She also wanted to know how pickles are made.

quiet student: What's the high school like?
me: Well, it's a lot like 8th grade, but there's a little less support.
quiet student: How so?
me: Like, if you don't do your homework, no one's going to track you down about it - you just get a 0.
quiet student: Oh. So what's college like?
me: Way better. You have more freedom to choose classes that interest you, and you can go more in depth into questions.
quiet student: Did you go to college?
me: Yes, I went to the kind of college where most of my classes were seminars, not lectures. I think you'd like that kind of college too.
quiet student: What's the difference?
me: A seminar is a discussion, like our "Socratic Seminar" reading groups. You sit around the table and have discussions about what you've read or what you've studied. In a lecture, which I try not to use very often, you sit in the auditorium and take notes while a professor talks about the books you've read or the material you're studying.
quiet student: So they're two different kinds of teaching styles?
me: Yes.
quiet student: So ... in a lecture, you're taking notes on the professor's opinion about the book?
me: Well, yes.
quiet student: But ... ok, but what's the point in that?

And then we talked about pickles.