Fandom High School

When class began, Jane wasted no time in getting things started. She moved along the desks, passing over the small packets of the examination to their students. "Well, then, here we are, class! Our final class, which means it's time to show me everything you've learned through a nice little test. You'll find it will cover everything we've discussed so far in class, from different types of primates to their habitat, eating habits, tools, anatomy, and the key theories of primatology. You will have half an hour to complete the examination. Do the best you can; there will not be allowances made for oral alternatives.

"But you'll remember that last week I requested that you put together a small presentation on what your favourite primate was this weekend," Jane reached the front of the classroom again and turned to smile at her students, "so when the half hour is up, we will begin those. Your final grade, then, will be a compelation of your participation thus far in class, your written exam, and your final primate presentation. Pencils ready, students! Your time begins...now!"

She may have been far too pleased with herself at being such a teacher.

[[ OCD is on the way up! ]]

"I can hardly believe," said Jane at the beginning of class, beaming at her students after a pleased little sigh, "that we're already in April! It's been an incredibly interesting journey so far, and we've covered quite a lot of ground so far. But already it's time to start thinking about the looming final examination, and, to make it a little easier on everyone, I thought it would be best if we started reviewing. Next week, we'll have a class discussion over the topics we've gone over so far, but today I'd like to touch base again on the very heart of primatolgy, and that is ourselves, the primatologists.

"Now, you've spent all semester listening to my voice, yammering on and on about monkeys and apes and evolution and theory of mind, so I'm giving you a little break and I've found a documentary to give you a nice change of pace. Please take careful notes, so that you have some points of discussion for our class next week. And, if there are no further questions, well, then, we can begin!"

And, with that, class would begin, with very little narrative and mostly monologue.

[[ and ensuing OCD is up ]]

"Welcome back, children," Jane, feeling a bit better this week, gave the student a smile and a nod, chalk in hand when class was ready to begin. "I hope you enjoyed the film from last week. I know such media presentations can hardly take the place as a good old-fashioned intriguing lecture and all, but hopefully you'll forgive me that one indiscretion. Today, I'd like to discuss some of the topics in the film, especially the topic of the conservation of both primates and their environments, and why it is so important.

( Saving the rain forests )

"So, today will seem very simple, but the topic is so very important. I'd like to just discuss why you think it's important to help conserve the primate environment. Or perhaps you don't. If you don't, I'm afraid you're quite wrong about that, but if you've got thoughts on why not, well, that's all part of a discussion, I suppose. Are there things you yourself can do to help this primate plight? Or is it too large of a problem to stop?

[[ OCD is up!! ]]

"Hello, class," Jane smiled on her students when they settled in and it was time for the lesson to begin, "in light of the upcoming weekend, I was thinking we might have a look at the idea of social structures in primate cultures. For most human, the predominant social structure is, of course, the family. The make-up of a family depends on a variety of things, but it is typically a structure of two parental units, a mother and a father, and their offspring. Some have less...since my mother died, for example, it has been just my father and me. Some have more: many cultures embrace the elder generation into the main family structure, building it from two generations to three. There are all sorts of other variations, as well. Humans have always been an incredibly diverse species, and other primate social structures are quite the same."

( And then there was much copy-pasta and links. )

"There's so much to discuss and, most importantly, to think about, considering that we should have a wide variety of social structures represented from our eclectic student body as loved ones and friends show up for the special weekend. So let us open up the conversation and keep these things in mind as we can study the most peculiar of primates, the homo sapien every day in our passing lives!"

[[ OCD on the way is up! ]]

"Good afternoon, class!" Jane smiled at the students once they were all settled in and ready to go. "I hear it was quite an interesting weekend for a good many of the people around the island! There's a good chance the coming weekend might be interesting, too, but, for now, it's class time and let's get on with today's lesson, which is about primate cognition and communication."

"You see, primates, like us, have advanced cognitive abilities. For example, some make tools and use them to acquire food and for social displays. Some have sophisticated hunting strategies requiring cooperation, influence and rank. They are status conscious, manipulative and capable of deception. They can recognise kin and conspecifics. And they can learn to use symbols and understand aspects of human language including some relational syntax and concepts of number and numerical sequence. Primatologists explore the ways primates go about with problem solving, memory, social interaction, a theory of mind, and numerical, spatial, and abstract concepts."

And, of course, Jane was going to go into details, exploring the many nuances of primate cognition, with a particular emphasis on chimpanzee theory of mind and great ape languages.

"Now, examples of primate cognition is the holy grail for primatologists, especially for primates of this day and age who, unlike the ones where Miss Thropp is from, have not quite developed to the point of speech to tell us what their cognitive thoughts may be. So let's discuss, shall we? What sorts of behaviours are exhibited in animals, particular primates, to show that they have theory of mind, that they can develop thoughts and beliefs and opinions on things that sway their actions? Or, conversely, perhaps you see evidence of the opposite, instead, that they act mostly on instinct and without a sort of conscious morality as humans act. In which ways does language come into play here? Mr. Charles Darwin claimed that one could learn more of metaphysics by observing baboons than by observing John Locke. Do you suppose he was correct? What might we learn about ourselves through studying apes?

"And once we've got that out of the way," she concluded, "I have brought in a great many jungle artifacts that are known to be used as tools by primates. I'm not going to tell you how they're used; I'd like to see how much we can get in touch with our inner primates and figure it out for ourselves! But first let's try to get into the minds of monkeys, and then see how we do. Who shall like to start us out?"


[[ OCD is up! ]]

"Good afternoon, class!" The students would find the usual classroom much in regular order with the exception of a long table off to the side with various large bowls and platters on it. Each was covered, for the time being, and Jane was at the front of the class with a piece of chalk in hand to start the lecture.

"I hope you all had fun last week exploring the jungles! I know I always do! Unfortunately, this class will not be quite as adventurous in the traditional sense, but you'll find there will be something exciting later on, nonetheless. We will share some of our stories of the exploring in just a moment, but, first, I should like to tell you all about the primate's diet.

( If you give a monkey a banana... )

"And so, that brings us to our activities for today. I'm going to pass out list of our primate friends and I'd like us to have a look at their characteristics, habitats, and anatomy and discuss how we can determine what their diets might consist of. And then I hope you didn't eat too much for lunch today, because I have a treat! The table over there has a variety of different foods common in the primate diet, so that we can first-hand have the experience of what they find particularly tasty! There's all sorts of stuff, and so you can be safe or you can be adventurous, but we can snack as we share our tales of exploring from last week.

"Any questions?"

[[ OCD on the way is up! ]]

"And welcome back, class!" Jane greeted the room with her usual pomp brimming on the edge of excitement, which was likely to fall to pieces as soon as she got into lecturing again. "I hope you all enjoyed some of the odd weather we've been having; I know I've been finding it quite fascinating, and if any of you have any observations about it, I'd love to hear about them. But first, we'll discuss our primates, and today's topics in getting you better acquainted with this fascinating animal are anatomy, physiology, and morphology, oh my!"

( Cut for images, extreme length, and shameless Wikipedia plagiarism. )

"In fact, as a firm believer in a healthy mind and a healthy body...Lights, please, Mr. Calvin...let's all get up and take a little trip over to gymnasium, where I may have set up a bit of an obstacle course for us to get more in touch with the brachiation and bipedalism, leaping and climbing of our primate cousins! But before we head over there, let us open the floor up for any questions you may have about what we discussed, and I am going to pass around a copy of an image of various skeletons of different primates. Please study this image for next week, keeping an eye out for differences in the skeletal structures and we will discuss them next week. Any questions? If not, let's shake out those limbs and head out! Pity we haven't got prehensile tails ourselves!"

[[ please wait for the ocd is up! ]]

Oh, well, this was it! This was the first day of her very first class, and Jane was terribly excited. And horribly nervous. But mostly excited! Her nerves were all aflutter, which kept her bouncing slightly as she'd straightened the books and papers on the desk at the front of the classroom for the tenth time, checked to make sure her hair was still properly pinned up for the thirtieth time, and smoothed out her dress for the fiftieth. She'd lost track of how many times she'd adjusted her collar, and she tried to keep her beaming smile down to only a few thousand suns as the students started to file into the class and claim their seats. When it started to look as though they were all there, she took a moment to count heads and, finding the number satisfactory, she nodded and clapped her hands together.

( Surprisingly, they're studying baboons, and not teal dear as it might appear... )

[[ please wait for the OCD is grunting and trying to intimidate you! ]]