Webster’s Dictionary has two definitions for the word Sophomoric.

  1. Conceited and overconfident of knowledge but poorly informed and immature.
  2. Lacking in maturity, taste, or judgement.

Why do I tell you the definitions of the word Sophomoric? So that I may tell you about how I first learned the definition of the word Sophomoric.

I’m in high school, it’s the first day of the semester, it’s right after lunch and our English class has started.

Our teacher gets up from his desk and stands in front of us all; “Good morning class. Good morning sophomores…”

He goes on to give us the definition of Sophomoric. He told us the first definition, but I am certain (all the more so today) that he was thinking about the second definition.

I have no doubt that we were immature, with no taste, and lacked judgement in nearly everything we did. I certainly wasn’t conceited and overconfident, I’d give that to the senior class. They thought they controlled everything, but in truth knew nothing and were terrified of the great big world that was looming ahead of them in the shadows after graduation.

But to be told by your teacher, to your face, that you were immature, was just plain rude.

Because this was right after lunch, I often fell asleep in that class, and I sat in the front row at the teacher’s desk. Wouldn’t you.?

There were other things about this class that were interesting. Over two class days, we watched the 1968 movie version of Romeo & Juliet. For the young, innocent, me; I was startled when Juliet got out of bed topless. Certainly, wasn’t expecting nudity in school.

But at least it was interesting, and I probably did learn things in that class. Though, to be honest, as I admitted in earlier blogs reading was not my specialty.

Remind me later to tell you about the class where they ran an episode of the Twilight Zone. Students today probably need to see that one as well.