Book learners

Post Reply New Topic

I am in college and now find that I remember very little meaning of what the professors are talking about. Maybe it is missed social cues, auditory processing difficulties, or anxiety. I don't know. The most annoying thing is when the professor will ask a question to the class, and the person beside me and fifteen other people say the answer like it is a magic spell. (It is this way in math class also.) The only way I can learn these days, it seems, is from the book.

Is there anyone else out there who does most of their learning for school from the book?

I am considering taking the CLEP tests for Western Civilization, Spanish, and Chemistry because they cost less than taking actual classes and they don't require actually going to class.

Has anyone had any experience with the CLEP exams (or the CLEP exams in particular that I mentioned)?

I read on a website that if an Aspie is required to take a philosophy course, he should try to get into Logic. I may take Logic next semester. Has anyone had here had any experience with that class?

I learn best from books. I read school textbooks when I'm bored.

I am generally, but not exclusively, happier with books.

A really good lecturer can be better organised, and more to the point.
Some text-books can be as badly set out as a poor lecturer's presentation.

I have taught myself how to learn from books because that is what I did for a good portion of my early days as a student. This came in quite useful when I took physics. Although I have the ability to, I prefer not.

I also read biology textbooks just "for fun", though it is difficult to force myself to study for biology class.

I do a decent amount of learning from the book and I can teach myself a lot of things. I am curious about how much background you have in those 3 subjects, I think that it is possible for an individual to teach himself those topics, it just might be hard based upon whether or not that individual procrastinates and the ability in that subject. I think that you would have to put good effort into those subjects and allow yourself time to get familiar with them, and maybe read up on what you have to do in order to succeed, and if it sounds feasable then go from there making sure to allow for some lenience so that way you don't have too much on your back.

Logic would probably be a very good philosophy class for an aspie or anyone who is a concrete thinker as opposed to abstract. Logic classes tend to have you write out a semi-mathematical proof for why certain things are true based upon the premises.

Yeah, I took as many logic classes as I could. It was great to find something that I could excel at without even trying. My classmates would get so annoyed with me that they would steal my notes while we were working problems during lecture, thinking that would prevent me from working problems faster than anyone else. So then I just toyed with them... I would wait until I saw someone look up from their work with that, "Hm, I think I have this... " expression on their faces, look around the room to see what everyone else was up to, and then I would give the answer just before they could speak.

But this was all before I knew to what I owed my advantage.

Logic is fun. Normal people do not understand it quickly enough for it to be challenging enough; however, this does serve as a form of amusement for the few of us who actually do think logically.

Depends on the teacher, really. A teacher I like and can connect to--for instance, my Latin teacher--usually ends up teaching me much more than one that can't hold my interest. For the latter, I tend to learn from the book. It also depends on the subject; I've learned math almost exclusively from textbooks but have learned Latin almost exclusively from my classes. More often, though, I learn about interesting subjects from a combination of learning in class, textbook work, and independant study. It's nice to come across someone else who reads textbooks for fun; generally if I mention it to my classmates (or, more often, they lok at me reading ahead in my textbook) I just get funny looks.

Of course, I'm in high school, not college.

I agree with you to some degree on that point, actually. A student teacher filled in for the professor in my college Psychology class today. As opposed to learning lots of interesting stories, we are now learning actual material that will go on the quizzes. As well, I would not be surprised if this student teacher is on the autism spectrum.





There's a MC68000 Assembler language book I want to get my hands on. Also, I have checked out a Geography textbook and read that for fun. I'm thinking about checking that out again, since I love its postwar, Cold War era writing style. I paraphrase from this book: In Soviet Russia, agricultural output rivals that of the United States so the United States better do something! In Soviet Russia, the government controls everything and the individual is destroyed in the name of the state! Also, not just looking at the stylistic writing, I find it interesting to read information that is now truly quite the opposite: China has very little manufacturing--what little factories it did have were shut down after the Boxer Rebellion--and is a largely agricultural nation; however, since the Communists took control, their government has become intent on becoming industrialized. In the American South, after the Civil War negroes remained on the fields, and poor whites moved to the hills, [so they are hillbillies,] where they became further economically depressed.

Last edited by hyperbolic on 19 Oct 2006, 6:54 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Textbooks are quite fascinating. I taught myself physics from the textbook a few years ago... let us see how much I remember when I have to take it again. Biology textbooks are far more interesting, however, especially the kind that go into detail about micro-organisms and what sorts of horrible, nasty diseases they cause. The second best thing is chemical MSDS (Material Safety Data Sheets).

I have about as much trouble with the teachers as I do the books!

Sometimes I wonder how I get good grades in school....

I was more of a Book Learner in school. If I learn something from a book, I retain it for a much longer period of time.

I've often found that books do a far better job of conveying information than the professor (puppet) trying to simplify the same information. Grand slews of spoken words have a great tendency to bounce off of my brain anyway... Nevertheless, I do well enough in classes to ace them just by listening to the professor, though I don't retain spoken information for long periods of time.