Field Claytor’s obsession with crossword puzzles began his freshman year when he realized that some of his lecturers were not always as thrilling as he would have liked them to be.
“I like crosswords because they are challenging,” said Claytor, a senior speech communication major.
Claytor said he found the puzzles to be a productive way to occupy those times when his lecturer was not sharing the most pertinent information. Since then, he has come to dedicate at least one course period a day to finishing the brainteasers. He said that working on them in class has not had any negative effect on his grade point ratio or education.
“I learn more from crosswords than I do in some of my classes,” Claytor said.
Whether searching for a way to fill some idle time or appraising one’s vocabulary and trivia expertise, Aggies all over campus are finding crossword puzzles extremely entertaining.
Diane Blackwelder, a junior finance major, has not been as fortunate as Claytor.
“I definitely attribute my economics 203 grades to crosswords,” she said. “I don’t let myself work on them in class anymore, but I still do them in between classes.”
Blackwelder said that she enjoys crosswords despite the fact that she is not very good at them. She said she appreciates the rush of accomplishment she gets when she matches a word to its clue.
Blackwelder recently discovered www.oneacross.com, a Web site that can assist frustrated crossword enthusiasts when they are stumped by a clue. On the site, you can type in the hints provided in the puzzle, and it will respond with its analysis of the clues.
Alan Horton, a senior speech communication major, is another fan of the puzzles.
“They get you warmed up for the day,” Horton said.
He typically spends an hour a day solving crosswords, usually in class or at work. Horton said that he particularly enjoys the progression of difficulty that is evident in puzzles published in The Battalion.
“I usually complete the puzzles from Monday through Wednesday. If I need help, I’ll do them with friends,” Horton said.
Dr. Cynthia Anderson, lecturer and consultant for A&M’s Center for Teaching Excellence said that while even she finds crosswords to be very engaging, there are appropriate times to work on them.
“I make an announcement at the beginning of class informing my students that it’s time for everyone to close their newspapers just as I would remind them to put their notes away before a quiz,” she said.
Even college students can benefit from guidance and structure, and in order to send the message that their student’s learning is important to them, teachers need to make it clear that crosswords should not be worked on during class time, Anderson said.
“While I don’t believe that teachers have to act like jailors, it is still important for them to sometimes remind their students that the purpose of being in school is not just to warm a chair in a classroom but to really get something useful out of the lesson, hopefully something they’ll find useful later,” she said.
For a learning environment to be successful, an atmosphere of mutual respect between teacher and student must be present. Students should try to focus on the teacher just as the teacher should focus on the students because this is a way for both to show that they care about the class, Anderson said.
When a student chooses to ignore the professor so that they can work on a crossword puzzle, it sends a negative message, just like if a teacher were to ignore students’ questions during the class session, she said.