My friend and former student Alfred is developing an imaginative problem for his students. He asked me if I could try it in one of my classes as a sort of ‘control.’ His assignment, in the form he gave me, is as follows:

‘I want to know how my students think. If they don’t yet, I want to make them start to. I tell them this story:’

‘At an ancient Center of Learning the Studies Faculty meets in a room that has a table that seats six. Since there are 10 on the Faculty, four always have to sit on the floor based on seniority. Members have spent three, five, any number of years on the floor. As one of the members at the table leaves the Faculty the senior person on the floor “moves up” to the table.’ It has been this way as long as anyone remembers.’

‘As the building had fallen into disrepair after long years of use the Governing Elders of The Center moved to rebuild the existing structure. Only for reasons of cost and time the meeting rooms were made larger. Since the meeting rooms were larger the Board also provided larger furniture. The old furniture was given away. So when the Studies Faculty came in for their first meeting in the new building they found a table that would seat all 10 of them.’

‘I ask my students “Then what happened? Is there a ‘therefore’ here? If there is not, why not?” They have the two free days between class days to do the assignment and I limit them to 500 words. Then I take the two or three best replies and distribute copies to the other students and ask them to comment on these.’*

I will ask my students ‘Is there a point? What, if anything, does this tell about people? About society? Any other thoughts?’ And if it tells you nothing, why? 

Since I have always believed that professors should do any assignments themselves that they give to their students I offer the following as my response to Alfred’s problem (aimed for 500 words, I ask Alfred to see my wordiness as being ‘within the margin of error’):

Senior Faculty at the table say things like ‘I spent 11 years on the floor and know ...” Or ‘What I learned from my nine years on the floor was...” An insult is to suggest an idea sounded like ‘something from the floor.’ The record for time on the floor is 17 years. This brought the member prestige. He gave talks to the public ’my 17 years on the floor.’ Mumblings about a member who spent ‘only’ three years on the floor. Members who move up to the ‘junior’ end of the table maintain silence for a time and only gradually join in the general discourse.

During meetings members on the floor could talk. Since they were out of the sight of most of the faculty at the table they were not heard, or ignored. They soon learned to wait until they were asked a question ‘from the table.’ Senior members might call a floor person by name and shout a question. The person had to shout the answer back. The people at the end of the table who could see the floor were the ones most recently moved up. They did not look back down.  

Then the larger table came.  

The four people who had been on the floor did not take the new seats. They looked at the chairs  waiting for some word from the senior members seated. None came. The senior members seemed not to notice the change.  Meetings went on as always.

Until there was an opening because of a retirement. New member came to his first meeting and immediately took a seat at the table, no thought to do otherwise. After a time the remaining three floor people one by one quietly pulled themselves up and took the edge of a seat at the end of the table. Senior members asked for their old table back. Then they asked for lower chairs for the ‘junior’ members. This request was thought to be a joke (one senior member threatened to bring in a saw to cut the chair legs shorter. Another wanted to saw off part of the table).

Tension increased at the Studies Faculty meetings that followed. Governing Elders assigned security guards. All entertaining to Center faculty  uninvolved, material for after-hours stories over cups of cheer. Smiles as they planned articles for learned journals that present studies of the human condition. Students put on theatrical presentations on the Center Common. Staging of table, chairs, a saw, and some chairs with shorter legs. People from Town came to watch. Elders were embarrassed. Faculty Studies meetings continued though.

Matters got worse. Senior members became more unstable. Some stopped talking. More open hostility towards ‘junior’ members. Much talk of falling standards. Some would silently sob. One had to be restrained from becoming violent. Others had screaming fits of rage, throwing things around in their offices. One by one the senior members completely broke down and Security led them out of the building into retirement. Not long afterwards the Governing Elders, as part of a general Center reorganization, reduced the number of Professors on the Studies Faculty from ten to six.

 

*Alfred's assignment first appeared in the novel Stained Glass Murals, available on Amazon.