Yesterday, the maternal unit summarized for me an article she found online about an American professor who guest lectured at a school in China. At the end, he asked questions, and the kids knew all the answers. Afterwards, the Chinese professor asked the American one what he thought, and he basically said, "They are all very smart kids... but what's the point of coming to class if they know everything already? This did not feel like a question session. This felt like being in a play where everyone knew their lines perfectly."

In physics today, we learned some more about electric current, but halfway through, the usual suspects became logically conflicted and interrupted the lesson with many questions. "But if... wouldn't... ?" in time-honored mockery of the "If... then..." hypothesis form. After the question session began to get old, I gave Kai a look, and I do not exactly remember who made the first comment, but at some point in our little exchange, I said, "It's because these children are American," recalling the lack of dissent in Chinese classrooms. One of the usual suspects who sat diagonal from me looked at me with resentment and remarked, defensively yet in an icy tone, "Well maybe we're actually interested."

Bull Shit. Well maybe you are too quick to take things the wrong way. Maybe you should learn the denoted differences between inquisitive and ignorant. Maybe you crossed that line. Maybe you'd find that if you just read the textbook, you would find the answers to almost all the questions you ask--I say almost because once in a while, the usual suspects do ask useful questions. Then maybe you will stop wasting the entire class's time with stupid questions which you are bound to ask almost every day. Maybe you and the other usual suspects are the reason why the class is two months behind schedule, and maybe you are the reason why we all have ten chapters to learn in a month if we plan to be even remotely ready for the AP test. Maybe, just maybe, you could notice that the "uninterested" students around you do better than you do on tests (and I am most definitely in this group); maybe you should take a few pointers from that boy who gets As on all the tests yet never speaks a word except when he goes through the trouble of explaining something undeserving and time-consuming to you. Ah, youngin', I am so sorry, but maybe you Fail at Life.

That is what I should have said, but instead, I just stared at him blankly and answered, "I wasn't saying it was good or bad. I just said it's different." The reply, in a conniving tone and with another glare: "oh suuuuuuuuuure."

I used to think that having classmates who sometimes make use of the privilege to question our instructor broke my boredom, but it has gotten to the point where these children just give me a headache.