To me, the most interesting part of Ifemelu’s analysis of school life in America is when she talks about in-class participation. From her perspective, the students waste time by participating and she believes that they speak up just for the sake of saying something. Her ideology, which is based off of the Nigerian culture in which she grew up, is that students go to class to learn from their professors and should speak only if they have something important to say. Personally, I disagree with this contention. Over the past four years I have attended three different high schools (and now college), and I believe that a classroom environment that fosters individual participation is a far better place to learn than those that don’t. At one of my schools, for example, my Chinese class had 26 students. This wasn’t inherently a problem, but my teacher made little effort to engage the class, preferring instead to read from PowerPoints and have the whole class recite new vocabulary in unison. While possibly effective for some, I never felt like I truly gained a significant understanding of the language. At my last high school, on the other hand, my Chinese class had just two students, including myself. This meant that the entire class was driven not by rote presentations, but instead by active participation between me, my classmate, and my teacher. Because I was able to participate more, I was able to better learn both the language and the concepts. So while it may seem strange to Ifemelu for the whole class to try to talk, even if they have little to say, I personally believe that any sort of participation is crucial to truly understanding and learning course material, and goes beyond a superficial need for participation points.
Here at Penn State, there’s a broad spectrum of class involvement. Some of my friends have 300-person lectures in which you could never hope to actually engage the professor unless you sit in the front row and constantly wave your hand in his or her face. Many other classes, though, like this RCL class, are much smaller and more personal and allow for a flow of ideas between students and professors. While the participation may be confusing or annoying at first, I believe that after some time it would become standard, and someone unaccustomed to it would eventually appreciate it.