We had a class meeting.
Dec. 2nd, 2004 01:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ninevirtuesA couple of the faculty called a class meeting for our class over the break, so they could 'get feedback from us about what was and was not working in our education'.
I'm still thinking about how that meeting went. I carefully watched who talked, who stayed quiet, et cetera.
When asked directly whether our class is, as has been rumored, known as "the whiners", our professor temporized, saying we had a "complex personality."
I read that as, "Yes, some of you whine like stomped grapes, but not all of you."
So I went to my academic adviser, who is known for her understanding of interpersonal politics, group dynamics, et cetera, and asked her, "Is our class _really_ known as the whiners?" There followed a moment of not-quite-stunned silence.
"Well, every class develops its own personality, and usually a group of students within the class-- not all of them, but a group of them-- drives the personality."
I read that as, "Well, the large and obvious cliques in your class drive the group dynamic." (They do, I agree. Some of the people in my class complain a lot.)
I'm still thinking about how that meeting went. I carefully watched who talked, who stayed quiet, et cetera.
When asked directly whether our class is, as has been rumored, known as "the whiners", our professor temporized, saying we had a "complex personality."
I read that as, "Yes, some of you whine like stomped grapes, but not all of you."
So I went to my academic adviser, who is known for her understanding of interpersonal politics, group dynamics, et cetera, and asked her, "Is our class _really_ known as the whiners?" There followed a moment of not-quite-stunned silence.
"Well, every class develops its own personality, and usually a group of students within the class-- not all of them, but a group of them-- drives the personality."
I read that as, "Well, the large and obvious cliques in your class drive the group dynamic." (They do, I agree. Some of the people in my class complain a lot.)
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Re: There's more
Date: 2004-12-02 03:28 pm (UTC)I don't think I tied that last comment together very well. Let me try again: Some members of our class-- who also happen to be members of the large, very academically focused clique that seems to comprise about half the class-- appear to have a general tendency to whine, complain, and argue to professors, and to exclude other members of the class from their clique.
I believe, though I don't know the whole story, that this meeting was called to address their concerns.... which is why the rest of us had the "Concerns, what concerns, have I been living under a rock?" reaction.
Confidence issues: It was a divorce thing, like I said.
As far as age... no, I don't have a lot of friends in the class, though that situation seems to be changing gradually... perhaps as the 50% of the class who's not in the main clique discovers that we're the silent majority and we have more in common than we previously believed. ;-) I definitely don't hang out in bars (like a lot of them do) and I don't start my Saturday night at 11 PM and go til 4 AM (like they do). Nor am I the oldest one; the oldest one is the most unlikely looking ex-marine you ever saw.... skinny, smart, bald as an egg, polite, no nonsense.