"I Bet You'll Be The Oldest One in Your Class!"

"I bet you'll be the oldest one in your class," my sweet, eight year old daughter mentioned to me. She said it in a sort of "cool" tone as if being the oldest would actually be a good thing (I guess it is neat to be the oldest when you're in third grade). Bless her heart, she had no idea how often I've considered this possibility on my own already.

Actually, I doubt that I will be the oldest. According to some reports, adult learners are now becoming the majority on campus verses the traditional early 20's crowd. If I were still preparing to become a teacher, I think that I would be accompanied by a large amount of students older than myself, but now that I am a Mass Comm major..... who knows?

I'm not afraid of the college workload. I actually look forward to the challenge! I've always thrived in the classroom situation where I knew exactly what was expected of me and what was required in order to excel. The one thing that is constantly on my mind is how I perceived the older students in my classes when I was a 19/20 year old student.

I'll be honest: they were annoying. They answered all the questions and rambled on and on. It was as if they were trying hard to win the teacher's affection. I rolled my eyes many times when they began to speak in class. I would like to think that it was just the personalities of these particular adult students that I objected to (these women were apparently on the same track of classes as I was). Actually, I don't remember any other adult students who caused me to react in this manner.

Nonetheless, I think about my eye rolling and how I hoped not to get paired with the older students when we had group projects. I don't want to be on the receiving end of those kinds of feelings now that I'm the older student in class.

I wonder if I will try to restrain my natural inquisitiveness and desire to give my "two cents" during classroom discussion in fear of being labeled as one of the "old guys."

What was the real reason that I didn't want to be paired with the adults for group studies? Was it because they were stupid? Nope. It was because I knew they took class seriously, something I often did not. I was afraid they might actually want to meet after hours when all I wanted to do was to see my boyfriend or watch "Friends" on t.v. The real problem was that I wanted to do the bare minimum required of me.

So, I guess being labeled one of the "old guys" might not be too bad after all.