My personal experience has also been that the students who don't understand the material never say anything, fall behind to the point where they just give up because it would take too much effort to remediate, and post Rick Sanchez "school isn't for smart people" quotes on Facebook with a high school diploma.
A major problem that people don't understand with college is that it is far more willing to let you fail compared to high school. A lot of young adults aren't used to dealing in a environment that doesn't provide immediate negative feedback on failure or non-performance. They hit one hiccup, can't come back from it, then spiral out until they flunk out.
Yes, that’s not those people. I’ve been both of these people. Quiet and ashamed me had bad grades and disappointed teachers. When I went to office hours for some reason the teachers got way nicer when I screwed up, almost like they saw me putting in effort and were happy to teach me
I feel this is how half of the classes I was in went.
Let's explain to Donna why 2 + 2 = 4 even though its a pre-req. The content of the test won't be easier. I just won't cover the new material. I'll waste all my time on Donna who will end up not understanding it either way.
A guy I knew in school became a college professor. He'd absolutely call his students stupid. A friend of mine sent me a link to his "Rate my Professor" page and apparently his class is mostly full of people failing miserably. A load of Quality=1 and Difficulty=5 and complaints about how he makes fun of students who don't know things. The only good thing people had to say was that he had clear grading criteria.
I was having trouble with long division in school in the fifth grade. I had a piece of shit tell me 'I give up'. He did it too. For the rest of the year he ignored me. When I was in high school he was dying of cancer and the rest of the class got upset that I wouldn't donate anything or sign their card. They refused to believe he ever did that.