People don’t like Mech 228. I think a lot of this is because the class and the tutorial are huge; there are a couple hundred people in both. On the other hand, I wonder how much of it may have to do with the fact that the professor is female, Iranian (I think) and has an accent. In both classes and tutorials, many people don’t pay attention. I’ve even heard some jackasses insult the TAs based on accent and sex. In any case, in our tutorial today we had two new TAs that we’d never met before.

By the time most of the students filter into the auditorium, it’s pretty loud. One of the TAs tries to get the attention of the class. He has an accent and seems a bit nervous. He’s using a mike so everyone can hear what he’s saying over their conversations. He asks for our attention several times, but the volume in the room barely goes down.

Eventually he gives up on trying to get our attention and tries to start teaching the lesson. The female TA speaks for a few minutes, and her strategy seems to work better. She doesn’t use a mike, but just seems to expect that we shut up when she’s talking. The volume immediately drops. She has a loud enough voice so I can hear her from the far back corner of the auditorium. She has a Canadian accent, but isn’t white. Some people around me suggest that she should use the mike, but it seems that she’s actually able to get some modicum of respect this way.

She’s much more confident than the male TA, who seems nervous and frustrated by the fact that people won’t stfu. I wonder how much of this has to do with his command of english. I wonder if that also causes people in the class to write him off, while listening to the woman. For some people maybe I shouldn’t say I wonder, since I’ve heard slurs about accents, and calling our past female TA a “broad”. I really thought we were past this. I really expected more out of Sci 07. People saying these things out loud scares me. I wonder how much of this kind of thinking is going on at lower levels in those who wouldn’t say them. Do I think these thoughts in some dark corner of my brain?

The past TAs didn’t fare too well. The male TA was confident, at least at the beginning, although he was pretty condescending when answering questions. He never managed to earn credibility. Part of it was that his enthusiasm felt stilted and didn’t include enough respect. After he told me that my question basically didn’t matter I have to say I didn’t think he was a great TA. On the other hand, his accent must have had something to do with it for a few people, since the insults I overheard about accent were about him. The woman was not as strong as an instructor, but I wonder if she might have done better if she hadn’t been following the other guy’s act (she was white and had no accent).

The class itself is also frustrating since the prof gets almost no respect. She seems to be a reasonably good teacher and is sincerely attempting to address the concerns raised in teacher evaluation forms. I think the problem is that the class is too big and she started off by going way to slowly. I wonder how much of it is racism, unconscious and conscious though.

I really wish that these classes and tutorials were smaller; I think it would really break up the mob mentality. Seeing the reaction of some students I wonder how much of this behaviour I might miss in myself. Why is difference such an obstacle?

A random note: Why is it that the variables chosen for any given problem will always sound similar enough to easily confuse people listening to the explanation? Physics seems to choose C, D, B; analysis seems to have a love affair with m and n, which is especially confusing when lecturers don’t have very clear handwriting…

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