I have to share this. A redneck grad student's interpretation-Reaganomics

[Maddy McCall]

Several years back, when I began my graduate studies in history, I took a grad historiography seminar.

There was this one guy in the class who I swore had marched with the Klan in my hometown the year before. I still believe it was him.

Well, he offered his interpretation of Reaganomics to the rest of the grad students in the seminar:

"It's like when you strangle a goat. All the blood gets trapped up in the brain, and none of it can trickle down to the hooves."

The prof who directed the seminar seriously stopped, looked at the guy, speechless.

Before I could restrain myself, I said, "What the FUCK?"

After class, several of us had a drink with the prof, and we were all very certain that the Klan guy had indeed strangled a goat and evidently thought this was normal behavior, because he talked about it so matter-of-factly in class.

Needless to say, he didn't make it through the class, nor the grad program.

Your unbelievable educational stories?

[skygazer]

1. Well, I don't have anything to top that

But I do need to point out that if one were to strangle a goat, the blood would NOT all be trapped in the head since it originates from the heart. As a matter of fact, what would kill the goat would be a lack of blood to the brain, something that it sounds like this guy was suffering from!

[evil genius]

2. i had a japanese grad student teaching my under grad

macroeconomics class, who didn't speak english very well and instead of using widgets or tape recorders or something in his economic constructions, he insisted on using units of peanut butter, except he coouldn't say peanut butter. He said penis butter. hilarity ensued for the rest of the semester, because he didn't get it and didn't stop.

[fryguy]

3. even setting aside the disturbing nature of the analogy....

...isn't that a WRONG description of Reaganomics?

btw - I wonder what part of the current administration your classmate is currently working in?

[da_chimperor]

4. HAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAA!

That's hilarious!

[sandnsea]

5. Mock Congress

1987, I was 30. A youngen stood up and said "I think the best way to stop crime is to just kill criminals on the spot."
:wow:

That was my first clue that there was a change coming. Although, privately, my professor insisted they would swing back to the left, just like boomers had swung more to the right since the 60's. Wonder what he thinks now.

[LoZoccolo]

6. My mom is a community college teacher...

...who teaches child development, and she assigned everyone to go pick a book about child development to read and write a report on.

This one girl thought that she would be able to just read any book and do a report on it - she said she read this Danielle Steele book recently, and asked if she could just write the report on that. I get this feeling that this girl has this mentality that school isn't really for learning anything specific, it's just there to make you do things like read books and write book reports.

[Modem Butterfly]

7. Damn that's funny!

Hi-LARIOUS!

When I was a freshman, we had a professor who insisted on actually taking attendance (this is a 100 level class, lots of students). He told us that there were no excused absences, and that if someone were sick enough not to come to class they would have to bring a note from a doctor of their parents. He was a very old professor who would retire soon, and while everyone grumbled, we were all too young and naive to challenge him.

One day, he took role and, when he got to the name of a particular Japanese student, he asked for her excuse for missing the last class. She handed him a sheet of thermal fax paper (this was 1990). In heavily accented English, she said, "Here's a note from my father," The professor said, "I can't read this, it's in Japanese," and handed the note back to her. She said, "It says Masako sick. You excuse please," He tried to argue with her, explaining that he couldn't accept a note written from 8,000 miles away. She repeated herself, more loudly and more firmly, "It's a note from my parent. Says Masako sick. Says excuse, PLEASE," Finally, he accepted the note. The entire class stood and applauded.

Amazingly enough, he stopped requesting notes after that.

[KurtNYC]

8. I did a grad studies course on the Iranian Revolution

It was basically me and about 12 Iranian Muslims. Or should I say me VERSUS the 12. This was in 1981 and they were all proud of what they felt was their overthrow of the Shah. (some overthrow! the 'evil' Shah unexplainably left the country without a fight) Needless to say it got pretty crazy. I would debate about 6 of them at once.

During one class they showed a film and narrated it live. This woman is reading this stuff about how the Shah was terrible "because he had a large yacht" (not that he tortured people or sold out the country's oil interests but the boat and the palace were what made him "bad"?!). And of course they are ALL looking for my reaction to the film -- I was trying not to laugh; it was real melodramatic. But I look back at the woman narrating and she has a cut onion under her nose trying to get a cry going!

I earned THOSE 4 credits.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

9. The first year I taught Japanese on the college level

I had a student who could memorize dialogues perfectly and with superb pronunciation but always looked bewildered and helpless during the conversation sessions and did miserably on tests.

He finally came in to see me and I asked him how he studied for the class, since when students have trouble, it's often not that they're stupid or untalented but that they're not studying effectively. As he explained, I started to get an inkling of something that I had never expected. A few more questions confirmed it:

This guy did not realize that you could make up new sentences by varying the sentences in the dialogues. He did not understand that the Japanese language is made up of separate words.

[noiretextatique]

10. this "brillant" guy in grad school

i took a year off from grad school and stated again with a new group of folks. i kept hearing from everyone about the brilliance of one particular guy. i listened to him in class, and honestly, he didn't seem particularly brilliant to me. but all our professors, and some of the students in our group keep raving about the guy. our program was partly online, and after a few weeks, i noticed the brilliant one never posted anything online. finally some other students complained that our online discussions were missing some folks, so the brilliant one finally made his online debut. and...he couldn't write :wow: i mean he couldn't form a coherent thought, his grammar was non-existent...i'd say he wrote @ a 9th grade level. it seemed to me that all the talk about hsi brilliance was camflouge for the fact that he shouldn't have been in that program in the first place. affirmative action gone awry? hardly...he was total alpha male: white, blond, tall, handsome. funny how everyone tried to compensate for his lack of skills by over-compensating about his supposed intelligence. i never did see that brillance..but he was a really nice guy :7

[Fifth of Five]

11. Taught US History in a community college in Mississippi...

Talking about Colonial times when Spanish Florida extended all the way to the Mississippi River.

A student asked me if that was why "we are building the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway?"

[Maddy McCall]

12. You must PM me and tell me which community college!

I am teaching at a university in MS--and the goat analogy happened at the same uni.

Please PM me! If I don't respond in the next hour, it's because I have to run to the mall, but I'll be back this afternoon.

:-)