The Class Participation Trap

Class participation is quite the double edged sword. It’s annoying to be clichéd about it, but the truth fits it sometimes. Participating in a class is an excellent method to exhibit knowledge to the professor and discuss concepts with a class in order to better form understanding. It is also a way for grandstanding overbearing know-it-alls to filibuster and move the discussion to irrelevant tangents ensuring that class becomes tedious and off-point. It really requires a strong and organized professor to keep a course on track and if not, at least there’s the internet as a distraction. It gets worse if the professor has trouble avoiding tangents themselves. And double worse if they can’t even keep the material straight. A key phrase that is telling with regard to the direction the day will take is when a professor is discussing something and then casually states that they have no personal experience in the subject. The best will stick to the printed material closely to get through it. The others will muddle and veer towards more familiar territory attempting to make connections that don’t exist. That’s when it’s time to nap.