Classroom
- we go with a blank slate. we wait for the professor to say something new that we have never heard of before. we take some notes, we expect the professor to tell us what home work to do and we do it and our work is done.
- The role of the professor is to define the curriculum with some level of specificity. The student gets the broader idea of the subject before walking in to classroom so we know what to expect today. The role of the professor is to provide more context on the subject and to answer direction seeking questions, something that one cannot get from reading the book.
This is the difference between going to a good school vs. ordinary school. The purpose of an ordinary school is to train population to perform certain tasks that industry/business requires. it is like teaching a mule how to walk the trail. you do not want the mule to think, you put blinders on it at times and you want mule to move the stuff from place A to place B.
A good school otoh teaches you how to think. It does not, in effect, train you to do any one task. in that sense, when you come out of it, you are not expected to know any thing that is practical. however, you are expected to have a gift of discriminatory thinking. The expectation is that if you are faced with an unsolved problem, you will find a a way.
how do you practice that
You practice by training your mind to look ahead and think ahead and not wait for the world to come and tell you that it is raining now after it starts raining. In a classroom, it means that you want to know your subject even before you set foot in the class. It can be demonstrated that with some work, one can figure out what the subject is from a shallow perspective.
you do not want to be surprised by professor using a new word. you want to know the word before you enter and have some understanding of it. what you want from the professor is to grasp the deep meaning behind the concept. if you are able to accomplish that, and it requires mind training, you would find that most things are quite simple to understand and score points.
If you let yourself be surprised after entering the room with the new words, by the time you get your fingers around it, the world would have moved. if you look at it from professors perspective. he has a lot to cover in a short time. he cannot do the reading for you nor does he want to get paid for doing that. If he wanted to do it, he could have taken a job in an easier school. you want to use him for what is good which is to explain concepts and not have a bible reading session