Monday Classes started at the local college. I'm taking six credits. Today was the first session of "Oral Communication for Managers." All of the other students are taking it as a requirment of a managemnt/marketing degree. I'm not going for a degree - just taking classes that appeal to me. I'm the oldest, besided the professor. I'm a good ten+ years older than all the other students. I'm OK with that - or at least I thought I was....
We had all the get-to-know-ya exercises. Two girls that I was grouped with were OK until they started to talk about their ages and drinking:
"How old are you?"
"Oh, I just turned 22 last month."
"I'm 21."
"Ya know, I thought that once I turned 21 I wouldn't want to drink anymore. Well, huh...I was wrong. It's just as fun as it always was."
These two go round and round like this. Like drinking is such a big deal. It wasn't even a big deal to me when I was their age. It was when I was 16 but not 21 or 22.
Our final group assignment for the day was to generate a list of classroom guidelines. There were three different groups and when no one in my group volunteered to be the scribe I said I would do it. All three groups generated their own lists that will be compiled and then next week we'll all vote. So I'm thinking, this is no big deal. Done this a ton of times at work. All the 'usual' things pop into my head.... no interrupting another person....respect others' opinions....there are no dumb ideas...
But I listen to all their chatter and what do I hear from these young adults?
* It's OK to keep your cell phone on as as long as you don't try and talk over the prefessor.
* It's OK to be late - apparently the 'new' rule is that students can be late by 5 minutes for every hour the class meets (this was a three hour class) so it's OK to be 15 minutes late.
So what do we end up with on our list?
Do's:
Have fun (I'm OK with this one, we use it a lot at work)
make lectures fun (ummm...they're called 'lectures' for a reason. everything about school and work isn't going to be fun)
make it to class by 15 after
Don'ts
say 'like,' 'um,' or 'and' (what? What's this got to do with anything?)
I seriously had a hard time keeping a grip. I just wanted to laugh in their faces. I tried to cajole them into getting serious, only to find out they were serious about these things. As the scribe I was embarrassed to turn the list in.
So I bitched to a friend and I bitched to my husband..... and then realized I'm getting really old!
Kids these days!!!!!