Older students, please shut up in class.

In a number of classes I have had over the past few years at Bakersfield College, I have noticed a plague hindering the education of BC students. It isn’t drug use. It isn’t alcohol. It isn’t even procrastination. It’s old people.

Young people are generally criticized for believing they know everything. This might be true everywhere but in the classroom setting. In class, younger students just want to get finished so they can have fun while older students want to make every second count – and they will make everyone sit through every random thought and life experience that pops into their head.

Without fail, an older student sitting in the front row will find a way to comment on a topic and how he or she has seen it in their life. This does not enrich the educational experience; instead, it distracts the teacher and loses the other students.

The vast majority of students understand that there is an unwritten protocol – ask the teacher a question or make a comment, but then sit back and let the teacher continue.

Older students don’t seem to understand this. They begin talking and proceed to carry on an entire conversation.

If I had a dime for every time a mother has tried to talk about her extensive life experiences in class, I could buy Bakersfield College and create a policy that would require muzzles be placed on all talkative students.

It seems unkind to single out older students for monopolizing a teacher’s time, and given, there are a large number of young students who are guilty of this, but in a number of classes I’ve had there have been students in their 40s telling the teacher their life stories.

Teachers, I know you see this problem too. You let students, regardless of age, monopolize your time during lecture and all you can do is strategically try to end the student’s comment.

There aren’t enough “OKs” or “let’s move ons” in the world to shut these students up. It’s going to take something more forward to get the class back on track.

I’m sick and tired of this, and I’m not going to take it anymore. This is a plea to older students as well as teachers. Older students, please don’t monopolize the teacher. Teachers, please don’t let them monopolize you.

The classroom does not revolve around any individual students. Not the teenage hoodlum being a jerk in the back and not the 50-year-old mother in the front row who comments on everything.