Do you not catch verbal instructions from teachers?

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My high school senior does relatively well in school, but right now he has an old teacher teaching environmental science who:

1. Gives verbal instructions about when tests and quizzes will occur
2. Depends a lot on videos, which my son tends to miss a lot of that info

Because of these two things, which require audio listening skills to catch onto, my son tends to not get a good grade in this class. If tests and quizzes are written down, he'll catch onto that. If homework is written down on a chalkboard or a website, he'll catch onto that. But instruction given verbally? It's a mess for him. Videos? Because of his anti-convulsant medications for seizures, which already make him sleepy, if you turn down the lights to watch a video, he's OUT.

Any of you have this experience? Do college professors tend to NOT have these habits? I'm hoping things will improve in college -- but I'm not holding my breath.

In college it is even worse. Well, it depends of the school and the teacher but from my experience there was always at least one teacher who did so.

Currently, in my weekend course I got only 3 teacher and one of them does the same thing. He is a real pain. I miss a lot and often I am not prepared just because I didn't know I should. But I know how to deal with it and the subject he teaches is somehow related to my special interest so my grades are high enough. I just do everything in advance, try to be prepared for each lesson and I stick to people who are good listeners so I can ask them what we are supposed to do if I don't know. It works so far. The only problem is the teacher seem to hate me because he thinks I don't pay attention at all. Well. It is not my fault his lectures make me sensory overload so in the end I lie on my desk with eyes closed and ears halfly covered so I can limit sensory stimulation and focus on his voice. It definitely looks like I am sleeping... He often makes fun of me. Bully... But I don't give a damn. I am getting A/B even on his lessons so he has no right to call me an idiot.

In my college I had 2 teachers like this.

I was totally skipping all lectures of one of them (I was literally falling asleep when he was speaking. He could use very long sentences and change the subject way to often - he was speaking about the lesson stuff, then suddenly he started to describe stuff like what he ate for his breakfast this day and then he returned to the lesson... - what the hell?) and I decided to learn about the subject from the Internet and ask other people for the exam date so I can show up on the exam. In the end I got a A- from the test. Fortunately in most colleges you don't have to attend the lectures to pass as long as you do well on the exam (but it also depends of the teacher).

The other one was worse. I had to attend her lessons because those were not lectures but exercises (you have attend at least 75% of exercises to pass) and she wasn't writing down anything. In the end I failed the subject and it ended up I MISSED like 10 projects and like 2 additional lessons I was supposed to attend because of lack of the projects. I still have no idea how it might happen... Well. To be honest I have a clue. I was the only one from my regular group attending this subject because other people from my group preferred the other subject we were supposed to choose from so I got to attend the lessons with 29 people of other group. Apparently they were exchanging the info between them and noone cared to tell me. Whats funny one of the additional lessons was apparently happening at the same time as my regular group english test in a building on the other side of city so I wouldn't have a chance to attend even if I did known about it. So it was the school fault too.
In the end I managed to pass the subject exercises with the lowest score -D (I gave back all the 10 projects 100% correct and even pointed out a teachers mistake at 3rd additional lesson - I would get an A if I just fit in the time...). And I got an A+ (100% correct answers) on the lectures test (we had lectures of this subject with other teacher). It definitely was weird. I actually liked the subject and could understand it perfectly so the -D and A+ next to each other were looking very weird.

Last edited by Kiriae on 09 May 2014, 10:09 am, edited 1 time in total.

Hi Kiriae,

I'm curious: what does your screen name mean? It seems Latin, somehow.

I am of Belorussian/Jewish descent--which means my ancestors might have lived in Poland at one time.

I want to vacation there. How are the forests in Poland?

My screen name doesn't really mean anything. It is somehow related to Kira from Death Note but only because I was watching the anime when I was making it. I made it this way since it sounds nice and noone else seem to use it (even though it seem to be a rare foreigner name - which I had no idea about when I was creating it).

If you want to visit Poland I would recommend Kraków (Cracow) City. It used to be our capital for a long time, is beautiful and wasn't destroyed during the World Wars (unlike our current capital Warsaw - which had to be reconstructed). There is a lot of foreigners there and most of people know English so you won't have a problem with communication. There is also Oświęcim city near (about 2h by train from Cracow - direct link) which you might be interested in because of being Jewish descent (Auschwitz-Birkenau museum, a lot of Jewish people visit it). And you might also go to the mountains (100km south from Krakow) which are beautiful.
I wouldn't recommend Polish seaside on north. "If you want to go to a seaside - don't choose Polish one. You can never be sure about the weather." - thats what we always say, even between Polish people.

About forests - I don't know. Forests are forests I guess. Some people like to walk there to gather blueberries or mushrooms or just for fun but personally I avoid such places. There are mosquitoes and ticks there. I am scared of them.
There is a lot of forests on south (mountains), some on the north (seaside) and not many in the middle of our country.

Last edited by Kiriae on 09 May 2014, 10:46 am, edited 1 time in total.

Thanks very much.

Have a nice day.

can I ask you something? why is it you ask unrelated questions to other users in the forums?
just curious
that's because it is unusual. forums here tend to lack social reciprocity and you ask questions like a normal conversation

Because I was curious

I enjoy "normal conversation" online.

I apologize if I offended you in some way.

I was able to discern instructions from teachers.

However, I was not so good at taking notes at lectures.

I got by in university by reading the texts.

noooo no offense
I asked because here in wp actual conversations are rare. people just comment on the thread like they are commenting an article they read, then you start normal conversations so..

So you are opposite of me. I never had any problem with taking notes. I could write as fast as the teacher was saying or even faster - I could predict one or two next words (like the dictionary on mobile phone does). But I didn't understand anything. The sentences were coming from my ears to my notebook without being analyzed so I always had perfect notes from the lectures, exackly the way teacher was explaining. Then at home I was reading them and rewriting what's actually important. I could never hear, write and understand at the same time. But I could do 2 of those.
Unfortunately it worked as long as he was keeping the rythm. A rythm change - me not sure what to do. Informations about exams and projects were a rythm change. xD

It seems like you've done very well. You're very good with the English language. I wish US schools were like their non-US counterparts.

Linatet: Thanks for responding.

i doze off because i hate school. not that i hate learning but i hate how everything is so repetitive and long. what is taught in 8 hours can be taught to me in 15 minutes. i guess its how the aspie brain works.

I had that problem a lot in high school and in college. The solutions I came up with were:
1. Keep a very brightly colored daily planner with me in class. It had to be brightly colored so I wouldn't forget it. Even so, I sometimes did. Luckily for me I had some understanding teachers who let me copy the assignments out of their own planners or handed me written versions.
2. I got a list of all the movies that were shown. In college, fortunately for me, my professors listed all the movies in the syllabus. I could then watch them again (and again if necessary) after the class in high school, and before the class (so I could actually participate in class discussions) in college.
3. In college, I took a lot of classes where the bulk of my grade was dependent on big research papers that I spent the entire semester composing.

Looking back, I probably could have and should have just asked that my accommodations include getting a list of all videos to be shown. It just never occurred to anyone I guess.

THIS. So much this.