classroom culture

I have been swimming in a sea of fluidity on campus. The key word is: flexibility. I've definitely had to flex it here many times with a fluctuating time table, which means the school schedule changes. For example, I had scheduled a discussion on Thursday at 12pm but another professor suddenly scheduled his class at that hour, so my discussion was apparently canceled without my knowing. Classes are still being added on and starting a month into the school year. How do they do it?

The location of classes changes daily as students and teachers try to claim a classroom, meaning you need to get to class EARLY. Or... students arrive 30 min. early to eventually wait around long enough to discover that the professor has shown up an hour "late." There are both worlds on this campus- one is early while another is late. The rest of the student body (including my baffled self) is left waiting.

Classes nominate "class coordinators" who pass information to the rest of the class when they find out things from the teacher, like a change of time/location. They are in charge of documents that need to be photocopied for class, collecting money so people who want a copy get one. Everyone is part of the huge grape vine to transfer information, either by word of mouth, or phone calls, but most likely the first. Like today I was told, "There is a rumor that there may not be classes on Thursday so people can clean up the campus for graduation on Friday." Ooh... how did you find out? I'm always curious to know. Or at 5 minutes prior, "Did you know about the staff meeting today?"

Yes, culture shock. I thought I was used to African time, and rationalized it in my head. But it is tough when I am actually going through it.

Classes share classrooms. It can get very loud with large lecture halls and concrete walls. On Monday I shadowed a research class that wandered around for 30 min. before finding a space to settle down. The lecturer found a classroom large enough with three sections of desks with descending stairs towards the front. A Computer Science class was taking place on the left side of the room, and the English lecture took place on the right side. The English prof was walking up and down the stairs to talk over the noise and repeating herself twice in order for the upper section & lower section to hear.

This can be frustrating yet I know I cannot be here simply to groan. It's just the fact that some things happen, some things eventually happen, and some things never happen. It's life, no? But on the same token there are things that should and need to happen that are put in a pile labeled "TO DO EVENTUALLY." I'm still attempting to go with the flow, with a lot of endurance and patience. The whole community is finding ways to keep moving on and somehow the system holds together. Flexin' it, until next time.