Night and Day

Yesterday marked the first day of classes for me. In fact, the classes I'm taking are 2 of the final 3 needed to complete my master's degree. One of them I'll have every Thursday evening until December (Educational Psychology). The other, thankfully, met last night, and will meet on 3 more weekends, then I'm done with it (Research Methods)!

I've heard great things about both classes, and some of my friends who had previously taken the Educational Psychology course have told me how much I'll like it, one of them saying, "You'll love that class - the professor is so structured and organized - it'll be right up your alley!". Uh - thanks...I think.

Never have I spent time with two such crazy opposite people as I did in these two classes. The professors - both of whom I think I'm going to love - were polar opposites. Allow me to paint the picture, for purposes of processing this information for myself:

The first 30 minutes of my educational psychology class were spent with the instructor going over the 2 page, single-spaced "course policies". Now, many of these policies are things you would not think you should have to tell a bunch of graduate students, but unfortunately, I've been in enough classes with some of these people to know they could use a little nudging. The policies included NEVER missing class, not being tardy, no laptop use, no late papers, no rewrites...oh! I forgot. You can miss up to 2 hours of one class if it's for something very important, but according to her, "Your daughter going up on toe in a recital or your husband getting an award at work isn't 'important'". I wonder if going into early labor qualifies as "important"? She then gave us a 5 minute break so that anyone who felt they couldn't make the kind of commitment the class entails could make a graceful exit.

Wouldn't you just know, after she spends 3o minutes going over all the rules, my buddy, who's traditionally late to classes, shows up in the doorway with a deer-in-headlights look. "Sorry I'm late." He says. I look at the clock and see that he's an hour late. "Oh crap!" I thought, "here we go." I made room for him to sit next to me and, ever the cynic, he leans over in his loudest whisper (and I mean loud) and says, "How has the class been so far?" I tried to ignore him, and the professor, catching his whisper, moved over to him and presented him with the scroll of policies (which does, in fact, include no talking while she or one of our classmates is talking). She asked him to read the policies and decide if he could commit to the class, meanwhile he tried to apologize for being late and she assured him it was fine but that he really needed to read the policies. As she returned to the front of the room, my buddy leaned over to me and whispered, again loudly, "Is she the only one who teaches this class? Because I don't appreciate the public humiliation!"

"Talk to me after class!" I whispered back. Poor guy - but anyone who knows me knows that breaking rules makes me extremely uncomfortable. And besides, I'm not the type to carry on side conversations anyway!

Class ended (and I think it will be a really good one), and I had 8 minutes to walk about 3 city blocks and find my next classroom - which wouldn't be a problem except I will remind you that I'm 22 weeks pregnant and I can't walk as fast as I once could. I am positive that in my black shirt and black & white skirt, I looked like a penguin with a teal backpack waddling across campus.

My next class had such a different tone that I'm still chuckling to myself about it. I entered the room to see a little man, about 70 years old, in a sweater (no, it wasn't a cold evening). On the screen at the front of the room was some kind of funky picture of a kitten in a strange pose - the kind you get in forwarded e-mails - and a request for us to provide a caption for the photo. He began to speak in a very quiet, very British voice. His first statement was, "I know they have us on the schedule (and yes, he said SHedule) as being here until midnight or something (10pm really), and I like to catch the no. 15 bus at 9 o'clock, so I was hoping you'd be okay with leaving around 8:45. Is that okay? Tired heads nodded approval.

"And while we're at it, let's talk about the weekends that we're to meet...they have us on the SHedule as meeting at 4pm Fridays, but I really can't make it from Boulder by then. Would it be alright if we meet at 4:30pm instead? Would that be okay?" More nods of approval.

"And really, after a full week of work, I don't feel like being in class until 9pm, so I was thinking that 7:30 might be more agreeable. What do you think? Would that be okay?" Was he serious? Heads were nodding more enthusiastically as we all did the math and realized that cut our Friday night classes from 5 hours to 3. But wait - there's more!

"And as for being here by 8am on Saturdays, well, I have a cat who likes to take a stroll with me every Saturday morning. He's 15, and he is very set in his ways..." Is this guy serious??? "I think I can make it by 9am. Would that be agreeable to everyone? Lots of laughter and people were really starting to loosen up. Then he said, " And I won't be releasing you at 5pm on those days - that's just ridiculous - I'll be letting you go around 3:30pm". Okay, so he just cut our weekend classes by 4 1/2 hours, and he's asking us if it would be okay? Ummmm, yeah.

Toward the end of class, he said, in his quiet little British voice, "You know, we all work very hard," (well...not all of us...some of us are currently unemployed, with two children about to enter school full-time) he continued..."and I don't think we need to be spending our free time between classes typing up assignments and doing readings." (Wait...was this heading where I thought it was heading?) "So, I just want you to know that you'll be given time during class to do any readings and assignments. Nothing will be expected of you outside of class." You could have heard a pin drop, then he capped that statement of with the requisite "would that be okay?" The girl next to me, who just told me that she is taking 16 graduate credit hours was near tears, and I just kept laughing to myself.

What a strange 5 hours it had been. How was it even possible that two professors, both about whom I'd heard great things, both with classes that sounded fabulous, could be such night and day, polar opposites? I think it would make a fascinating study in the psychology of control. Regardless, I'm geared up for a more laid-back semester than I've experienced in the past two years. Bring it on!