Class Participators: Which Are You?

Published February 26, 2008

By Lea McLellan

Class participation. It’s fifteen percent of our grade, it inspires overzealous students to raise their hands to the point of obnoxiousness, and it requires the rest of us to actually do the reading… or does it?

Last semester, there was a boy in my class — let’s call him The Participator — who had a comment or pertinent question for every occasion. He was essentially the class participation extraordinaire. When the professor asked us if we “had anything to add” or if he simply paused to take a drink of coffee (or breathe) The Participator’s hand would be the first in the air.

One day, we split into small groups to discuss the novel that had been assigned. I was in a group with The Participator. I expected him to contribute his every thought and feeling, pose deep-reaching questions, and generally dominate. Instead, he shrugged his shoulders and said, “I didn’t read it. I have no idea what’s going on.”

When our professor asked us to speak in front of the class, I volunteered to share our findings. When I had finished, he asked the group if anyone had anything to add. To my shock and disgust, The Participator had the nerve to reiterate something I had already said. Thus confirming my creeping suspicions: not only was The Participator annoyingly vocal, but he was in fact, completely full of shit.

So The Participator was a Bullshitter. While the Bullshitter may be the most annoying, he isn’t the only type of class participant. There is also the infamous “Questioner.” This is the person who didn’t necessarily do the reading, hasn’t listened to anything the professor has said, or just plain doesn’t get it. Despite these strikes against her, she insists on raising her hand to ask questions that are meant to be insightful, but fall depressingly short.

Once you get past the fact that The Questioner is wasting everyone’s time, you have to feel sort of sorry for her. She has somehow been led to believe that asking irrelevant and oftentimes stupid questions actually counts as an acceptable form of contributing to discussion.

To give an example, a religion professor has just gone into detail explaining how some people are psychologically predisposed to mystical experience. In response, The Questioner may ask, “I just want to make sure I understand what you’re saying. So what you’re saying is, some people are psychologically predisposed to mystical experience?” And then we all sit there awkwardly while the professor thinks of a nice way to say, “Duh, bitch. That’s what I just said.”

Next up is the Know-it-all. This is the person who knows everything, and isn’t afraid to show off their smarts. The profesor loves them for their astute commentary and general wealth of knowledge previously attained from reading the encyclopedia. You can’t hate them for being intelligent, but you can certainly resent them a tiny bit for making everyone else look bad.

Last is the anti-participator — The Snoozer. The Snoozer sits in the back corner and is famous for boldy nodding off, despite the small teacher-student ratio. We worry about their fifteen percent and nudge them when they start to drool or snore.

The best is when the teacher catches sight of the unknowing napper in the middle of the lecture, stops, stares, and says, “Is he actually asleep?” The answer: yes. And he’ll do it again next class.

I think we can all agree that attending class might be a little less annoying if we didn’t have to listen to egomaniacs talking to hear the sound of their own voice. And we might be a little more productive if we didnt have to sit through pointless and redundant questions. But maybe we need these participators. Without them, awkward pauses would run amok and professors would have to resort to calling on people at random. Yikes!

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