Entitled to understand

Ok, today this is officially a space for me to think through this workshop. I need some questions to ask my audience, to get us all thinking about these topics.

In interview data gathering, it is always a better idea to ask open-ended, or at least not Yes/No questions. I'm guessing the same applies for a good question to ask a group that you want to get talking. And let's try them out on whoever is reading this right now and can leave a comment:

(1) Name an event or setting in your field where you rarely or never talk/ask questions.

(2) Name an event or setting in which you do ask questions or talk.

Hmm. I've already re-structured both of those questions a few times. This is good practice to figure out exactly what my point is.

(3) Name an event or setting outside of work/school where you are very comfortable talking or asking questions.

So what is my point with these questions? First go leave a comment with your answer for the three, if you please would.

I'm guessing that for the first question, there will be a lot of standard, departmental and conference settings. Which is the problem - there is something in the structure of these events that hinders easy and comfortable participation. This is a good time to add that, in my study, I assume that for the most part, the people attending these events in departments (morning coffees, journal clubs, colloquia) are well meaning. The faculty (at least in my interviews) say they want students to speak up more, and the students say they want to speak up more. And personally, in counselling, I've found this assumption to get me a lot further towards being happy and having healthier relationships, than assuming that someone is evil or trying to make my life hell on purpose. People have their own shit and that shit sometimes hits us in the face on accident, as they are spinning wildly, dealing with their own issues. Like that secretary I probably freaked out a few posts ago. Assuming she was scared instead of evil means I get to drop the issue and stop dwelling on her dark mark on this Earth.

Anyway, I assume everyone is well-intentioned, and that they all do want students to speak up more. Then I'm free to see what is standing in the way. Because there are other events, maybe a great mentor's office hours, or with friends in a study group, where students are speaking about science. And in the absence of even these few patches of hope (for me, there was a GR professor's office hours and studying with my friend A), there is hopefully at least one place in life where each person feels comfortable speaking. With a best friend or spouse, a parent, a stranger on a flight, a child.

I wonder if I should ask for them to list many events where they are uncomfortable speaking, and comfortable speaking? To make discussion more lively? Ooh, I know. Let's start really fun - tell me about the worst event you've ever seen/attended for speaking up.

These are the kinds of stories, part gossip and horror, that can help highlight the extreme version of unhelpful structures. Like the secret journal club, held without a group leader's knowledge, because the official event was so horribly demeaning.

Not only is gossip good to get the discussion flowing, turns out gossip and ridicule are key cultural norm delineators and enforces. What someone makes fun of about another person's behavior (if it is a joke that the group approves of, laughs at) communicates what that group holds to be a breach of proper conduct.

So, I'll start with some version of these 3 questions, have people write them down, we'll list them on a board or overhead, and then I'll talk a bit about research on speaking in academic settings, and we'll finish up by looking at the structures of the speaking-friendly events and see if we can't redesign some of the unfriendly events with that info. For instance, saving intellectual face is an important part of academic speaking, so instead of telling students there is no such thing as a stupid question, you might see how much they are worried about this issue by giving out index cards for people to write their questions on anonymously at a colloquium, and then collecting and asking a few of the speaker. Because we have all probably had a question, been worried it was too stupid to ask, and then seen a more senior member of the audience ask it.

Let me give an example of a place I've felt comfortable speaking up - a dance performance troupe practice. A group of us are going up in front of an audience, and we all need to, want to, look good. If you don't ask your questions, you're not going to get things right. There is a product you are aiming to produce and you'd rather be seen as not knowing something in practice than on stage. People feel entitled to understand in that kind of setting.

Entitled to understand. Crazy notion if you apply it to graduate students in a colloquium audience, eh? This is another aspect of a culture, whether it holds the speaker or the listener as responsible for the listener's understanding. A subset of this is in humor - is the joke teller or the joke hearer responsible for "getting" the joke? This will influence how subtle or explicit a joke is in a given culture. So back to the academic setting, a group of people leave the room after a talk, many of them having not understood most of the talk. Whose fault is this? The answer is somewhat determined by the culture's stance - should the speaker have done a better job explaining or should the listeners have tried harder and known more in order to understand better?