Tips & Tricks To Handle The Most Boring Class

I got a txt from Icy during my lunch time. She is in her class getting bored with the lecturer and playing around with her mobile. I txt her back with a little trick to enjoy her class.

All of us get bored with our classes once in a while. Back in uni about 40% of my lecturers were boring and the students slept in their classes. I'm not talking about dozing now and then; students just laid their head on the desk and sleep right in front. May be the classes are around lunch time or after lunch time or late evening or early in the morning or whenever time to intrigue our sleepiness. Sometime we just couldn’t help getting bored and not a single lecture can get through our head. I came across the same situation many times myself, so here is a little trick I used to make myself awake as well as enjoying the class and eventually gaining something in return.

Reasons to get bored in class:

Here are the most possible reasons to get bored in class.

• You and your friends think the lecturer is boring. You naturally put the classes with that lecturer in your most boring list and every time you will get bored or act bored in his classes.
• Your lecturer keeps reading everything from the text book and no explanation given.
• Your lecturer is too old to get attracted to. Your lecturer wears big glasses, he’s too fat.
• You lost your concentration in the class and thinking about other stuffs that you’ll be doing instead of that class
• None of your friends attended the classes or there is only you to attend this class separated from your friends
• Someone you interested did not show up for the class; your usual gazing at him job can’t be done and you feel really bored without him.
• You got some planned arrangements to attend to after the class and so eager to get there, thinking the classing is taking longer than usual.
• You couldn’t get enough sleep last night or so busy at work and feel hopelessly tired in the class wishing it to be over soon.
• Etc, etc by those reasons known only to you…

Gifted Solutions:

The following are some solutions I used back in uni to keep my interest in the most boring class.

1. Working with Eyes: This is the easiest way to gather your roaming thoughts and get back inside the class.

• You watch your lecturer intensely,
• Observer every little move he makes,
• Focus his eyes to yours,
• Study his facial expressions, lips, eye movements, nose itching etc
• Observer his gesture, hand waving, holding or playing with object in his hand, scratching his hair or wherever he unconsciously be doing.
• Look at his clothing, watch how he walk around in the class
  

2. Working with Ears: This is a bit hard if you are not use to it. This should be carry out only after you done the first step – working with eyes.
In this step you need to focus your listening skills only to your lecturer and learn him your ears.

• You can gaze else where but your ear should be with him
• You listen to his voice, the tone, the pitch, the vocal, the vowel
• Observer his stutters, exclamations, aberrations, peculiarities
• The sound he made while he walking, playing with objects, turning the pages etc
• Listen whatever unheard sounds or “not meant to hear” sounds comes from him

3. Working with Hands: This is the final steps in pulling your concentration back to the class. You’ll be mainly working with your hands, along with your ears and a bit with your eyes.

You need a pen/pencil, a piece of paper/ scribble book/lecture pad. If you don’t have those, borrow some from your immediate neighbors. Stretch your hand and relax your fingers. Shake them a bit now … action!

• Your listening skills are too good to be true after the first step, so you start applying whatever you hear to your hand.
• Jock down short words first, whatever you hear you jock it down
• Note down short phrases your lecturer utter now and then
• A bit increase your note taking speed, try to catch longer phrases he talking
• Listen to the whole environment now, not only your lecturer but to your surrounding as well
• Write down whatever you hear to the paper, try catch every single words from your lecturer mouth down to your paper.
• If something not making sense, starred/underline it. Back to listening again and work with your pen.

The Result:

Now…without realizing it, you already gain your concentration in the class and even making some notes from your lecturer.

End of step one, you’ll realize many details you missed before and noted lots of new actions about your lecturer.

• The way he bite his lips now and then,
• the way he scratch his bald head from the middle,
• the way he pick nose while he taking his breath,
• the way he keep wearing the cloth he wore yesterday,
• the ink mark on his shirt,
• the torn shoe heel, untidy tie
• the way he frown while he thinking or staring at some student
• Notice he got slanted walking style, etc etc….

End of step two, you’ll hear things that you never heard of.

• You hear him cough whenever he gets problem explaining things
• Hear him tap to the desk nervously while he thinking something
• The way he stutter while he asking questions to someone
• His girlish voice whenever he laugh or trying to make joke
• He says, “amm” 5 times, “You know” 3 times, “And” 5 times, “Alrite” 10 times, “Ok” 11 times

End of step three, SUCCESS!!!

• You got at least 5 pages full of scribbles
• You got notes on the lecture, notes on the example and scenarios given by your lecturer
• You got notes on the slide show points
• You got stars, underlines, graphs, figures and numbers
• You got extra things to study, research, follow up with etc.
• You know when your assignment due date is, what’s going to cover in your assignments, how the mark are allocated etc

best of all, got lots of things to chat/laugh with your friends after the class.

• You understand everything from the lecturer
• You got notes up to date
• You know more about your lecturer
• You see more of his habits, actions and facial expressions
• You understand his simple mumble and what he mean by that
• You know more about your class mates
• You heard your neighbor fart and the gals at the back gossip

Finally you can’t wait to attend his another class, you did extremely well in your assignment and you enjoy the class so much that you think the class time is too short.
You got rid of all your sleepiness and laziness thoroughly. You friends started to interested in what you said and started to copy the way you did. You lecturer starts notice your changes and give you a bright smile. He feel encouraged by your watchful and attentiveness toward him and try himself more to be alive in the discussions. And it changed from most boring to the most enjoyable class of the semester.

Yes, it’s all started from a little work with your eyes, ears and hands, which server you to pass the course with flying colors.

Some good tricks are not to be pass on but then you are my great friend so I pass it along.
Enjoy your class!!!

Gifted7ven