the (intentional) disruption of functional systems

JS: Okay. Talk to me a little bit about, um, the first day in the course, what you were thinking.

DM: Oh man! Ah, my initial thoughts were, “This woman is, ah, crazy! I don’t know if she even knows what she’s talking about!” Cause you just came in and you just started talking about, “Oh yeah, we’re going to do a history and we’re going to do an OED,” and I’m just sitting here. You know, for someone who hasn’t gone through your class, it just kind of blows your mind. “What is this woman talking about? A 'history of "this" space?'” You know?

JS: So the history task, in particular, was the most confusing?

DM: Yeah. The thing that sticks out is the first day of class when you told us about the history of this space. I was so lost. I didn’t even know where I was. I had no clue what you were talking about.

JS: Was it my language or what I did? I mean, it seems to me that first days of class, the instructors say what you’re going to be doing.

DM: Yeah. No. If you were to tell me now, “Oh we’re going to do 'a history of "this" space,'” then, you know, after going through your whole class, you know, it’s nothing. You know, you’re like, “Oh, okay.” But to someone that hasn’t experienced your type of teaching—cause when you get them the first day, they’re, they’re, you know, they’ve been told their whole life, you know, "you’re going to have these assignments, you’re going to do it this way." And once you get to your class, you’re talking about stuff we’ve never even heard of or never even imagined, you know? It’s like, “Wow, she’s actually, she’s actually going to let us do this?” It’s like your mind can’t really comprehend if you’re for real, you know? Like you kind of, we think you’re just kidding or something. I didn’t know what to think.

JS: Well, why didn’t you drop then?

DM: Just because. I don’t know. I never even really thought about it. It was my first semester of college. I didn’t think people dropped, you know?

JS: I mean, if you were feeling that this was weird—

DM: (cutting JS off) Beyond weird.

JS: Okay. (DM and JS laugh)

DM: It’s cause you’re thinking one way but our whole life we’ve been taught “let the teacher teach us,” you know? And to lay that out it kinda, I mean to tell us, “Hey, you guys are going to be teaching yourself” —it’s like giving a hockey player a football and saying, “Go play football!” (JS laughs)

JS: That’s a great quote. All right. Okay. So if you felt that it was beyond weird, were you sure other people thought that or were you (DM laughs) looking around? Did you talk to anybody after class? Did you—

DM: No, I thought I was the only one that had no clue what you were talking about. I was just sitting there and I was like, “Man!” Cause everyone else kind of seemed like—they were nodding their head but (JS laughs) now I realize that they were completely in the dark too. I just remember leaving that first class thinking I’m going fail out of this class so quickly.

JS: And did you have other friends who had been through or were going through [fyc] classes at the same time?

DM: Well, yeah. Yeah. I talked to them and they were, I was like, “So what’s your class like?” They were like, “Oh it sucks. We gotta write a, we gotta write a 10 page paper in like two weeks!” And I’m like, “At least you know what your assignment is!” (JS and DM laugh). I’m like, “I don’t even know what she’s trying to tell us. Talking about Christina Aguilera and stuff!”

JS: So how do these conversations about other [fyc] classes come up?

DM: I don’t know. It’s just me being so lost. Cause I wasn’t sure if, like, all the [fyc] classes were like this, you know? I was trying to get some insight on this class. I didn’t really know what to think.

JS: And so when they said that they had to do whatever, did that make you want to switch sections?

DM: No. It actually—it just made me kind of made me feel more lost. Everyone else—I felt I was the only one in my class that didn’t know what was going on. And then once I talked to other people outside the class, I was thinking that I’m the only one in the whole school that doesn’t know what’s going on, you know? (JS and DM laugh) Yeah. But after you go through it and you actually realize what is going on, um, you start to understand what you’re trying to do and it’s easier to understand what to do.