I used to be a Herminone kind of student when I was in elementary and especially middle school. I shot my hand up often in class, felt utterly proud to speak up my mind, and thought that I did a good job of presenting to the whole world outside and probably to my conceited inner self that I was a good student (or the best I hoped). However, my tendency to raise my voice and even pose questions became surprisingly lessened as I got into high school and currently college. I have been thinking a lot about not contributing to class discussion as a sign of losing belief and confidence in myself and somehow it prompted me to think, or made me realized, that I am not that good of a student as I thought I was. However, the root cause of a student not expressing ideas in class can vary from the nature of that student being an introvert, the class being a nuisance because of its nonsense, or a simple reason as that the student does not want to do anything but sit and listen. In this blog I will talk about class discussion and to what extent I think speaking up and contributing is actually contributive and beneficial for both the speaker and the audience.
First off, I am largely encouraged by my professors at school to participate in class discussion, which for some reason poses a seemingly indirect pressure on me. It often happens to me that “Hmmm, somebody already talked my idea”, or “Let’s not talk about such a boring thing”, or “What if my question is too obvious and, worse, stupid?”. The last one, I am sure, has happened to many students or all of us at least once in our lifetime – the internalization of what outsiders think we are. The result is I hardly ever speak in class even though from time to time I do really want to raise my hand and ask questions. What I choose to do is if I am genuinely interested in the subject matter and, this is important, if I like my professor, I will come up either at the end of class or stop by his or her office hours to have a little talk. When the act of discussing actually takes place, it’s a much more pleasant experience that I initially thought it would be, surprisingly with just the professors, not with my fellow classmates (!?). Unfortunately, that scenario does not happen very often either.
I, therefore, gradually turned to admire people who are in my opinion brave enough to express themselves either to be looked upon or secretly laughed at – either way is better than not participating, I used to think. Consequently, the fact that I have not been active at all in classes worries me. I started to think that I had changed and adopted a very passive style of learning and that I would end up losing my ability to discuss, make argument, and present myself. However, two professors that I had said that speaking up in class, especially with little substance, is not necessarily a desirable objective. One professor shared with us an article on the New York Times (I will try to find the link) in which the author defended reticent students. The overarching thesis is students who don’t talk much may very well be shrewd observers and even though their contribution to class is practically nothing, it doesn’t dull their abilities to make judgement about right and wrong or think critically. It’s true that if those students who have great ideas and don’t speak did speak, their classmates would benefit a lot from them. But if that happened I think the world would be a much less diverse and interesting place than it is right now and I would not be sitting here making my point, which is reserved people are often times underestimated for what they appear to be, but in fact can be as clever and thoughtful as, or even more than people who openly share their ideas.
Another professor I had said upfront in class that he didn’t have points for class participation per se, meaning that students have to speak up to gain points, but he believed there are many (good) ways for a student to prove that he or she is engaged in learning and therefore can be considered being an active student. One way that he pointed out was to come and speak with him during his office hours, which of course is as intimidating as, or even more than, speaking up in class. Anyhow, that professor restored my belief that expressing myself can be done anywhere provided that I do it deliberately, which leads me to my next point of discussion: some people can talk without knowing what they’re talking about and it upsets me.
So far in my college I have encountered many different kinds of people. Most of the time they are people that I can say ‘Hi’ to, sometimes not so much because here and there I bump into people that I don’t think are very welcoming, but overall the friendliness level at my school is of no problem. I’m generally fine with interacting with people on an acquaintance level, but there’s one thing that I still find hard to get used to and be open-minded about: people who talk crap. I have had so many experiences before in a classroom environment where either people speak up in a disrespectful manner to both the instructor and their fellows or they want to show that they are the know-all by seconding others’ opinions in a way that adds no value to the discussion . What to blame may not be that they know such a little and talk so much but simply the fact that they don’t understand that their very ignorant act of talking nonsense takes up time of others and degrades the quality of class discussion. It should be noted that I have no issue with my classmates contributing ideas. I just happen to not like people who think they are larger than life and they show it. Anyway, this is America the free land, who can tell you what to say and what not to?
Enough said about braggart classmates. This post is my first post and probably I should do something nicer than talking about my frustration. This is the last day of August and the Texas weather is still not getting ready in any time soon to welcome fall. It’s burning hot and all I want is the Maryland weather.
quynhnle 