What's in this report?
How did I react?
What did I learn?
The content
Di's definition of traffic psychology
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The content of the Generational Curriculm Report, or GCR, that I read was almost nil. The author of this report shall remain anonymous because s/he is not receiving a positive review from me, and I'd like to keep all of my teeth!
That was my disclaimer. Let's call the author Joe Shmoe, for all practical purposes.
After reading Mr. Shmoe's report, I found myself wondering, Did this student pass the class? Was he a lawyer? Or did he just ENJOY being evasive and dedging the questions posed by Dr. James? I believe the assignment was to describe one's driver personality. The page requirement was probably between 18 and 20, because Mr. Schmoe really seemed to be pushing the amount of pages he wrote.
Each "chapter" was one and a fourth pages long. The report consisted of 10 "chapters". The begining portion of each "chapter" wasted over half the page with a lengthy discussion of where Mr. Schmoe found his information.
The next 4-7 lines gave a summary of the information he found in these articles, while the rest of the "chapter" (less than half a page) is devoted to Mr. Schmoe's self-analysis and personal feelings toward the contents of the aforementioned article.
Hmmmm, a clever plot to avoid revealing personal details? Is Mr. Schmoe hiding his true psychotic driving persona? Does Mr. Schmoe understand that hte assignment was to be about himself, and not a term paper? Bing! I think that's the answer!
Perhaps this student was withdrawn, shy, unable to come to terms with his ** DEVIANT ** driving style... In my personal-Diane-opinion, I don't think the student learned anything about himeself through this paper.
The content of Mr. Schmoe's paper included articles on: Type-A personality, competitive drivers, young drivers and accident rates, stress while driving, obeyance of traffic laws, driver stress and frequency of aggressiveness, the effects of control on the stress reactions of commuters, the "dark side" of drivers, ans a video about driving safely in Hawaii. Yes, if this list has put you to sleep, I forgive you --just stop drooling on the keyboard!
From a term-paper point of view, this could be an interesting paper. However, I think Dr. James had ideas of self-witnessing behavior in mind when he assigned this paper. This paper does not meet my definition of traffic psychology. If Mr. Schmoe had included personal experience or data pertaining to the topics he researched, this paper may have been worth more.
My definition fo a Driving Personality Makeover (DPM). SORRY, DR. J, I GIVE THIS ONE TWO THUMBS DOWN. IF I COULD GROW MORE THUMBS, THEY WOULD BE TURNED DOWNWARD TOO.
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