God, I remember when I started sixth form (last two years of high school in the UK, seen as a more university style learning environment) and the teachers kept complaining about how quiet we were during lessons.
We wouldnāt talk. Theyād tell us to do something and weād just sit there quietly and do it, until eventually they just said āhey, guys, itās okay to chat while you work!ā and then everybody would start talking.
One teacher described it as creepy.
And I just remember thinking, what the fuck did they expect to happen? Weād all been taught from the age of four or five onwards that talking in class was bad. That if we did it, weād be told off, or punished, or in some instances maybe the entire class would be punished along with us, just to make sure we really got the idea. It was a whole thing.
But now, because we were sixth-formers and therefore āgrown upsā, we were suddenly expected to flip a switch and be able to talk as much as we liked? The whole reason we were in sixth-form was because we had worked hard, done well at school, and generally followed the rulesā but still the teachers couldnāt understand why we didnāt just talk to each other.
Now Iām at uni, and seminar tutors are having a similar problem. People will talk in seminars, but a lot of them will insist on raising their hands and waiting to be called upon first. āDonāt put your hands up, just shout at me!ā the guy keeps saying. But they keep doing it anyway.
Like, I really donāt know how to tell these people that you canāt train somebody to act in one way for over half their lives, and then suddenly expect them to start acting differently just because the expectations have changed.
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