Experience With and Benefits of Nontraditional Students in the Classroo

There are besides a few times in my undergraduate experience that I remember being in class with much older scholarly persons. At that time, most of the older students were auditing classes because they could do so tuition free. They, therefore, would be in the class sessions except on exam days and they were not pass judgment to turn in any of the assignments. This fact somewhat bothered me at the time because it made them seem as if they were receiving preferential treatment, although such was not the case. The most salient memory I have of a non- traditionalistic student was a class called Comparative Government in which we studied the governmental structures of the United States, Great Britain, Russia, China, and West Germany. There was a student in his 70s in this class. He was garrulous and, unlike the rest of us, remembered many of the things that had happened in the histories of these countries. For instance, he could recall the division of Germany and the Communist takeover in China. I remember one day in class when he became particularly talkative. Three things stand out in my mind about this causation (a) the annoyed expression on the professors face (b) the soreness I felt at his endless and irrelevant droning and, (c) the stimulus a classmate made in the hall, Someone should put that silly old fool out of his misery. In another class in German history, one classmate was a veteran of the Vietnam Conflict and by nature had strong feelings about communism in general. Although this student was only 10 to 15 years older than the rest of us, he had experienced things that the traditional student had only read and heard. One day in discussion, the loose of the division of Germany was broached. This stirred a lively and im... ...ices, 43-51. Retrieved from http//web.ebscohost.com.proxy1.ncu.edu/ ehost/pdfviewer/ pdfviewer?sid=ea53e279-aa56-41c9-8269-edc2077884f5%40sessionmgr10&vid= 5&hid=25Ross-Gordon, J. M. (2011). search on adul t learners Supporting the needs of a student community that is no longer nontraditional. Peer Review, 13(1), 26-29. Retrieved from http//www.aacu.org/peerreview/pr-wi11/prwi11_RossGordon.cfmSkopek, T., & Schuhmann, R. A. (2008). Traditional and non-traditional students in the same schoolroom? Additional challenges of the outgo education environment. Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration, X1(1). Retrieved from www.westga.edu/ distance/ojdla/spring111/skopek111.htmlWlodkowski, R. J. (2008). Enhancing adult motivation to learn A guide to improving management and increasing learner achievement (3rd ed.). San Francisco Jossey-Bass.