Hiii again🫠
From Wednesday to Friday we had the seminar When in Rome…, which focused on whether we should “do as the Romans do when we are in Rome”. I am one of the leaders in this seminar. We had four questions with four extension questions: first, how do you define local? Second, is there any culture that only an insider can fully understand? Third, do we have a moral duty to make the world better, even if the act is against cultural beliefs? Finally, if you see a “No Fishing” sign but locals are fishing there, should you follow the rule or follow what locals do? Why? The follow-up is whether the logic applies to everyday rules. The first two questions led to a pretty interesting discussion, such as when we debated whether your nationality defines where you are local to, or whether society, yourself, and the world define where you are local. We talked about Elon Musk, colonialism, war, etc. (Even though the teacher thought the discussion wasn’t very effective, at least we had some idea clashes). For the culture part, we also talked about funeral processes (for example, we have to kowtow to our ancestors), Chinese and Japanese customs, and some regional traditions. However, for the final two questions, I felt we did not discuss enough, and mostly the problem was with the questions themselves (I’ll elaborate later).
First, I want to talk about my own performance. In this seminar, I got a 78, with only one low, five middles, and one high. I reached the goal I set last time: getting fewer than two lows and at least one high. Being a leader, getting this score is impressive to me personally (because I can’t even easily get 7s when I am not a leader). The reason I got only one low this time is that I thought thoroughly before I spoke. In previous seminars, I often raised my hand without thinking, which meant I was not prepared and had to come up with content quickly during my speech. After I realized that I needed to think carefully about what I wanted to say and record my ideas, I tried to take more time to think, even if that meant I spoke fewer times. Although I only spoke two or three times as much as usual, I still got a better score, which proved that my reflection and improvement were effective. This shaped my overall approach to participation: choosing thoughtful reflection over rushing to contribute.
Next, I want to talk about my leadership. First, I want to mention what I did well. At the start of the seminar, I explained my ideas for seminar management: calling on quieter students first for every question, encouraging discussion on one point before moving to new ideas, and keeping the speaking list short (as I mentioned in my previous reflection). Despite this, I don’t think I did a good job overall. The first issue was question preparation. The leaders (Dora, Terry, and I) only started brainstorming questions at 9 pm, which is an hour before my bedtime. Then Terry was not online, so only Dora and I discussed ideas. We had to rush through drafting the questions and making the PPT, and I did not prepare anything else besides the questions for the seminar. These questions lacked open-ended layers, clarity and depth, which are essential for sparking an interesting discussion. As a result, we could only give simple answers instead of having the deep, thoughtful debate this topic was meant to inspire. The unclear questions stemmed from our poor time management, which left the last two questions weak and hard to discuss. My advice for the final seminar leaders is to prepare earlier and ensure everyone is online for full discussion. Leaders are not just people who pick speakers and stand at the front of the classroom; they have more responsibilities, such as planning ahead. Our last-minute work affected the overall quality of the discussion (sorry!!!)
The second issue was the speaking order, or more specifically, who we chose to call on. Terry and I disagreed: he thought we should pick whoever raised their hand first, but I thought we should call on quieter students first when they showed initiative, because they rarely raise their hands (and the more eager students already earned around 7 points). I understand that Ian thought it unfair that he raised his hand for five minutes and we did not call on him, but the problem is that he spoke the most times and got the highest score, while other students only got three or four opportunities to speak. Next time, we should discuss the speaking order and selection method before the seminar starts to avoid confusion or disagreements. (Also can anyone give any solutions to balancing quieter students who raise their hands later and have lower scores, and eager students who wait longer to be called on but have good scores already?)
The final issue was guiding the discussion in the right direction. Our discussion on the first question became slightly politically sensitive towards the end, but I did not cut it off and just let it continue. I didn’t intervene because I didn’t know how to, and partly because I was nervous that everyone would complain about me being too rigid. Although the discussion was quite interesting, it was not relevant to our topic. Also, when students did not know what to say because they did not understand the question (or for other reasons), I needed to guide them, clarify points or offer ideas to keep the discussion going. Instead, we just stared at each other in silence, and the third class of the seminar was very disappointing. 🫣
Overall, as a seminar leader, I feel I achieved a good score but still need to improve in many small areas to make the seminar run more smoothly and the discussion more valuable. For the next seminar (which is also the last one for this unit and probably for middle school), I hope to get a good score like 77, with at least one high. More importantly, I hope we can have an interesting and reflective discussion about our middle school journey. I look forward to the creative seminar tomorrow!