I sit and class and listen to the “discussion”, which is really more like a set of interlaced speeches. One person gives a short speech, and then another chimes in on another subject, and then a third, and so it goes, for ten minutes, or fifty, until everyone has said their piece, is thoroughly confused, or we all realize the conversation has strayed ridiculously far from anything we’re talking about.
And I find myself sitting there, thinking “I want to say my little speech… I have such a good point to make!” while I simultaneously think “this is idiotic, we need to listen to each other and engage each other’s ideas. And I try to listen to whoever is talking at that moment; try to really hear their ideas, and try to find ways to respond that will help them understand and help me understand and help all of us understand the world.
But I know they aren’t ready to listen even to that. They’ll finish talking, and as I start to speak, they’re breathing an internal sigh of relief. “I hope my speech was good,” they’ll think, or maybe just “yeah, that was a good speech.” If I’m lucky they’ll be rested by the time I’m done trying to speak to them, and they’ll have the energy to respond. However, not having listened, they’ll just re-represent their original idea. Or, overjoyed to have the floor again, they’ll take the opportunity to present another little gem–in speech form.
And after an hour, we’ve all advanced our thinking a little, but there has been no conversation. It’s socially charged individual thinking. Not social thinking.
Such is grad school.