Gunhild Archer, counselor

I spoke to one of the professors at the gym today, and what he said made me feel deeply frustrated. He told me about his lecture yesterday, the last lecture before Easter, and he told me about all the effort and care he had put into it. He had picked his students favorite topics, made a real effort making it interesting, and he had highlighted key concepts that were important for the coming exam

What happens? Only 8 students show up. What else? Everyone is on mute and with their web camera turned off. He was talking to 8 fucking blank screens for 2 hours. My first reaction is a feeling of anger and the thought: “how ungrateful of the students!”. The professor felt the same way, and told me he had resentfully decided to rush through the course material. When I asked the professor if he had talked to the students about the camera situation, he said no and followed up by giving me an excuse why: there had been several cases of students complaining about feeling forced to have the camera on during lectures. He made himself the victim and gave the students all the power, which proves the point I’m harping on since forever: people don’t know that vulnerability and the concept of third options (aka: both parties leave the situation feeling 100% satisfied) creates real, feel-good solutions.

The ungratefulness is not my biggest anger though. My biggest anger is that THERE’S NO REAL COMMUNICATION! The students are complaining about being forced to have their web camera turned on during class – no talk about what their discomfort is truly about. And the professor… What the fuck. He is a grown man who has a need for engagement, and seeing his students faces during class, yet he doesn’t address how he feels or what he needs.

Why are humans incapable of telling each other the truth of how we feel! W H Y ?

Couldn’t the professor told them straight up: “I need to see your faces, it would make me feel connected, which would make me enjoy being here”. Couldn’t the students have told him the reason why they didn’t want to turn the web camera on, even if the truth was “I feel ashamed to be seen in my pajamas”, or “I don’t want to be here, but I feel like I should, so my camera is turned off to make it seem like I’m here”? Unless we actually voice these vulnerabilities – our truths, WE CAN’T FIND SOLUTIONS. Not real solutions anyways.

What happens instead? The professor is left feeling bitter, he talks to his boss which talks to his boss which talks to the student organization which tells the students to put on their camera which makes the students feel forced and now they will for sure leave the camera off. Good. Two opposing forces butting heads, NOT REALLY TALKING. If they had the fucking guts to be vulnerable, there could be a meeting of minds. They could have worked things through, but no, “it’s not fitting to have those kinds of conversations”, “it takes too much time”, “resourced should be used otherwise” (blabla)… Nothing’s going to change if we continue making excuses – nothing.