It’s less that he didn’t have to work to get a PASSING grade, it’s that he didn’t have to work to get STRAIGHT As. Now he does have to work for it, and he’s freaking him out. I had a similar issue after skipping two grades in math, when I was younger. I wound up stalling out and barely finishing high school on time. Let’s hope that doesn’t happen with Walky.
I don’t get that feeling. Walky is genuinely intelligent, it’s just that he doesn’t know how to apply himself when he falls short.
He’s in the opposite case of Sal, who had difficulty grasping the work at first, but gradually improved, sought out tutoring, tried new ways to approach her problems, and was ultimately rewarded for her efforts.
Yeah, he strikes me as an individual who has never had to study before now. He was able to always do work in his head or memorize stuff and had teachers who were good to go over the main points and is solid on standardized tests.
But he never learned how to do independent studying, handle a terrible teacher, or how to take notes and do things long form in homework instead of trying to skip ahead.
I run into this sort of student all the time, usually around a similar level to where Walky is now. The material from an algebra2 to a pre-calc or a calculus is often a major step up and starts being difficult to keep all in your head. Especially with the early material which is often about laying down the theory of derivatives and integrals you’ll be working with for the rest of the year.
For someone like Walky who has so much pride wrapped up in classes being “easy”, he’s going to have an even rougher road to needing to write things down and take careful notes because in his head, that’s what “bad students” do.
ischemgeek
Yeah what Cerberus says. I was the kid who never had to study – straight 95%+ average across all my courses, just from doing my homework. First year in uni I was fine because I was a nerd and had self-taught most of the material already. Second-year I got ridiculously over-confident and had the bright idea to take 8 courses and 3 labs while working part-time and doing three extra-curricular activities. Like I said, ridiculously over-confident. I didn’t flunk anything, but my CGPA went from 4.3 to 3.4 in one semester. It was kind of a train wreck.
Thankfully, I learned how to study after that and was able to graduate with honors but it was a huge blow to my self-image as the Smart Kid to whom everything was “easy” and who could loaf off in class while making straight As.
Similar for me, except I never did learn to study. (Partially because I wasn’t just unpracticed at it, I’d gotten stuck with a teacher who punished me for getting ahead, so…)
ischemgeek
Yeah, I got a teacher like that, too. But I’ve got a really heavy dose of contrarian rules-lawyer brat in me that the teacher didn’t stamp out, so it didn’t stop me from trying to get more ahead. It’s a personality thing, though, and there’s a reason I spent most of 3rd grade in the in-school suspension room, and it wasn’t just because the teacher was an incompetent bully. She was, but I was also kind of like Carla in that I’m the sort of person who will tend to dig in my heels and be an ass for the sake of being an ass if I’m dealing with a jerk, especially if the jerk doesn’t have the power to do harm to me that I’m not willing to put up with.
Yet_One_More_Idiot
I was never exactly the guy who loafed off and still got straight A’s, but I did always have the feeling that maths came easily (it still does actually – I’m currently strolling through a professional accounting qualification), but what undid me was when I got to university and did well in the first 2 years.
I didn’t get cocky and start being lazy, but I did get cocky and started taking classes that were WAY out of my league. Like Quantum Mechanics (I & II), Spacetime Geometry and General Relativity, Special Relativity & Electromagnetism…the other 4 courses were more at my level and I passed them, but those 4 courses I named above…it was a total train wreck, and nearly caused me to entirely fail my 3rd year (and by extension, my maths degree).
Luckily I scraped through and got my degree, little use though it has done me since. 😛
“Second-year I got ridiculously over-confident and had the bright idea to take 8 courses and 3 labs while working part-time and doing three extra-curricular activities.”
…jfc are you me?
ischemgeek
Nope, probably a kindred spirit, though?
zoelogical
I was weird. I started out at a school that encouraged studying and working your hardest, then moved to a school where everyone half-assed it, skipped a grade because of said half-assing, switched schools twice before graduating high school, went to college and learned what I was interested in and half-assed what I wasn’t, got a D in Statistics and freaked out and literally quit school for a year to figure out why I’d done that. because…figuring out my shit while I went to college wasn’t an option, apparently? idk. my brain.
TURNS OUT I have ADHD! so, like. good study habits do a lot to combat that.
ischemgeek
I don’t, but I do have executive function issues because of my autism that can be similar to ADHD in that if I’m off routine, everything goes to hell and I forget all of the things.
(erm, leeeet’s just say that on more than one occasion I’ve gotten to the store with a cart full of groceries… and no wallet)
sjmcc13
I also think he does not really pay attention in class, if he is doodling the TA beig eaten by a dinosaur he is not paying attention.
In high school, I used to sleep or play Tetris on my calculator for most of my classes. Some of the teachers reacted by trying to catch me off guard, but whenever they’d wake me up and try to startle me with a question, I had the answer, because I had been listening the whole time. I was the same in grade school, too, doodling or fiddling with something constantly, and getting As on every test. I never studied or did homework, only the most extreme stuff like papers, which I’d write the night before they were due, and still get good grades. The difference is, I never hit a wall, I kept doing this and succeeding at it all through college. I have a degree and a career. One time in college, I wrote a research paper the day it was due, in another class a couple hours before it was due. I got a B on the paper and As in both classes.
Apanatshka
I figured there’d be people like this. I really envy you, though in a way learning how to work hard for something is rewarding too. I hope you find some other place where you could learn that?
I hit my first wall in secondary school, had to start doing homework, and study a bit for tests. I thought that was my wall and that had learnt to work for my good grades. I had to work harder when I started at uni, but it was fun, so whatever. Then I had to work harder again when I started my Master’s, and it started to get less fun to have so little free time left. Then I hit my second wall: academic writing. Writing my Master’s thesis has been another painful experience, but looking back at what I’ve accomplished is very rewarding.
I’ve gotten plenty of envy over that talent, but I have my own struggles too, so don’t feel too bad about it – from the sound of it you’re doing just fine.
My main shortcoming is in dealing with people. I have pretty significant social anxiety and I’ve never managed to ask anyone out. Even if I did, I don’t know how I could possibly entertain someone one-on-one through a date anyway. I have a really hard time calling anyone, to the point where I tend to just let friendships die when circumstance doesn’t put me together with people anymore. I was seriously depressed in high school, and that was a major factor. Fortunately I managed to pull through that, accept my flaws, and find other things in life that I could enjoy.
Kiapdx
In my sophomore math class, I literally spent most of my class time either playing solitaire at my desk or doodling on my backpack with sharpies. But I did well on tests so the teacher didn’t care.
Kiapdx
omg I’m Carla 😀
Captain Button
Great calves, Kiapdx!
Willoughby Chase
And a really good Tigger-like bounce, and you know what they say about Tiggers ….
Durandal_1707
She also seems really tall today, even when taking the bounce into account.
Maxine
Just checked, she’s always been the tallest person in the room, at least when it was possible to tell.
Leorale
Same here. No academic wall, even at a top college — lots of procrastination and writing the paper at the deadline, which stressed people out, but it ultimately worked every time. I can do papers. The wall happened in my mid-20s, when depression hit me in the face and I couldn’t do anything anymore, not even the dishes. Now everything is terrifying. I’m working on it.
Neo Cloudski
Similar, I never hit a big wall academically compared to what I normally did throughout school. I wasn’t a straight A student until my college time and such, where I actually had the mentality ‘C’ or higher, doesn’t matter. Wrote a man a paper on the night before or same day.
Most extreme for me would be writing a 1-2 page paper on a subject I didn’t take in school at all for someone else on the same day it was due…. In under an hour. Wasn’t my best work, but I learned in one class a few years back I can take a subject and just swing out stuff for it.
I passed English 2(mostly read and discuss stories, only a couple writing assignments on context and such) without actually reading any of the stories assigned. I just listened to the first 2-3 minutes of the students discussing it, latched onto something, and basically became a ‘Bard.’
Liliet
I also always spents lots of time in class doodling and writing down song lyrics (that worked super well in getting my handwriting from barely legible to actually pretty awesome). Most of the time, it worked like that – I paid just enough attention to follow what everyone was doing and take notes from time to time.
(It helped that in most classes teachers DICTATED notes to class, and I usually already had them written from the explanation on my own)
Sometimes, though, I’d hit a class where I actually DID have to look at the blackboard/listen to teacher/take notes ALL THE TIME to keep myself oriented. I still managed to fill my notes with doodles though XD
Unerringly Errant
I took special pride in being able to wake up when the teacher called on me, glance up at the board, think for about 5 seconds, then provide them with the answer before going back to sleep. It particularly pissed off my physics teacher…
Drawing takes a fairly different brain areas then listening/comprehension.
Some people just like stuff to do with their hands.
Of course that doesn’t mean Walky specifically is paying attention – merely that some people draw “on automatic”.
Sky
Some people (especially people with ADHD, I believe) learn and listen much better when they’re doing multiple things at the same time, especially things like doodling and drawing. I drew on my papers and in sketchbooks or notebooks all the time in school and a lot of early teachers seemed to think the same as what you’re saying here, but it’s really quite the opposite. Of course, now I’m in college for illustration and it’s encouraged. <_<
Eyebrow
Where were all you guys when I hit second year and needed to learn this studying stuff?
Leorale
Playing in the circus. Try that, it won’t help you study but it’s fun.
fogel
An education ‘system’ that let’s so many bright kids ‘coast’ till they hit The Wall … and then still leaves them pretty much on their own to rehab themselves … Am I the only one who thinks that there is more wrong with a System that squanders so much human potential than the kids that it fails? HS was so trivial for me that I graduated a year early (bc there was a girl a year ahead of me), and still won the prize for best history student, then hit my wall in freshman calculus. I did greagreat first quarter, but Spring quarter I was going to fail. During Study Days I calculated how many points I needed on the final to pass the course; which sections would be the easiest to get those points on; studied those and ignored the rest of the course. It worked, but what a bloody waste. I’m FINALLY getting the remediation I’ve needed for ever: meds to ease the path, regular therapy/coaching to take advantage of what the meds are doing for me. According to my therapist I’m not stupid or lazy, I’m inefficient except when I go into crisis mode and am easily distracted from my commitments and then hyper focus on other things. So, yeah, ‘Attention/Focus Disorder’ (not to mention The Big A — nxiety).
IF YOU RECOGNIZE YOURSELF in the many posts here and are unhappy about it, PLEASE explore the possibilities of why and what you can do, the sooner the better but it’s NEVER too late. And don’t let Them fluff you off: my current therapist (my 5th after 4 non-keepers), tried to tell me I was ‘fixed’ and to push me out the door when all he’d done was stabilize my most recent existential crises. I refused to go and since then we’ve gotten onto the longterm work. (Tho I’m priviledged in having a spouse with good insurance and I regret that I don’t know what to adviSE those who dont. If you are in uni, try whatever psy-services your school has.)
Liliet
I was one of those students, but I hit this roadblock in middle school. A much, ah, safer time. I recovered by high school and uni.
(At one point my classmate said about me that I started school with knowledge on fifth grade level – and that’s where it stayed, even as I actually reached and passed fifth grade. I’m pretty sure I learned SOMETHING between first and sixth grade, but yeah astute observation)
I remember getting a rapid increase in studyload in uni… yeah, Walky’s got an inopportune time to run out of effortless study buffer.
Unerringly Errant
Oh my God, somebody who understands! Six years later I’m still dealing with the effects of the world-shattering experience of realizing that I’m not some kind of genius prodigy. I was basically told I was a genius for my entire life, got B’s on my exams if I didn’t study at all and A’s if I studied 15 minutes or more. Then I went to a very competitive, highly-ranked university and had my spirits crushed. My Walky-style denial actually lasted all the way until sophomore year, when I almost failed organic chemistry. I never did really learn to study particularly well; fortunately, my wife (then my girlfriend) had both an intellect similar to mine and a ferocious work ethic, so she helped tutor me. Without her, I really might have had to change my major or go on the 5-year program.
Well you actually have to be above average intelligence to go to a Learning Disabilities school, I was actually in one for Grade 7, and 8… it was hell.
Well he isn’t freaking out about any of his other classes, which would imply he really is smart.
This happens to a lot of people who are genuinely smart. They’re smart enough not to have to put in any effort, so by the time they get to an appropriate level they don’t know how to try hard.
Not really. I was like this when I first went to college- everything up to that point was easy to me (with the exception of math), so I didn’t really have any sort of work ethic or study skills. And then I got into my first non-intro course and got my ass handed to me, because for the first time I couldn’t just suck up the material and spit it out on the paper and get an A.
Granted, a big part of this is that college tends to deal a lot more with abstractions than high school does. For example, in high school, you can get away with just being able to pick out themes and setting elements from a Literature assignment, but on a college level, you have to be able to understand subtext and metatext and context and all other sorts of text that aren’t necessarily just the words printed on the page. In History, you don’t just learn about what happened, you now have to be able to figure out why it happened. In Physics, you don’t just learn Newton’s Three Laws, you also start to learn about the theories of LaPlace and Faraday and Einstein and actually have to find out what E=MC^2 actually means.
And Walky is just not prepared for that kind of intensive thinking. Not yet.
1. JOKE
2. he insists someone who is handed his paper is somehow performing sorcery by divining its contents
= “special”
MrInsecure
Well, yes, you were either referring to a Lake Woebegone situation (“where all of the children are above average”), or Hogwarts, and Walky doesn’t strike me as a Gryffindor.
Leorale
Dorothy’s a Slytherin.
Lord Stoneheart
On one hand ambition is one of her defining character traits.
On the other hand, she doesn’t seem to have a diet of solely puppies and kittens.
Captain Button
That we have seen.
Rachel
Well she did skip a lot of lunches with Joyce at first……
Briny
She probably eats a lot of vegetables, too. She’s super-responsible!
1. Why are you reading at traffic lights?!?!?!
2. (kinda wish I could do that–my car (and everyone else’s) is buried under two feet of snow at the moment)
2a. ((I guess I can still do that but on foot, which isn’t the same))
JustCheetoDust@gmail.com
I’m not even going try to explain why, because I know that shit is indefensible.
Needfuldoer
Walky’s trying to use comedy to deflect an uncomfortable conversation again. Academic cruise control has gotten him this far, but it’s never going to teach him how to study.
He has to learn to swallow his pride and ask for help if he wants to pass this semester.
gc
Or, you know, go on the internet for two minutes to find out what other people in his situation have done. But that’s less humiliating, so of course some of us readers wouldn’t want that. (Also maybe harder to make into a good story.)
I had the opposite problem. In lower level schooling, a lot of stuff is more or less “basic” or can be worked out from first principles. Being smart and knowing how the system worked let me eliminate 70% of the workload, making me work less than 30% compared to other students.
Later on, when actual study, and practise (for math) was involved… not to mention living away from home and not having someone monitor my studying… well, it all went to heck in a handbasket.
It’s because at lower levels, education is “stuff that everyone should know”, to some extent. So, if you’re intelligent and watch tv or otherwise know as much about the world as the average adult, you don’t have to study that much. … in uni/college, you get taught stuff that is pretty specific, that most people would not have a clue about unless they were specifically given a lecture or read a book or something, it’s not the sort of “general knowledge”
Oh yeah, and my attendance for classes and lectures was terrible too. … In that sense, I’m worse than Walky, since he expects to learn enough from (sleeping in?) lectures and classes to get by, whereas for some stupid reason, I thought that I would learn stuff while sleeping IN MY BED. … in that sense, in hindsight, I was the biggest idiot of them all!
So yeah… thinking you’re a genius who can do anything, and succeeding? You’re a genius. Thinking you’re a genius, but failing? You’re actually a moron, who thinks he’s a genius.
fogel
To paraphrase Teddy (Mickey Rourke) in “Body Heat”:
There are 50 ways that you can screw the pooch. If you think of 50 of them, you’re a genius. And you ain’t no genius.
fogel
Oops. Its, if you can think of 25 of the 50 you’re a genius
He struggles with one class and someone has to think he sucks at school altogether. If anything, he’s terrible at preparing himself for the scenario in which he actually has to put in work.
No, Walky is actually REALLY typical of smart kids when they hit higher education. I never had to really try to learn new material, all the way through high school, and when I got to college, I had no idea at all how to study. I’d basically never needed to study beyond reading the relevant section in the textbook, and maybe a few practice questions for math.
Walky probably hasn’t ever had to really try in school before. Now that he’s hit something he can’t immediately grasp, he can’t reconcile that with his view of himself.
Calculus is the point at which I too first had trouble breezing through classes, but for me the timing was my senior year in hig school rather than as a freshman in university. Alas, it coincided with the breaking of my giveadamn, so I was not motivated to care about it or fix it by studying. I am not sure whether it has ever mended, either, and it has been nearly 30 years at this point.
639 thoughts on “Moral”
Ana Chronistic
I’m starting to feel like Walky went to one of those schools where everyone is special
EdHead
There is a reference here….
you may not know it. but im trying to find it.
EdHead
Got it. I’ll reference this with ANT farm. Walky is Fletcher.
Rowen Morland
Or Lost At Sea? “Ok fine, I wasn’t a gifted kid. Are you satisfied now?”
inqntrol
Something like Hogwarts?
evan
Nah, just a normal slacker who’s never really had to work to get a passing grade.
Crowver
It’s less that he didn’t have to work to get a PASSING grade, it’s that he didn’t have to work to get STRAIGHT As. Now he does have to work for it, and he’s freaking him out. I had a similar issue after skipping two grades in math, when I was younger. I wound up stalling out and barely finishing high school on time. Let’s hope that doesn’t happen with Walky.
Plasma Mongoose
His room is full of participation trophies.
Spencer
I don’t get that feeling. Walky is genuinely intelligent, it’s just that he doesn’t know how to apply himself when he falls short.
He’s in the opposite case of Sal, who had difficulty grasping the work at first, but gradually improved, sought out tutoring, tried new ways to approach her problems, and was ultimately rewarded for her efforts.
Captain Button
This. I was basically Walky in college, except I never caught on that the trick was to throw toys at girls’ heads.
Cerberus
Yeah, he strikes me as an individual who has never had to study before now. He was able to always do work in his head or memorize stuff and had teachers who were good to go over the main points and is solid on standardized tests.
But he never learned how to do independent studying, handle a terrible teacher, or how to take notes and do things long form in homework instead of trying to skip ahead.
I run into this sort of student all the time, usually around a similar level to where Walky is now. The material from an algebra2 to a pre-calc or a calculus is often a major step up and starts being difficult to keep all in your head. Especially with the early material which is often about laying down the theory of derivatives and integrals you’ll be working with for the rest of the year.
For someone like Walky who has so much pride wrapped up in classes being “easy”, he’s going to have an even rougher road to needing to write things down and take careful notes because in his head, that’s what “bad students” do.
ischemgeek
Yeah what Cerberus says. I was the kid who never had to study – straight 95%+ average across all my courses, just from doing my homework. First year in uni I was fine because I was a nerd and had self-taught most of the material already. Second-year I got ridiculously over-confident and had the bright idea to take 8 courses and 3 labs while working part-time and doing three extra-curricular activities. Like I said, ridiculously over-confident. I didn’t flunk anything, but my CGPA went from 4.3 to 3.4 in one semester. It was kind of a train wreck.
Thankfully, I learned how to study after that and was able to graduate with honors but it was a huge blow to my self-image as the Smart Kid to whom everything was “easy” and who could loaf off in class while making straight As.
Kamino Neko
Similar for me, except I never did learn to study. (Partially because I wasn’t just unpracticed at it, I’d gotten stuck with a teacher who punished me for getting ahead, so…)
ischemgeek
Yeah, I got a teacher like that, too. But I’ve got a really heavy dose of contrarian rules-lawyer brat in me that the teacher didn’t stamp out, so it didn’t stop me from trying to get more ahead. It’s a personality thing, though, and there’s a reason I spent most of 3rd grade in the in-school suspension room, and it wasn’t just because the teacher was an incompetent bully. She was, but I was also kind of like Carla in that I’m the sort of person who will tend to dig in my heels and be an ass for the sake of being an ass if I’m dealing with a jerk, especially if the jerk doesn’t have the power to do harm to me that I’m not willing to put up with.
Yet_One_More_Idiot
I was never exactly the guy who loafed off and still got straight A’s, but I did always have the feeling that maths came easily (it still does actually – I’m currently strolling through a professional accounting qualification), but what undid me was when I got to university and did well in the first 2 years.
I didn’t get cocky and start being lazy, but I did get cocky and started taking classes that were WAY out of my league. Like Quantum Mechanics (I & II), Spacetime Geometry and General Relativity, Special Relativity & Electromagnetism…the other 4 courses were more at my level and I passed them, but those 4 courses I named above…it was a total train wreck, and nearly caused me to entirely fail my 3rd year (and by extension, my maths degree).
Luckily I scraped through and got my degree, little use though it has done me since. 😛
Dara
“Second-year I got ridiculously over-confident and had the bright idea to take 8 courses and 3 labs while working part-time and doing three extra-curricular activities.”
…jfc are you me?
ischemgeek
Nope, probably a kindred spirit, though?
zoelogical
I was weird. I started out at a school that encouraged studying and working your hardest, then moved to a school where everyone half-assed it, skipped a grade because of said half-assing, switched schools twice before graduating high school, went to college and learned what I was interested in and half-assed what I wasn’t, got a D in Statistics and freaked out and literally quit school for a year to figure out why I’d done that. because…figuring out my shit while I went to college wasn’t an option, apparently? idk. my brain.
TURNS OUT I have ADHD! so, like. good study habits do a lot to combat that.
ischemgeek
I don’t, but I do have executive function issues because of my autism that can be similar to ADHD in that if I’m off routine, everything goes to hell and I forget all of the things.
(erm, leeeet’s just say that on more than one occasion I’ve gotten to the store with a cart full of groceries… and no wallet)
sjmcc13
I also think he does not really pay attention in class, if he is doodling the TA beig eaten by a dinosaur he is not paying attention.
qman
In high school, I used to sleep or play Tetris on my calculator for most of my classes. Some of the teachers reacted by trying to catch me off guard, but whenever they’d wake me up and try to startle me with a question, I had the answer, because I had been listening the whole time. I was the same in grade school, too, doodling or fiddling with something constantly, and getting As on every test. I never studied or did homework, only the most extreme stuff like papers, which I’d write the night before they were due, and still get good grades. The difference is, I never hit a wall, I kept doing this and succeeding at it all through college. I have a degree and a career. One time in college, I wrote a research paper the day it was due, in another class a couple hours before it was due. I got a B on the paper and As in both classes.
Apanatshka
I figured there’d be people like this. I really envy you, though in a way learning how to work hard for something is rewarding too. I hope you find some other place where you could learn that?
I hit my first wall in secondary school, had to start doing homework, and study a bit for tests. I thought that was my wall and that had learnt to work for my good grades. I had to work harder when I started at uni, but it was fun, so whatever. Then I had to work harder again when I started my Master’s, and it started to get less fun to have so little free time left. Then I hit my second wall: academic writing. Writing my Master’s thesis has been another painful experience, but looking back at what I’ve accomplished is very rewarding.
qman
I’ve gotten plenty of envy over that talent, but I have my own struggles too, so don’t feel too bad about it – from the sound of it you’re doing just fine.
My main shortcoming is in dealing with people. I have pretty significant social anxiety and I’ve never managed to ask anyone out. Even if I did, I don’t know how I could possibly entertain someone one-on-one through a date anyway. I have a really hard time calling anyone, to the point where I tend to just let friendships die when circumstance doesn’t put me together with people anymore. I was seriously depressed in high school, and that was a major factor. Fortunately I managed to pull through that, accept my flaws, and find other things in life that I could enjoy.
Kiapdx
In my sophomore math class, I literally spent most of my class time either playing solitaire at my desk or doodling on my backpack with sharpies. But I did well on tests so the teacher didn’t care.
Kiapdx
omg I’m Carla 😀
Captain Button
Great calves, Kiapdx!
Willoughby Chase
And a really good Tigger-like bounce, and you know what they say about Tiggers ….
Durandal_1707
She also seems really tall today, even when taking the bounce into account.
Maxine
Just checked, she’s always been the tallest person in the room, at least when it was possible to tell.
Leorale
Same here. No academic wall, even at a top college — lots of procrastination and writing the paper at the deadline, which stressed people out, but it ultimately worked every time. I can do papers. The wall happened in my mid-20s, when depression hit me in the face and I couldn’t do anything anymore, not even the dishes. Now everything is terrifying. I’m working on it.
Neo Cloudski
Similar, I never hit a big wall academically compared to what I normally did throughout school. I wasn’t a straight A student until my college time and such, where I actually had the mentality ‘C’ or higher, doesn’t matter. Wrote a man a paper on the night before or same day.
Most extreme for me would be writing a 1-2 page paper on a subject I didn’t take in school at all for someone else on the same day it was due…. In under an hour. Wasn’t my best work, but I learned in one class a few years back I can take a subject and just swing out stuff for it.
I passed English 2(mostly read and discuss stories, only a couple writing assignments on context and such) without actually reading any of the stories assigned. I just listened to the first 2-3 minutes of the students discussing it, latched onto something, and basically became a ‘Bard.’
Liliet
I also always spents lots of time in class doodling and writing down song lyrics (that worked super well in getting my handwriting from barely legible to actually pretty awesome). Most of the time, it worked like that – I paid just enough attention to follow what everyone was doing and take notes from time to time.
(It helped that in most classes teachers DICTATED notes to class, and I usually already had them written from the explanation on my own)
Sometimes, though, I’d hit a class where I actually DID have to look at the blackboard/listen to teacher/take notes ALL THE TIME to keep myself oriented. I still managed to fill my notes with doodles though XD
Unerringly Errant
I took special pride in being able to wake up when the teacher called on me, glance up at the board, think for about 5 seconds, then provide them with the answer before going back to sleep. It particularly pissed off my physics teacher…
thomas wrobel
Drawing takes a fairly different brain areas then listening/comprehension.
Some people just like stuff to do with their hands.
Of course that doesn’t mean Walky specifically is paying attention – merely that some people draw “on automatic”.
Sky
Some people (especially people with ADHD, I believe) learn and listen much better when they’re doing multiple things at the same time, especially things like doodling and drawing. I drew on my papers and in sketchbooks or notebooks all the time in school and a lot of early teachers seemed to think the same as what you’re saying here, but it’s really quite the opposite. Of course, now I’m in college for illustration and it’s encouraged. <_<
Eyebrow
Where were all you guys when I hit second year and needed to learn this studying stuff?
Leorale
Playing in the circus. Try that, it won’t help you study but it’s fun.
fogel
An education ‘system’ that let’s so many bright kids ‘coast’ till they hit The Wall … and then still leaves them pretty much on their own to rehab themselves … Am I the only one who thinks that there is more wrong with a System that squanders so much human potential than the kids that it fails? HS was so trivial for me that I graduated a year early (bc there was a girl a year ahead of me), and still won the prize for best history student, then hit my wall in freshman calculus. I did greagreat first quarter, but Spring quarter I was going to fail. During Study Days I calculated how many points I needed on the final to pass the course; which sections would be the easiest to get those points on; studied those and ignored the rest of the course. It worked, but what a bloody waste. I’m FINALLY getting the remediation I’ve needed for ever: meds to ease the path, regular therapy/coaching to take advantage of what the meds are doing for me. According to my therapist I’m not stupid or lazy, I’m inefficient except when I go into crisis mode and am easily distracted from my commitments and then hyper focus on other things. So, yeah, ‘Attention/Focus Disorder’ (not to mention The Big A — nxiety).
IF YOU RECOGNIZE YOURSELF in the many posts here and are unhappy about it, PLEASE explore the possibilities of why and what you can do, the sooner the better but it’s NEVER too late. And don’t let Them fluff you off: my current therapist (my 5th after 4 non-keepers), tried to tell me I was ‘fixed’ and to push me out the door when all he’d done was stabilize my most recent existential crises. I refused to go and since then we’ve gotten onto the longterm work. (Tho I’m priviledged in having a spouse with good insurance and I regret that I don’t know what to adviSE those who dont. If you are in uni, try whatever psy-services your school has.)
Liliet
I was one of those students, but I hit this roadblock in middle school. A much, ah, safer time. I recovered by high school and uni.
(At one point my classmate said about me that I started school with knowledge on fifth grade level – and that’s where it stayed, even as I actually reached and passed fifth grade. I’m pretty sure I learned SOMETHING between first and sixth grade, but yeah astute observation)
I remember getting a rapid increase in studyload in uni… yeah, Walky’s got an inopportune time to run out of effortless study buffer.
Unerringly Errant
Oh my God, somebody who understands! Six years later I’m still dealing with the effects of the world-shattering experience of realizing that I’m not some kind of genius prodigy. I was basically told I was a genius for my entire life, got B’s on my exams if I didn’t study at all and A’s if I studied 15 minutes or more. Then I went to a very competitive, highly-ranked university and had my spirits crushed. My Walky-style denial actually lasted all the way until sophomore year, when I almost failed organic chemistry. I never did really learn to study particularly well; fortunately, my wife (then my girlfriend) had both an intellect similar to mine and a ferocious work ethic, so she helped tutor me. Without her, I really might have had to change my major or go on the 5-year program.
ozaline
Well you actually have to be above average intelligence to go to a Learning Disabilities school, I was actually in one for Grade 7, and 8… it was hell.
SamBC
Yeah, Walky is so me when I first got to university… though my time was complicated by also developing narcolepsy.
Now, that’s a disorder you hardly ever see in mainstream fiction (esp TV/film) without it being comic relief.
Shiro
What, Walky’s an X-man?
Captain Button
Some kind of unlimited eating power, most like.
Spencer
Well there was that one time he became Robot God.
Deanatay
Or like the time he discovered he had the power to miss class?
Shiro
Ability to sense the best deal on chicken nuggets in the immediate township.
JessWitt
That X-plains his metabolism.
Max
Well he isn’t freaking out about any of his other classes, which would imply he really is smart.
This happens to a lot of people who are genuinely smart. They’re smart enough not to have to put in any effort, so by the time they get to an appropriate level they don’t know how to try hard.
darkoneko
Or to try at all, really.
When you didn’t have to study all your life, starting at 18 or so is HARD.
Mr D
Story of my life. Spend all of high school cruising on paying attention and not studying makes it hard to learn to study.
MrInsecure
Not really. I was like this when I first went to college- everything up to that point was easy to me (with the exception of math), so I didn’t really have any sort of work ethic or study skills. And then I got into my first non-intro course and got my ass handed to me, because for the first time I couldn’t just suck up the material and spit it out on the paper and get an A.
Granted, a big part of this is that college tends to deal a lot more with abstractions than high school does. For example, in high school, you can get away with just being able to pick out themes and setting elements from a Literature assignment, but on a college level, you have to be able to understand subtext and metatext and context and all other sorts of text that aren’t necessarily just the words printed on the page. In History, you don’t just learn about what happened, you now have to be able to figure out why it happened. In Physics, you don’t just learn Newton’s Three Laws, you also start to learn about the theories of LaPlace and Faraday and Einstein and actually have to find out what E=MC^2 actually means.
And Walky is just not prepared for that kind of intensive thinking. Not yet.
Ana Chronistic
1. JOKE
2. he insists someone who is handed his paper is somehow performing sorcery by divining its contents
= “special”
MrInsecure
Well, yes, you were either referring to a Lake Woebegone situation (“where all of the children are above average”), or Hogwarts, and Walky doesn’t strike me as a Gryffindor.
Leorale
Dorothy’s a Slytherin.
Lord Stoneheart
On one hand ambition is one of her defining character traits.
On the other hand, she doesn’t seem to have a diet of solely puppies and kittens.
Captain Button
That we have seen.
Rachel
Well she did skip a lot of lunches with Joyce at first……
Briny
She probably eats a lot of vegetables, too. She’s super-responsible!
Willoughby Chase
She’s her own mother twice over so there’s that.
JustCheetoDust
Having read this explanation only after replying, I need going to consider not reading the comments section at traffic lights just because “oh shit, it’s already 12:00.”
Ana Chronistic
1. Why are you reading at traffic lights?!?!?!
2. (kinda wish I could do that–my car (and everyone else’s) is buried under two feet of snow at the moment)
2a. ((I guess I can still do that but on foot, which isn’t the same))
JustCheetoDust@gmail.com
I’m not even going try to explain why, because I know that shit is indefensible.
Needfuldoer
Walky’s trying to use comedy to deflect an uncomfortable conversation again. Academic cruise control has gotten him this far, but it’s never going to teach him how to study.
He has to learn to swallow his pride and ask for help if he wants to pass this semester.
gc
Or, you know, go on the internet for two minutes to find out what other people in his situation have done. But that’s less humiliating, so of course some of us readers wouldn’t want that. (Also maybe harder to make into a good story.)
Jason
I had the opposite problem. In lower level schooling, a lot of stuff is more or less “basic” or can be worked out from first principles. Being smart and knowing how the system worked let me eliminate 70% of the workload, making me work less than 30% compared to other students.
Later on, when actual study, and practise (for math) was involved… not to mention living away from home and not having someone monitor my studying… well, it all went to heck in a handbasket.
It’s because at lower levels, education is “stuff that everyone should know”, to some extent. So, if you’re intelligent and watch tv or otherwise know as much about the world as the average adult, you don’t have to study that much. … in uni/college, you get taught stuff that is pretty specific, that most people would not have a clue about unless they were specifically given a lecture or read a book or something, it’s not the sort of “general knowledge”
Oh yeah, and my attendance for classes and lectures was terrible too. … In that sense, I’m worse than Walky, since he expects to learn enough from (sleeping in?) lectures and classes to get by, whereas for some stupid reason, I thought that I would learn stuff while sleeping IN MY BED. … in that sense, in hindsight, I was the biggest idiot of them all!
So yeah… thinking you’re a genius who can do anything, and succeeding? You’re a genius. Thinking you’re a genius, but failing? You’re actually a moron, who thinks he’s a genius.
fogel
To paraphrase Teddy (Mickey Rourke) in “Body Heat”:
There are 50 ways that you can screw the pooch. If you think of 50 of them, you’re a genius. And you ain’t no genius.
fogel
Oops. Its, if you can think of 25 of the 50 you’re a genius
JustCheetoDust
He struggles with one class and someone has to think he sucks at school altogether. If anything, he’s terrible at preparing himself for the scenario in which he actually has to put in work.
Kindra
No, Walky is actually REALLY typical of smart kids when they hit higher education. I never had to really try to learn new material, all the way through high school, and when I got to college, I had no idea at all how to study. I’d basically never needed to study beyond reading the relevant section in the textbook, and maybe a few practice questions for math.
Walky probably hasn’t ever had to really try in school before. Now that he’s hit something he can’t immediately grasp, he can’t reconcile that with his view of himself.
JustcallmeSoul
last night’s closed comments probably killed you ana/jen
Kelli
Calculus is the point at which I too first had trouble breezing through classes, but for me the timing was my senior year in hig school rather than as a freshman in university. Alas, it coincided with the breaking of my giveadamn, so I was not motivated to care about it or fix it by studying. I am not sure whether it has ever mended, either, and it has been nearly 30 years at this point.
gc
Well, his mother is strong, and I guess his father could be considered good looking…
AnvilPro
I just want to say, in regards to yesterday’s comic: TITLE DROP!
Adam Black
I should ve figured out. I nearly used that exact same phrase in the comments to some dickwad
Bicycle Bill