In class: "Question."

I love it when somebody has a question during lecture and they wait with their hand in the air only to receive zero acknowledgement from the professor. No, okay. What I truly love is how people feel the need to say the word “Question” as they wait with their hand in the air. I mean, I get it. They need to get the professor’s attention. But still. It is so…. weird.

I guess it’s because I’ve never seen/heard anything like it before. I’ve gone to small schools pretty much my entire life. With a maximum class size of 30, there was almost zero chance of getting lost in the crowd. If anything, you had to be on your toes, because there was a pretty high chance of being called on randomly. The only exception to my history of small-scale education was studying abroad in Scotland; I guess the British are too polite to yell out “Question” in the middle of a lecture.

Things don’t just stop at the person who is asking the question. Sometimes, a “Good Samaritan” will feel the need to lend a helping hand (or voice) to a classmate otherwise silenced by a blind professor. “Question.” We hear from the back of the classroom (these “Helper Bees” are usually in the back, where they have a good view of the entire class). The lecturer stops midsentence, and scans the auditorium in the direction of the voice. The class turns to see the source of the Question. Meanwhile, someone sitting in a completely different part of the lecture hall is still holding her hand in the air. Finally, contact has been made between Lecturer and Helper. “Down there,” Helper responds, pointing to the student with her hand up.

The best part: when the question, which has now caused quite a disruption, is something like, “Will this be posted online?”