Students.  We’ve all been one at one time or another.  Today I’m writing the first installment of what I hope will be an ongoing series, students are dumb.  I suppose this post could be generalized to “people who don’t read are dumb”, but as any TA or professor knows, this problem can be particularly bad for students.  Usually the information you need has been clearly posted for you.  Students who do not take time to read this information are dumb.

I’m not sure if it is something specific about online discussion boards that breed this particular problem, but it seems to run rampant there.  And it’s not just the frequent starting of threads that have already been started (though this is a problem too).  I’m talking about asking a question that has clearly been answered within a thread to which the entire thread is about.

The other day I clearly posted a clarification about having a lecture during the week of Thanksgiving.  The confusion was that in the class I teach the tutorials for the week were cancelled, but the lecture was still on.  As a reminder to students I posted the following note:

Hi Everyone,

I just wanted to remind you that there will be a lecture on Tuesday [specific date].  Only the tutorials on Wednesday are cancelled.

Have a great Thanksgiving weekend!

Seems pretty clear, right?  Wrong.  Two dumb responses followed.  The first was a clarification of whether all Wednesday tutorials had been cancelled.  Umm… yes.  The course TA clarified that yes, all tutorials were indeed cancelled.  The next response was even more baffling.  It asked, since the Wednesday tutorials are cancelled, was the lecture on Tuesday cancelled as well.

Oh my lord.  I don’t have the patience for this.  Luckily the TA was quick to reply because I’m not sure I could have pulled in the sarcasm, or let’s face it, blatant nastiness, and that would have been unprofessional.

A public service announcement benefitting all teachers, TAs, instructors, professors, etc…:

Students, read the information available to you before you ask questions, particularly if that posting will be public and permanent.  Otherwise, you are dumb.

One of our main blog goals is to educate people about being dumb.  With that in mind I have compiled this list of 5 things that will help you avoid being dumb.  This is obviously not meant to be an exhaustive list, but merely to point the most erudite readers in the right direction should they want to avoid being dumb.

1.  Keep up to date with current events.  The reasoning behind this is two-fold.  First, you will avoid looking like an ignorant buffoon at cocktail parties.  This can be particularly important when the party is attended by people like your boss or others whom you wish to impress (e.g. Queen of England, etc…).  Second, you can get ideas about what kind of actions are dumb by reading about criminals who make mistakes that get them caught such as this man, who forgot to roll down his window before attempting a drive-by shooting. 

2.  Criticize others in your life that are dumb.  Use your own personal experiences to hone your skills at detecting dumb.  If you can see it in others you can apply the same principles to yourself.  Not only will this lead to self-improvement, you may inadvertently make those you criticize less dumb.  Aunt Shirley is certainly going to think twice about using the U-scan if you make a public spectacle of her when she can’t ring through a can of beans.  Feel free to get started on this step by sharing a criticism of someone you know in the comments area of this post.

3.  Watch sitcoms.  The plots of most sitcoms are devoted to making fun of people who are dumb (see Phoebe teaching Joey French from Friends, for example) or people who are ostensibly smart, but have found themselves in a dumb situation (see Niles accidently dates a prostitute from Frasier, for example).  Being actually dumb or being the victim of dumb circumstance is not acceptable.  Use sitcoms to provide models of things to avoid in your own life.

4.  Become familiar with technology.  Most of us have had the experience of painfully watching someone fumble through getting a presentation to work on a projector.  Or maybe just setting the clock on the microwave.  These situations can be avoided by using technology regularly.  Don’t wait until the night before your scheduled visit with the Queen to try and get all the clocks in your house on the same time.  As you accumulate clocks read the instructions and learn how to set them.  Keep up with daylight savings and reset the time after power outages.  Take your knowledge to the next level by buying a watch with a lot of buttons and learn how to set the alarm on it.  Impress your friends at parties by setting all of their watches.  Take this same principle and apply it to other technologies in your life.  Master that universal remote or learn how to do a virus scan on your computer.  Simple steps like these will soon make you a technologically competent person, and let’s face it, better at life.

5.  Read this blog and follow us on twitter.  Within these posts you will find invaluable advice, and yes, sometimes criticism of actions that make people dumb.  Use and learn from these stories.  Evaluate your own behavior and see how you measure up to the standards we have set.  Most of all do not do the dumb things listed.

-Sister J