A 'Scholarly' Tea-Break

An American mother and daughter sit next to me in Tate Britain cafe. The daughter is telling her mother about a course she has just been on.
   "So the whole point of the course was to teach the stoodent how to discuss things in a group and how to listen and it's really cool because you all sit around a big table so the teacher is on the same level as the stoodents and then we learn how to speak to the other stoodents and how to bring other stoodents into the conversation and how to not talk for too long and how to keep to the topic and it was really cool but then when I went to the Oxford classes the whole thing was completely different and the classes are like lectures with the teacher at the front of the class and all the stoodents sitting in rows in front of him and so it's like a two hour lecture and it was just listening to the teacher for two hours and I think it should be toadally different and maybe the teacher talks for one hour and then you have a one hour discussion to make sure the stoodents understand what the teacher has said I mean it's so toadally old fashioned I mean who wants to learn that way? I mean they really need to buck up their ideas about education because the way things are moving is where the teacher is on the same level as the stoodent I mean we're all people after all with ideas and things to offer on a conversation."

The mother had been silent during this rambling idiot monologue. But she now spoke,
   "This coffee cake doesn't taste very much like coffee." The daughter reached her fork over to her mother's plate and took a large chunk of the cake, which she shoveled into her mouth and ate with a frown. She shook her head and replied,

   "There's actually a very strong coffee flavour what do you mean? have you taken up smoking or something because there's something very wrong with your taste buds I mean how can you not taste any coffee? it's almost pure coffee I can't understand why you can't taste it that's just pure crazy and anyway you should really only eat coffee cake when you are drinking coffee not tea I mean that's what it's made for coffee that's why it's called coffee cake."

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