Awkward Turtle

I thought the investigation into awkward moments of the class was fantastic and hilarious!! It reminded me of a lot of moments in class that made me cringe and ask myself why I joined the class in the first place. However, looking back, I can just laugh at how ridiculous the whole situation was, while also appreciating what I learned.

I really liked the incorporation of the professors' interpretation of awkward. One would wonder how awkward someone like, say, Robin's boss, would feel sitting in our classroom where students are encouraged to question the foundations of what they are being taught instead of just sitting in our giant lecture hall taking notes

One thing I think should be noted is that the awkward moments mentioned in the presentation were all about actions taken by our professors or our classmates, but I assert that something can be awkward without anyone but the self realizing it. For example, it was awkward sitting during our history lectures and talking about Mato Nunpa as a white privileged woman from suburban Minnesota. Discussing others' perspectives that are against your ideology, and recognizing 'white guilt' is a disarming experience where I didn't know how to contribute appropriately to the class.

I also did my own experiment during the science portion of the class. I sat on one side of the room to the extreme of one ideology that I wouldn't have normally aligned myself with. No one knew I didn't "belong" there except for myself. I felt like I was unsafe and that my ideas were unsafe because I knew that no one around me would fundamentally agree with me.

In the abstract, of course my ideas were safe. Of course I was safe. Everyone worked hard to make the classroom an open environment for sharing ideas. So then why did I feel awkward and out of place? Is it because I was an embodiment of the docile body, uncomfortable with not following directions to sit where I was told? Foucault would probably say that the only reason the concept of awkwardness exists is because of social constructions of what is reasonable to act like in public. The reason it was hard to watch Robin act like he had tourettes is because we have all been taught socially that it is strange and unnatural for a man to act that way, and so we don't know how to react.

I think if the group had incorporated some more of the docile body analysis we had in class, then we could hash out whether or not we really have been engaging in the docile body or if we have been trying to fight tacit acceptance of social norms in class by questioning them every Tuesday/Thursday at 9:45 in the morning.