I'd like to hear people's thoughts about this. It happens here at Trent all the time (yes, it happens all over the world all the time, but we're primarily responsible for our own community) We often assume that we are a community in agreement about certain things--and that assumed agreement lets us silence people, usually inadvertently, and it means we lose opportunities to learn from each other.
"I was screaming on the inside but no one could hear. My thoughts racing through my head unable to focus, slow my ideas down and put them into words. I was mute in a class of 23 people. Shut down for being different, going against the grain but following ideas I thought were ‘normal’. My experience was not in a high school class room with naive and immature teens but in a university seminar with an experienced professor of more than ten years and mature students.
Losing your voice in a crowd is easy, but to be singled out in a crowd, made to feel inadequate, different, and alone is terrifying. You have a choice: stand up to the crowd accepting your differences and standing alone or be silenced, hide from the crowd in hopes that you can assimilate back into the hole you ‘rudely’ jumped out of.
I hid.
Having never been alienated in this way before, the feeling was surreal, as if I had only imagined it. Had it really just happened to me? How to react or what to expect, I wasn’t prepared. A series of umm’s and ahh’s managed to break through my lips until I just gave up. I sunk back into my chair and tried to piece together what had taken place.
I never understood what it felt like to be different or unaccepted, but knowing that now is hard. The fear of being outcast is horrible, and unexplainable. This fear has stopped me from returning to class, as I was unaccepted and belittled by both my peers and professors."
I'd like to hear people's thoughts about this. It happens here at Trent all the time: we often assume that we are a community in agreement about certain things--and that lets us silence people, usually inadvertently, and it means we lose opportunities to learn from each other."
Has something like the above incident happened to you? It's important that it didn't happen to a person who was "visibly different"; it happened to a person who just happened to be different from the assumed norm of the classroom she was in. It happened to a person because she expressed her values and beliefs on a serious topic.
I'd love to hear from you if you've had experiences like this. I'd love for us to learn from each other by discussing how we manage these circumstances.
Great piece thoroughly enjoyed it. I actually remember having a discussion with a friend of mine about Trents attitude on respecting views. I would write the experience here but I don't think such a discussion on a public forum is appropriate. Is there an email source that works better?
ReplyDeleteYou can e-mail me directly so that ensure that your input is heard appropriately. Use this e-mail address: champlain.head(at)gmail.com
ReplyDeleteAll the best, Dr. Mike
Dr. Mike,
ReplyDeleteI'm so glad you posted this. I've certainly felt this way a couple of times at Trent. Trent is a liberal university, which is great and I love, but there are times when issues are being discussed which I don't agree with but am too afraid to speak out due to fear of being shut down / not accepted.
It's happened to me in class. We were speaking of abortion and everyone was pro-choice. I spoke up, not to speak for pro-life, but to speak as to have a discussion on why some people are pro-life. I was immediately shut down, and after class a girl came up to me and said "it's because of people like you that women are still being oppressed."
But thankfully the professor contacted me and said he was sorry about the way the class had jumped on me, but the was really glad I was able to speak up and not just going with what the class said. He said he wished the incident would not deter me from speaking out in further classes. (Which it didn't!)