cut the crap

i'm sat here feeling stressed, annoyed, frustrated and worried about an upcoming assignment. as it stands, i feel like a bit of an idiot for not understanding what it is that i actually have to write about which in my honest opinion could have been prevented. i'm not going to be biased and say that this isn't down to me, obviously i could probably have done a few things better myself but i feel that a large part of me not knowing what i need to know is down to the way that i've been made to learn them. there will undoubtedly be new, long and complicated words for me and my piers to grasp as we continue on our journey but that isn't the problem. it would be worrying if we didnt learn new things otherwise we'd be departing with a big wad of money and 3 years of our lives for things that we already knew. the thing that pisses me off is the fact that i am being taught complicated things with unnecessarily complicated words and sentences.

i have a little sister who is currently in secondary school and have on many occasions helped her out with school work. without meaning to sound big headed in any way, on virtually all occassions i have been successful. if there is something new for her to learn that she just can't get her head around, i would explain it to her in terms that she understands. i wouldn't use complicated and wordy sentences to explain in spite of the fact that i would be able to if i wanted to. this is so she doesn't have to use her brain to think about the words that i use to teach her - the nothing words. i use words that she naturally and instantly recognises and understands in terms of the context that they have been used so that as i say, she doesnt have to spend a few seconds trying to figure out what i mean. this allows for her entire attention to go towards actually learning what it is that she needs to know. this, to me is the goal of learning and education. teaching in a way that makes the student understand.

this has not been the case for me. the books, websites and people that have taught me have explained in a deliberately intellectual way. using long words, complicated grammar and the assumption that i know a lot more than i actually do (e.g. that i know all about marxism, cubism and other philisophical/political ideas and that if they make throw-away comments about them i'd instantly know what they were on about) all lead to me having to go through things over and over again repeatedly whereas if they were put in a different way a lot less of this would be required. its worse in lectures because if i didnt understand something that somebody said, that was it, no chance to rewind and i don't have enough time to think about what they just said otherwise i'd miss another couple of points and end up being lost in a ridiculously big sea of words. its true that what i am being taught is of a more complex and difficult nature to that of my little sister but in terms of the difficulty of my task matched up with my abilities and the difficulty of my sister's task and her abilites, i don't think the ratio would be much different.

i am sure that there are less complicated ways of putting forward an explanation. this would lead in my opinion to more people being able to learn what is needed to be learnt and less feelings of preventable stress, worry and misery. don't make yourself sound intellectual just for the sake of it or to make a subject seem more difficult than it already is. this will only lead to more failures and angry blogs...