rebecca + felicity

I'm not sure what happened in class yesterday, but I have some thoughts. A lot of thoughts actually. And I know that they're not everyone's opinions. The following two pieces are about yesterday's class session, where we starting trying to put together a class project. They're from the perspective of two fictional students in our class. I'm sure that it's pretty obvious who I'd tend to side with, but writing the other side (which I did first) didn't feel particularly ridiculous, and it made writing the second half a lot harder. Turns out that when you spend some amount of time disagreeing with yourself, it's hard to completely agree with yourself.

So, here you go...

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Rebecca sat down excitedly, pulling out her notebook and a pen. Of course, no one could tell that she was any more excited than usual, she wasn't the type to let that spill out. School was serious business. It always had been, and Rebecca had always taken that to heart. It was the only opportunity she'd have in her life to devote her sole attention for years to soaking up knowledge that would serve her later.

Last week's class sessions had been great. A couple of students had been missing, especially one of the louder ones, who always seemed to jump on every question before it had been fully asked. Rebecca didn't really understand that. Sometimes she liked to berate herself for not thinking on her feet, but in later years, she'd come to peace with the fact that she was methodical in her thinking. In fact, she was proud of it, and it was a skill she'd cultivated. Still, that didn't make it easy to jump into discussions that were moving by leaps and bounds when she was still considering the original question, turning it over in her head a couple of times, looking at it from all possible angles.

Today they were going to start talking about the class project. Rebecca had been waiting for awhile for the chance to start tying all the threads they'd talked about together. It was a huge project to tackle, with a lot of angles that had to be considered. And it wasn't just stuff from previous class sessions, there was the information from the professor's posts, and from critically thinking about the interviews.

The professor started out the class with one of the topics from his recent blog posts that they hadn't gotten a chance to discuss yet. Rebecca had actually spent a lot of time thinking about it when it was posted, and the professor brought up a lot of good points. These were questions that we needed to keep in mind when formulating our final class project. Things to consider to keep the project in the realm of reality instead of careening off into an "ideal" world.

There were other students who clearly didn't get it. The loud one from last week kept asking what the point was of this discussion. "Wouldn't the details matter more after there was a clear view of the project?" No, thought Rebecca. Well, that wasn't strictly true. Yes, the details were going to matter after they were deeper into the project. But talking about them now - and they weren't even details - they were... snapshots to consider - made sure that they were basing the project on what they knew of successful and unsuccessful models. It gave the class more angles to consider so they didn't all rush in blindly from one side and forget some important aspect that made their chosen avenue impossible.

Halfway through the class, the loud ones got their way. Rebecca was dismayed. What was happening now was a mockery of the education process. There was clearly a reason that the professor had been leading the class session as he was. And even if it wasn't clear to them, didn't they at least have enough respect for the professor to let him continue? He hadn't asked for help, in fact, he kept telling the students that their concerns were heard, that they'd be circled back to later. What was wrong with these people?

The class ended. The last half hour had been a whirlwind. There were some concrete project ideas, sure, but the students were scattered across the room and not talking to each other anymore. Were the ideas coherent? Had all the loose ends been tied up? Not at all. And Rebecca felt pretty lost. Was getting to this messy state so quickly worth throwing away another couple hours of discussion that would have also led to concrete project ideas with a lot clearer focus? Rebecca didn't think so. But the loud ones always won.

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Felicity dropped her bag on the floor and propped up her feet on the desk. She'd been excited for this day since she first read the class description on the CHP website many, many months ago. She'd loved school when she was little, but college had disillusioned her somewhat. The classes seemed disconnected, nobody seemed to care about the big picture. She'd been itching for awhile to do something about it.

Not that Felicity tended to have a lot of trouble doing things. She was definitely one of those people who got things done. It was commented on in every review that she'd ever had. She was the person who was off busy making a prototype before anyone else had even settled on what the problem really was. And it got her in trouble sometimes. She acted too quickly, spoke too quickly, and sometimes tried to solve problems that weren't really there while missing glaring issues. Still, it was something she was proud of. Her ability to get to a solution, even if it wasn't perfect. A lot of times, that was the jump-start a group needed to really start making progress.

Today they were going to start talking about the class project. The entire reason that Felicity had taken the class in the first place. Well, besides the fact that she needed it to graduate. It was an exciting project to tackle, a lot of areas that Felicity saw needing serious improvement. It was time to bring everything they'd talked about together and actually do something. Something real. Felicity had had enough of the theory behind change. She wanted to create it now.

The professor started out the class with one of the topics from his recent blog posts that they hadn't gotten a chance to discuss yet. Felicity was antsy, and even more so when the discussion kept heading down that path, careening wildly off of "come up with a class project" into "discuss the theory behind it and some details that may or may not be relevant" quickly. This wasn't a "ideal" world, it was one where they had six weeks, and needed to get something done.

There were other students who clearly didn't get it. They entertained the professor's questions, seemingly forgetting that this was supposed to be a discussion that defined the class project. Then, finally, a light in the dark: "Wouldn't the details matter more after there was a clear view of the project?" YES! The class didn't know what the project was, how could they know which details mattered, let alone what the answers to those detail questions were? You can't understand which parts of your model need to be explored deeply when you don't even have a model! Felicity was incredibly frustrated when this concern was set aside. More than frustrated, she was bewildered.

Halfway through the class, something changed. Felicity was incredibly relieved. A couple of students had taken control of the class. The train was back on the tracks to "projectville" instead of wandering around in some really pretty meadows. If this class session was going to have any value, those students had done what needed to be done. It was clear that the professor wasn't exactly sure where he was going, and we didn't have time for that anymore. Six weeks left in the class, it was time to stop talking about abstracts, and just do something. Anything.

The class ended. The last half hour had been a whirlwind. But an amazingly fun one. There were concrete project ideas now, and the students were split up into groups that were working on something that they cared about. The students were energized. The class was going to be a success. Felicity was excited. Frustrated that they'd wasted the first half of class, but at least it had gotten turned around. Who cared if the ideas weren't perfect? They were real ideas. And something was going to get done.