problem is that he needs to be engaged to care about a subject and that’s going to be a harder problem to combat because it means it’s going to be harder to adapt to bad teachers and subjects he has little interest in (which may be most/all of them as he seems like he’s in college mostly because he feels he ought to and his mom would kill him if he wasn’t) especially as the material continues to get more and more complex and faster paced than what he was used to.

          • Rich
            Rich
            April 17, 2015 at 4:14 pm | #

            Good point. I’m more of a visual learner, and tend to forget that many folks actually get something out of lectures.

          • B.D
            B.D
            April 17, 2015 at 4:17 pm | #

            Would the distinction even matter in a maths class?

            • Rich
              Rich
              April 17, 2015 at 4:33 pm | #

              Probably? I’ve had math profs who talked through every step of every problem in class. Never did a thing for me, and if anything it distracted from what I was copying from the board or projected lecture notes. I would assume an auditory-primary learner would experience the reverse.

            • Nono
              Nono
              April 17, 2015 at 5:27 pm | #

              It depends. I had a lot of trouble with math class because the concepts were so abstract. When I moved onto other courses that used those same concepts in real life examples, then it became easier to use those ideas because you can actually realistically apply them to real-world problems rather than go, ‘oh, you do this to the numbers’.

            • Cerberus
              Cerberus
              April 17, 2015 at 10:55 pm | #

              It can. I teach math and for some of my students, a different style of explanation or a more or less abstract explanation can make all the difference for the auditory learners and writing what I’m talking about on the board seems to help with the visual learners and I try and bring in physical objects when I can for the kinesthetic learners. Basically, as Sal noted when she was learning, different methods work for different students which is why I try and always sit down with the students struggling to figure out what is not working for them and what I can add to my style to help them.

  30. stiney
    stiney
    April 17, 2015 at 1:03 pm | #

    How is he possibly looking at the title page and (c) page at the same time? The (c) page appears on the verso of the title page. Even if the book has a half title, the back would be blank.

    This post brought to you by “real life ruining jokes”.

    • B.D
      B.D
      April 17, 2015 at 4:15 pm | #

      Exactly – he’s looking at the title page without realizing it isn’t the copyright page as well.

    • Rich
      Rich
      April 17, 2015 at 4:24 pm | #

      Absurdist answer: He’s just THAT BAD at studying.

      More plausible excuse: He doesn’t know the difference between the publisher info (which is commonly printed below the actual title) and copyright info.

  31. Church
    Church
    April 17, 2015 at 8:28 pm | #

    HE STUDIES SO HARD THAT HE NUKED THE WORD

    FROM ORBIT

    TO BE SURE

  32. Chris Borgars-Smith
    Chris Borgars-Smith
    April 17, 2015 at 8:30 pm | #

    I kinda wonder if he’s got adhd sometimes honestly.

  33. Vree
    Vree
    April 23, 2015 at 7:14 am | #

    Not “studier”, “studer”.

    I’m a good studer.

    Hey dude, are you studier than that studer over there?

  34. Taurin
    Taurin
    May 5, 2015 at 5:11 am | #

    I don’t know if you check this late in the game, but I can totally relate to Walky’s situation. For so many years I never had to study, so that when the situation arose that I DID have to, I didn’t really know how to, and I kinda crashed and burned. Not having read beyond this point, I hope Walky does better at recovery than I did.

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