The Penguin

What's to be done about this 'mature student situation'? I was happily doodling/paying attention down the back of a lecture (on conflict resolution) today, when I was astounded by what suddenly poured out of the mouth of one of our visiting mature students.

Visiting from what course we're not sure, we just know that there's a group of them , they're not in our class and they never talk to us... Yet they have no problem talking to our lecturers. They address them by first name in fact and feel quite comfortable in interrupting class to do so. I know what I sound like. I don't have a problem with anyone asking genuine questions or offering their opinion if they genuinely feel it's relevant, what I do have a problem with is attention seeking and 'showing off'. Penguin is a repeat offender (and usually insults the research and experience of lecturers by explaining that she 'thinks' they're wrong. Why? She doesn't know, she just thinks so...), but today it was her sidekick's moment of glory.

'Arbitration' had just been explained to the class as a situation where a neutral third party (an arbitrator) is introduced to mediate between two conflicting parties. The arbitrator then makes a decision which is imposed upon both parties... That was it more or less anyway. Simple enough, ya? So the lecturer moves on, only to be interrupted with:

"Sorry, just going back to the arbitration thing there.. that's like a situation involving the ombudsman isn't it?"

Lecturer smiles (cos she's lovely/medicated), and agrees, commending the student and once again attempts to move on, only to hear:

"Well..ya, because when a bank has a problem with a customer, they have to call in an ombudsman and the bank and the customer have to accept the decision. I know that happens in banks. That's arbitration."

Groundbreaking.