The Price of Knowledge

“A definite integral is the limit as delta x approaches zero of the Riemann sum” says Mr. Fransen. He either never loses a chance to sound complex or is incapable of debasing his speech to the point where it is marginally comprehendible. Neither of which presents well to the students. Once they have deciphered the mathematical jargon he spouts, they have to wrestle with the concepts of calculus, blink a few times letting the dust settle, and turn to their neighbor to ask what they’ve missed from the rest of the lecture. For the rest of the day their brain is busy   pounding square pegs into round holes and by the time they’ve given up on that, they’ve started the homework. Eventually the square pegs, through pain, effort, and caffeine, get a little less square. They never quite fit until after the test.

The only thing the students have to save them from his multisyllabic blabbering is the overused duct tape bound pile of paper call a book that looks like it could be old enough to out date language itself. But somehow he has more to give than the book ever could. For example: “One half e to the x minus e to the negative x, just so happens to be the hyperbolic cosign”, but perhaps this is only useful to the person who can make sense of him. The only chance the students have of success is to develop their brains to the point where they can take on his vocabulary with the power of a college bound mind. In other words; study ‘til three o’clock in the morning, pass out, taunt their body with three hours of sleep, and repeat as necessary. This process is necessary as long as bearable, and even then so sleep is generally regarded as excuse for irresponsibility; much like the uncontrollable appetite of   the dog one has in the third grade.

“This is a college course here folks” my government teacher Mr. Jost would say after he would go around the room not seeing a single completed homework...