Wednesday, May 02, 2007

Consistently Inconsistent Vs Inconsistently Consistent

This is a very good Quote from one of the famous authors... I heard this sentence from one of my professors in the middle of his class. Every body was so seriously listening to his class and the class was on "Simulation and Modeling". There was a girl who came in middle and waiting at the door for the permission to get into the class room. Professor was so busy in his lecture and noticed her, gave the permission, she got into the class. And there was a guy who came late only on that particular day. He usually comes early to his classes and used to sit in one of the front antique worktables.

Professor noticed it and also gave him the permission to get into his class room. I was sitting in the same class but in the 3rd workbench and had been noticing all these events. I could imagine the professor's feeling as he was very good at his explanations not only in teaching technical stuff but also in guiding students. He said a simple sentence like "There is no problem with the people who are consistently inconsistent, but there is with the people who are inconsistently consistent". The whole class became silent and wondering why he could have made such a statement. It took me 5 to 10 secs to understand his statement and relate this to the events that were happened just few minutes before. He was very good at his comparison and associations.

His intention was not to blame either one of them or both, he was just telling his feeling about his class and the students. What he meant with his statement was that the lady who came in the middle of his class comes late every day and some times we find her missing in the classes, the guy who came next to her entrance comes regularly to his classes and sits in the front and every lecturer knows him well. Professor was trying to relate this to the general statement. If students miss classes regularly then there is no problem at all because they would have been missing concepts or theory from the beginning and that too also everyday so they wouldn't have to bother much about the missed concepts. But if a student who has been attending the classes from the beginning regularly with out fail and on one fine day if she/he misses the class or concept(s), they will be in trouble as they missed one important concept in the curriculum and they can't easily understand subsequent classes.. So this was the intention in his words.

Not only to the students this can be related this to any thing. For example, let me relate this to the physical exercises. If i am consistently doing exercises daily no problem, but if i am doing exercises once in a while it is the problem. Either i have to do physical exercises consistently or i should stop doing it. But if i try to do it on random basis, it will bring pain to my body and creates more struggles in my soul.

Think how nicely he had put it in his words :). This comes only from experience and maturity. Instead of scolding or warning just relating observation(s) to a general statement and made the whole class to understand his feelings and importance of consistency.

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