Had a chance to TA for a class when my sup was out of town, and while most of the others do TA regularly this was a first for me. I had an insight (?) into being on the other side of that table in the tutorial room.
First off one of the tutorials was at 9am; from my own habits I knew this wasn't going to be a full class nevertheless I waited till 9.20 before starting and and still had some one waltz in at 9.50!? Same thing happened for the afternoon class. I should have know such a person didn't care much for the tutorial but yet I decided to ask them the answer to one of the questions - and surprise - they didn't do it.
All this didn't bother me until at one of the questions a student worked out the solution on the board and one of the steps was y = 1/x^n, dy/dx = -n/x^n+1. After it was completed some of the students looked a little confused and when asked what the problem was they asked me how the differential came about! Granted this wasn't a maths class but it was a class of engineers!! and its one of the more simpler differentials. Oh well I guess I shouldn't have been surprised later when some couldn't identify that 2 sets of equations with 2 unknowns could be solved simultaneously.
On a positive note there were some gems in the class too who enthusiastically (or at least it seemed compared to the rest) answered the questions and asked some good questions back.
I found myself wondering at the end of it all were me and my friends/classmates like this too? Thinking back in all honesty I'd have to say yes - we did skip classes or walk in late and asked some pretty obvious questions from our tutors. Now I need not imagine how frustrated they must have felt - but if you did this all the time semester after semester do you become slowly unsensitized I wonder.
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