The classic palm and more / Klasicka dlan a vice

I was reviewing a very, very old post of mine called The problem of critical thinking, where I said: “What I brought from my high school experience in the Czech Republic was a solid set of cheat sheet inventions. What I learned in the US schools was to know where to look up the needed information but must importantly, how to logically think for myself.” Good thought but it brought me on a tangent of……. cheat sheets.

If you grew up in an American school system you probably did not use very many of them, right? Or maybe only after you read my post, you will agree with me. Us, the Czechs, could not exist without them. Do you know why? Because at the gymnasium (a difficult type of high school) I went to we were forced to memorize SO MUCH information that – unless you had a photographic memory – it just wasn’t humanely possible to do so. So here is my list of cheat sheets. And please, feel free to pitch in if you have a special recipe of your own!

1. The classic palm. You just wrote the info on the palm of your hand. No biggie.

2. You put the tiny piece of paper with all of the information under the the opened textbook. The problem was, that it wasn’t attached to anything so it could easily fly away, like when you (or me in this case) happened to breath out hard after you finished your test and the cheat cheat just took off and flew right in front of the pacing teacher.

3. Getting more inventive. The girls would put the cheat sheet under the panty hoses under their skirts. If you were sitting down you could easily hike up the skirt a bit and check with your cheat sheet. No teacher was going to ask you to hike up your skirt to see if you have a cheat sheet there!

4. My personal favorite: Remember those kid gloves attached to a piece of elastics that would go into your coat sleeves so you would not lose them? Well, substitute those 2 gloves with 2 cheat sheets and there you have it. If the teacher was approaching from one side, you just pulled on the string on the other side and the threatened piece of evidence would automatically slide into your sleeve.

5. Since there were 2 of us sitting at one table I would learn half of the quiz material and my friend Lucka would learn the other half. And then we said ‘May God be with us’, hoping the teacher would not see us communicate.

OK, that is all I got now. I forgot the rest of the recipes. I has been too long!!!

CZ:  Tak jsem zabrousila na zacatecni dny meho blogarskeho zivota a natrefila jsem na clanek zvany ‘Problem of critical thinking”, kde jsem lamentovala na cesky skolni system, ktery nas nenaucil criticky smyslet; na gymplu jsme se biflovali vsechno nazpamet jak trubky, ale aby nas naucili premyslet a analyzovat, to ne. Bez tahaku bychom to proste neprezili. No, a to me privadi na dalsi pametnicke tema, o kterem bych si tu chtela zavzpominat…TAHAKY!!!

Jen tak pro srandu tu necham seznam druhu tahaku z mych skolnich let. A co vy? Mate co dodat?

1. Klasicka dlan. Na tu se veslo hodne, ale bylo to riskantnti!

2. Schovat tahak pod otevrenou knihu. Problem byl v tom, ze nebyl k nicemu pripevneny, takze jestlize jste si po ukonceni pisemky zhluboka vydechli, mily tahak vzletel do vzduchu a lehounce mohl take pristat zrovna pred prochazejiciho se profesora.

3. Tento tahak mi prijde nejnapaditejsi. Pamatujete si na ty detske palcaky spojene gumou? A pamatujete si, co se stalo, kdyz jste ty rukavice vymenili za tahaky? Vzniknul vam tzv. mobilni tahak, ktery kdyz jste vytahla jednou rukou, tak druhy nenapadne zmizel do rukavu. Vynikajici vynalez!

4. A co treba tahak pod puncochacemi, holky? Zadny profesor/profesorka by se vas nezeptal, abyste si preci vyhrnula skukni…

5. Nebo jsme si nekdy se spolusedici kamaradkou Luckou rozdelili ucebni material, ja se nasprtala pulku, ona druhou pulku a pak jsme se jen modlily, aby nas profesor nevidel, kdyz jsme si predavaly informace.