Compare And Contrast Students And Crow Lake

In the two written compositions- “Students”, a poem, by Tom Wayman and “Crow Lake”, a short story, by Mary Lawson- the relationship between students and their teacher are both emphasized in their shortcomings and strains. In both pieces, the students are uninterested in the subject being taught by their respective teachers and the teachers have either no interest or no ability to catch the interests of their students (these two ideas have their differences in each individual piece).

The students, in both the poem and the short story, show no interest in the subject being taught by the teachers. An example of uninterested students in “Students” is shown by the quote, “Wayman knew this notation would be pored over with more intensity that anything

Though, Wayman tries his best to teach his students to use “Learning as self-defence. The more you understand about what occurring around you, the better prepared you are to deal with difficulties ” (pg.1, Ln. 27-29); his students tend ignore him and use easier methods like the ‘Vacinnatination Theory of Education’ or the ‘Easy Listening Theory of Learning’ (Wayman 1, 2). The same boredom from the students is shown in “Crow Lake” with one student who even “yawned so massively that she seemed in danger of dislocating her jaw” (pg.6, Paragraph 13). This act of boredom, caused by the dull lesson, gets to the teacher, making her unable to continue with her lesson plan and forces her to leave the classroom. This is quite a

In “Students” Wayman writes, “The freshman class first printouts showed birthdates so recent Wayman was sure the computer was in error” (pg. 1, Ln. 1-3). This highlights the age difference between the teacher and the students, which can take some slack off of Wayman who does try his best to interest his students (shown through his educational theories). In his case, it is the inability to connect to his students that causes the shortcomings in their relationship – the boredom. For Katie, in “Crow Lake”, it’s the lack of interest in her students. A quote that shows this is “Teaching I don’t enjoy at all” (pg.5, Paragraph 5) and even lists several reasons why: she doesn’t her students interesting or stimulating, she doesn’t understand her students and her students don’t seem to take anything she teaches seriously. For her, research is the part of her job – and the majority of it- that she loves. This lack of interest leads to droning, monotonous lectures that bore her students. Overall, there are different reasons to the disconnection between the relationships between the students and the teachers in each piece of