[pcc_life] Tales from the Breach:Whiners

In a class I had quite recently, the teacher had to clamp down on the chatter. It was noticeable and irritating for me, too.

She had to get kind of rude about it. It worked and class could proceed.

After the lecture she had to leave for a few minutes and we students were left to thier own devices. Many of us got to work on our projects. Some moaned about her behavior whilst she was out of the room.

The nature of the whiners was something like: The nerve! She had no right to talk at me like that! If it would've gone on much longer i'd of given here a piece of my mind, that's for sure!

Okay, maybe I'm old school but that attitude really, really bothers me. Gets under my skin. You see, teachers come in many types, many temperaments. Unless that teacher is out-and-out insulting you for no good reason, though, or doing something that is clearly out of line, we ought to be doing what that teacher is saying...and if we've been put in our place, in a behavioral context, we need to address what it was we are doing that is causing the instructor to get all rude on us.

During my training in design, I had an epiphany early on. I think I've writtien on this before, but I rarely review what I write. Anyway, I soon saw that each instructor I had, whilst training toward a common goal, had different ways of looking at the same thing...and they brought that into thier instruction. This obstacle is an unexpected gift. For, in the future, I will hopefully have a range of clients or bosses that give me work, and here's my chance to learn how to communicate with a range of people in person, and to learn how to do it efffectively.

Since the first term of design, I've thought of my instructors as my clients, in a way.

So, when I interface with an instructor, I try to assay what kind of student they hope to teach to, and try to become that target. I refuse to acknoweldge this as mere 'sucking up', because when I'm on the instructor's wavelength, I am most apt to recieve thier message...and that's what I'm there for, anyway.

So, if I'm addressed as being to noisy...I button up, and figure what it was I was doing wrong, and figure out another way to do it if it was something I needed to do.

And I don't whine if I think my dignity has been affronted.