In entering Allison’s classroom on Wednesday, 10/3, I came prepared to be challenged. I remember her and Megan being the two most vocal instructors describing the difficulties their students were posing. While I imagined some of the wandering eye problems would be less applicable to me, due to my privilege, I did think they would try and challenge me. With this in mind I approached it as one might the high school cafeteria, and I think I may have been a little too standoffish. However I found that all the students listened to what I said and still spoke up when they had questions. Their willingness to ask for clarification and volunteer information made me feel like, while I could have started with a kinder tone, they still were willing to trust and work with me.

There were maybe five distinct groups I saw in the classroom. The most obvious group was three young women who all sat behind me, clearly friends and self-identifying as “the talkers.” Then there were three sporty young men who looked like jocks who sat apart from everyone else, seeming unwilling to engage. The third group was small, one young man and a young woman who did all their work with a quick efficiency that suggested they were either not challenged or not engaged. Then there was the rest of the class, who all worked hard. And, of course, me.

My role in the class was to make sure that everyone was participating, and staying engaged with the curriculum. As it was a workshop day, I patrolled the class to ensure any questions were answered, and to provide encouragement to students who appeared to be daydreaming.

The students seemed to respond best to humor for any moments of confusion or when their attention drifted. The talkers especially liked this, I believe, because it gave them a chance to feel like they were succeeding in directing attention away from the work. Everyone else in the class simply felt like they needed space to be made for them to talk, which was easy to encourage by me shutting up and letting silence push them to speak. The only group I had difficulty with were the two people who seemed to already understand everything, and so disengaged early from class discussions and workshopping. I wish I had prepared a specific extension activity that would have let them continue to find enrichment in the class.

It feels like I’m the only one who saw the other beings in the class, but it was possible for me to point them out. When asked a specific question about a requirement, I could give me opinion, but then refer them to Allison since her judgement is final in that class. When asking about the effectiveness of the worksheet for the literacy timeline review, I defused tension by reminding them that I did not create the curriculum, which let them be freer in their criticisms. Beyond that, there’s the expectations that brought these students to university, the influence of their social backgrounds that allowed these students to come to the classroom and allowed me to be their instructor for the day, and the administrative offices in the building.