A funny thing happened tonight. Among other things, it highlighted the level of familiarity and ease our class has with each other. Most of the 4th year students are taking the Bar Prep class offered by the school, because there is no such thing as too much help in preparing for the CA Bar Exam. The school is also allowing those who have taken all of the required credit hours to audit the class, which helps ease the very much strained pocketbooks of this group. The school benefits if the Bar pass rate is high, and we benefit if we pass. Win-win. It's a class that you would only take shortly before sitting for the Bar, which means that unlike other electives, it is a class made up solely of 4th year students.
Imagine our surprise then, when 20 minutes into the class, in walks a stranger, who sits down and joins the class. Further, we were surprised when she commenced talking. A lot. Inappropriately and without the usual moderately restrained decorum to which we are accustomed. She called the professor by his first name, she answered a question asked of another student. We found out that she had taken 3 years of law school at some remote time, and had finished via correspondence because 'life intervened.' She is a single mom, and has broken her right wrist, and maybe had some surgery on it as well. Colorful doesn't quite describe her.
For sure she unsettled our comfortable routine. In conversation in the parking lot after class, one student called her 'jarring', and I think that is a pretty accurate term for it. She is so inappropriate that it is humorous, except she seems not to have an OFF button.
No one called her out in class-we tend to be pretty tolerant of each other in this group, and it's not typical for us to do something to embarrass another class member. However, I saw some looks exchanged, and she was the topic of conversation post-class. For me it mostly served to remind me of how fortunate we are in the accident of class makeup. We are a somewhat diverse group in terms of work backgrounds, age, political leanings and personal communication style. But we have an unwritten rule of tolerance for differing points of view, and have generally been able to find a way to smooth over the rough patches.
Over the course of the last 4 years, we have melded into a cohesive unit that reminds me a bit of a hive of bees. Like bees, we see this interloper as a threat, and we might possibly be inclined to encase her in wax or whatever it is that bees use. In this way we dilute or eliminate the jarring effect of her presence in our midst.
It turns out that all good things have a dark side, including our lovely little class.
No comments:
Post a Comment