"I don't understand...that."

I have a lot of pet peeves, some rational and some completely nonsensical, but I have recently discovered another one of mine.

Months ago, after my very first Calculus class, I posted a blog about how sad it was that my TA was so nervous - since he was actually a good teacher and had no reason to be. Anyways, in the month and a half since then, I'm happy to report that the aforementioned TA has chilled out and now at least seems comfortable in front of the room.

I think he does a really great job of explaining the many facets of Calculus to a bunch of kids who obviously don't understand math as well as he does. He shows every problem at least three different ways just in case you don't understand the traditional method. He always goes over the homework. He tells you what's going to be on the exam.

So ladies and gentlemen, perhaps you have concluded that my pet peeve isn't with the TA, but with my fellow peers. I swear, at least five times every class some student (who usually sits in the back...enough said) raises their hand and points ambiguously to the board and says, very vaguely, "I don't understand...that. Like how did you go from there to there. What are you doing?"

Anyone who has ever taken a higher level math class knows - there are problems all over the chalkboard! Every problem has multiple steps and conversions, and other complicated things so it certainly doesn't help if you simply are describing something as "that."

And then, said student gets very frustrated and annoyed with the poor TA when he doesn't explain the problem asked by the student. The point is. Everyone would learn and understand a lot better if you asked a specific question like, "I don't see how you took the derivative of the cotangent of x to arrive at this function of y." That is so much clearer than "I don't get that part."

If people could just put in that small amount of effort. I, and I'm sure the TA, would appreciate it.