I went back, pondered about what exactly did I do wrong - was it misunderstanding? Did she interpret wrongly? Or did I just phrase my feedback too flagrantly?
Later on, I couldn't stand the feeling of leaving things hanging (since now we are in bad terms but we still need to see each other in tutorial classes). So I took the initiative to clear things up with her and offer my apologies.
Thankfully, she's cool and over about it.
In fact, our relationship became way better than any typical student-teacher relationship in university after that.
Now.. that's not the point of why I am talking about this incident in my post today....
To get to the main point.. let me back track a bit..
During the period when I told my friends about this incident - I remembered very vividly some of my friends said, "Boon May. You need to learn to live in the reality. You should only bootlick the professor, never argue back and ask less questions so you won't annoy him/her so much."
What they had said struck me. Not because I feel that what they say were true and I should change the way I am to "adapt to the reality" but.. because what they say were strongly against my consonance.
-------
Firstly, I don't bootlick, and have never booklicked anyone else in my life before. I think that it might be due to the some high ego in me that I never booklick others.. This can be a big disadvantage in my life.. I know that long ago - but I won't concede. Because I always feel If you can build good relationships with others through sincerity and goodwill, why do you have to booklick?
Another reason is that I grew up treating everyone the same and this isn't something that can be changed within a day or so.
So yeah. Bootlicking is a big NO-NO for me.
Secondly, if something is wrong, I will always speak up. Some people see this as "arguing back" but to me, there is a fine line of difference in these two.
Thirdly, I always believe if we don't know something, we should always ask questions. Or else we will not get anywhere. Even if after asking questions, we may not get the answers we want.. we may appear stupid..
But the thing is, at least after asking questions maybe from person X and person X couldn't give the answers we want.. we would now know that we have to find other ways to get answers.
It means we are taking a leap forward and becoming clearer to where we should get our answers, isn't it?
This brings me to the point I want to talk about today - Asking questions.
-----------
This semester, I met the toughest, most sarcastic and most unhelpful professor I have ever met in my life.
Every question I posed to her was rebounded back with sarcastic or harsh comments.
It is no wonder nobody has asked her questions during and after class except me all the times.
While I have to admit, sometimes I do ask questions out of convenience.. But most of the times, my questions are really legit.
I remembered doing something really meticulously and wholeheartedly.. spent the entire day and came up with something to show her and asked if what I have done are alright. and I got the harshest reply from her in something like this: "I won't entertain things like this. Why are you spending so much time doing some thing that will waste your and my precious time? Please make use of your time wisely."
First, my heart sank. And then later, I got angry. I felt like... all my efforts have gone to waste. Instead of providing me constructive feedback, why did the professor have to sound so mean? My dislike for this teacher started to build up.
I started to doubt myself - Am I really wrong in asking questions? Because every time I ask a question, all I get back from her is a harsh or sarcastic remark and it felt like I got slapped in the face every time and it hurts.
Until today.
We were supposed to have a make-up class at 2 p.m. today. Having been released from my second tutorial early, I decided to go for the make-up class half-and-hour early.
To my dismay, I found out that this professor I dislike also went early.
"Should I just leave and come back at 2pm?" this question sprang into my mind.
"No, let's just have a talk to her and see how it goes," I thought.
And so..
I greeted her, sat beside her and we chatted for 30 minutes.
To my surprise... her demeanor when she talked to me 1-1 was so different from how she was usually like in class - that angsty and sarcastic tutor whom perpetually seems to have this "come near me and you will get it from me." that kind of aura.
When she spoke to me 1-1, she was cheery - all smiles and courteous.
Somehow, she knew that I was working and studying at the same time (which I don't know how come she knew) and asked how I was coping with my studies.
I replied, "Average" and what she replied me was something I have never expected coming from a professor...
"Coming from my experience, results are really nothing. Really.
"Remember the two things that you would always need: First, you must be able to accept feedback.. feedback from anyone, your boss, your colleague, your partner, whoever. Second, you must be thickskinned. Very thickskinned.
"And you know what Boon May? From my classes I have with you... the way you dare to ask questions... I can see you are a very strong girl. And I'm sure this will bring you a long way ahead even after you graduate from university. Believe me."
I was speechless when I heard her saying that.
My impression of her took a reverse turn drastically.
From what she said about "must be able to accept feedback", a sudden realisation came to me -
So all along... she was being mean for this reason!
She wanted to train her students to be able to take criticisms and be more resourceful.
And.. all along, I felt like I appeared stupid in her eyes because of her harsh comments.
Yet I was so wrong.
Contrary to that negative and silly interpretation of my side, I appeared to be "strong" to her for daring to ask questions.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So... this brings to the conclusion and the morale of why I want to share this experience of mine..
Sometimes... why we choose to be passive - because being passive is within our comfort zone. We don't get hurt, don't appear silly and in fact, we appear like we know everything.
But actually, we have a lot of things we do not know. But that's okay -
And it's okay to appear silly to ask questions even if these silly questions might hurt us. Because we learn. We learn to ask better questions. We learn that if we can't get answers from asking questions from a particular someone, we can always be resourceful and get our answers elsewhere than to be stuck at the same stage. And most importantly, we learn to accept negative feedback so that they won't hurt us anymore.
Because ultimately.. I strongly believe we will become the clever one emerging from all those people around us who think we appeared silly.
Ending off with this quote that I concur with =)
No comments:
Post a Comment