Sunday Night With John: We Were Both Rude

“Mr. Derryberry, don’t you think it’s rude to be sleeping during class,” the professor asked.  The question startled me from my nap during my 9:00am Modern World History class.  Numerous responses rapidly bounced around my head. Should I just accept the inquiry, apologize and allow class to move on?  Or should I make a scene and fight back the notion I was sleeping?   Or, politely ask her to meet after class to explain the situation. My choice would define this professor and my interaction for the rest of the semester. 

I made up my mind and the room fell silent waiting my response. I cleared my throat and stated, “Yes, yes it was rude,” The teacher nodded in agreement and just as she was about to move on I added, “It’s rude that I spend a bunch of money on receiving my education from this college and a professor is this boring and puts me to sleep.” The silence in the classroom deepened as I awaited the professor’s response. Her faced reddened and her glare toward me strengthened. She moved on and left me alone the rest of the class. The class ended and she asked me to stay after.

We had an old west, high noon standoff, neither one of us wanting to talk first. The 22-year old me was simply out to prove a point.  My point was that the teacher-student relationship is give and take and a teacher must take responsibility for their students being bored. Her point was that students’ need to respect that receiving an education is a privilege and teachers must be respected. Now, the 33 year old me knows we were both correct in our point of view and we were both rude in our execution in trying to prove our point.

In my professor and my quest to prove our points, I believe that we both through proper conversation execution out the window. I believe that proper execution is where two people, or a group of people, can have space to come to an understanding. With better execution on my professor’s part she might have inquired as to why I was struggling to stay awake and found out I was working from 6:30am to 9am every morning to help pay for my education.  With improved execution on my part and I could have had a discussion with my professor in private to explain my sleeping in class issues so I don’t embarrass my professor and disrupt the learning of others.

The standoff ended with her saying I needed to be respectful to the learning environment and me nodding my head in agreement. We never really did clear the air on our disagreement and I still feel bad about that. But now it’s a footnote in our lives. I learned a valuable lesson on the importance of execution and the value of working through difference of opinions. I sometimes wonder about this professor and wonder if she learned the same lessons I did.