I try not to be a judgmental person. I really, truly do. I believe that what we put out into this world is what we get back, that what we put in our minds is what we see, and all that shit. But college is turning me into an angry, judgmental person. I am required to participate in these Discussion Boards, where we are given an assignment (yes, the instructions DO tell us what to do, though you wouldn't know it by most of the posts) and then we're required to respond in a specific way to the other students' posts. I recently survived a two week long group project that was done solely through this method, and I felt my well-constructed veneer of diplomacy towards strangers beginning to crack. That cannot happen, because when it does, the absolute truth comes out of me, and it usually offends someone.
I'm not talking about the poor writing or grammatical mistakes. Although I am somewhat of a grammar Nazi, I don't judge those who aren't. At least, not most of the time. No, I'm talking about the complete idiocy of some of these people. The basic lack of common sense and intelligence not only drives me up the wall, it makes it difficult for me to do my side of the work. Multiple times a week, I find myself unable to think of a way to respond to them, either because of their inability as a sophomore in college to follow simple directions, or because I honestly don't know what the fuck they're trying to say. I've decided these occurrences are worthy of a blog venting. Maybe it will curb my temptation to start writing what I
really want to say to these people.
Today's Episode: Biology - Evolutionary Traits Gone Wild!
(General syllabus instructions: Each post must be at least one paragraph long. Each post must be relevant to book material and written in correct English, with correct grammar [how sad is it that the prof had to specify this?].)
Instructions: In this and
last week’s sessions you learned about evolution.
Your task
in this session is to pick an organism, and a trait of that organism. You should explain how the trait evolved. Be sure that your evolutionary explanation is
a sensible one. Do not choose an organism or trait that
another student chose, or you will not receive credit for your post.
Your response
in this session is to propose an alternative explanation for why the trait in another
post evolved. For instance if a
classmates original post said that a peacock’s plume might have evolved due to
sexual selection, your response might detail how the plume might have evolved as
a way to scare off predators.
Here's one post I had to respond to:
'Through genes the coloration trait of frogs can change. This trait
change allows frogs to camouflage with their surroundings to protect
them from predators. The coloration trait that changes allows frogs to
evolve from generation to generation.'
Ok, technically, this is more on the mark than a lot of these posts. It's three sentences long, so I guess it's one paragraph. She picked a trait and why it may have evolved. But guess what? IT'S PLAGIARIZED RIGHT OUT OF THE TEXTBOOK. +1 for effort.
-But my FAVORITE part was the other classmate's response to this post (
"Your response
in this session is to propose an alternative explanation for why the trait in another
post evolved.") :
'Along with a frogs coloration
camouflaging it from predators, I also feel that how fast different
species of frogs can travel/escape a possible predator could have
something to do with natural selection, and why one species of frog may
be more successful in surviving.'
Uh.....what?
Peer #2's post:
'This finch when
populations of them are together their beaks evolve into different sizes to
help the population maintain itself. The different sizes beaks determine the
different foods. When the bird populations are separated their beaks are the
same size. Their beaks are the trait and the different sizes are how the beaks
evolve.'
.......sigh.
Isn't there some prayer about asking God for patience? Yeah. That one. Or more aptly put:
SERENITY NOW!!!
