Imagine having a conversation with somebody who is telling you something really important. Now imagine that in the midst of that conversation someone else comes up to you and crinkles a potato chip bag in your ear.
It’s irritating, right? That’s how I’ve felt at the end of several of my classes this semester, due to people who pack their books about five minutes before a class is over.
In class, it’s more difficult to focus on what the professor is saying when there’s the sound of five or more book bags rustling and books being shoved into them.
Why is it necessary to pack stuff so quickly before the class is even over? In the grand one minute that it would take me to put my stuff away, I would still have to listen to whatever my professor is saying until the class is dismissed.
Besides, what if the professor were to say something important at the end after everything was packed up. Unless born with an insanely gifted memory, without writing down the information, most people are likely to forget whatever was said about 10 minutes after it was said, let alone when they’re tested on it.
People may say they’re in a hurry to get somewhere after class. Think about this — if you have a meeting/job/class to get to, most of the people in charge of such things will understand if you are a minute later than you would be otherwise because you were in class.
Others may say that they just want to get out of the classroom because they don’t like the professor or they don’t like the class or the person that sits next to them smells weird. And to that I say, be mature about it. We’re all going to have to deal with people and things in our lives that we don’t like, so it’ll be easier if you’re used to it now.
Not to mention that packing things up before the class is over more than likely irritates whoever is teaching the class. I can’t honestly say this from personal experience, but I imagine it would be. Plus, it’s disrespectful to the person who’s trying to help you learn something.
Let me try to explain it to you. If you’ve ever been in a speech class, you’ve been assigned a specific prompt that you have to present to the class. If you actually care about the grade in the class, you’ll more than likely put at least an hour’s worth of effort into preparing the speech when the time comes.
In most cases, when you present the speech, you know people aren’t going to care too much about what you’re saying to them, unless they’re tested on it or the speech is about a topic they’re actually interested in. But when you’re just about finished with your speech, your instructor walks up and hands you your grade.
“But wait,” one would think, “I haven’t finished yet.” That’s exactly the point. Except in this case, it’s the professor who isn’t done with teaching and the student who has already finished with the lesson plan.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that everybody who does this does it purposefully. But if you do this and you haven’t thought about the points I’ve made, I am kindly asking you to consider them. It’s your choice whether you want to continue packing up early and hindering your classmates from learning and your professor from doing his or her job.
