which i won't tell well because i'm not a comedian, but here goes:
a few lectures into the semester, a psychology professor felt his lessons on conditioning weren't getting through to his students. so he decided to run a little experiment. he had noticed that the students were often not paying much attention, but perked up when he spoke louder and was more animated.
so he used this to condition the students to pay more attention when he moved to the right side of the class. he would move around during the lecture. when he was on the left side, he spoke more quietly and slowly, with few hand gestures. when he moved to the right side, he would become louder and more animated.
after a while, he noticed the students were definitely responding, far more alert when he was on the right side of the room. eventually, he was able to just move to the right side of the room and the students perked up, even before he spoke or moved his hands.
so he finally declared victory, and told the students that as a proof of conditioning in action, he had trained the class to become more alert when he moved to the right side of the class.
the students then laughed and laughed. one of them finally said, "professor, one day early on when you were a few minutes late, someone said hey, let's all train the professor to lecture from the right side of the room. just pretend to doze off whenever he's on the left and pay attention whenever he's on the right!"
= new reply since forum marked as read
