In K-12 education, the trope of the class clown was an all-too-real one. Students, whether due to crippling insecurity or a genuine need to have their (misguided) voice heard, would interrupt the teacher and shove their sense of humor down the throats of the rest of the class. Everyone has done it at one point or another, but it was the egregious offenders who were dubbed the "class clown."
By the time students arrive to a college classroom, this doesn’t seem to be much of a problem any more. At this point in the class clown’s life, they have either hung up their derby hat to indulge in more studious pursuits, or they have committed to their act entirely, parading their jackassery for all of Facebook and their hometown to see, far from the sanctity of a college course.
There is, however, an insidious permutation of the class clown that pervades lecture halls all over the country. We speak, of course, of the peanut gallery.
The peanut gallery is when two or more — at the risk of appearing sexist, usually male — students sit next to each other in a lecture hall and mock the speaker from afar, using the distance between teacher and student as a mask with which to cover their impropriety. Funny accents, "witty" observations and an all-too-overwhelming sense of smugness are but a few of the regrettable traits exuded by the peanut gallery.
There are no laws that formally designate muted assholery in the classroom as a criminal offense. But by God, there ought to be.
There is a solid chance that if you’re at UF, you worked hard to get here. UF, at least ostensibly, is not an institution for scrubs. Despite the high standards UF sets for intrepid applicants, it isn’t as though the university can place a check box that reads, "Mark here if particularly rude or boisterous in the classroom," on applications. And so, a few rotten apples inevitably slip through.
To address members of the peanut gallery directly: We respectfully ask you to cut it out. You know who you are. If you believe a particular class is so inane that your comments are a refreshing source of entertainment, you’re wrong. Boring or not, college courses are a source of knowledge and skills, all of which we’re paying an exorbitant amount for. Additionally, some of us (especially in the liberal arts, where grad school is all but a necessity) still care about our GPAs.
The only proper way to deal with a seemingly dull lecture is to grin and bear it. If you want to mock your professor the second class is over, by all means, do so — expressing your dissatisfaction in private is a healthy, reasonable way to process your own boredom. Surf Facebook, Twitter and other mindless pursuits on your phone if you have to! But don’t force it on the rest of us; odds are, we resent the class even more due to your behavior.
