Math Class Flies By, But Seminar Doesn’t

You wake up on time to get a hearty breakfast with eggs, toast, sausage and bacon. There’s a few familiar faces at the house table, and you chat with them briefly in the downtime before math class. Griffin goes on about some bizarre new internet trend, which Rachel seems to not really be into, while Charmaine listens from the side, staying aloof.

Math class itself also goes more or less like you’d expected it to. The class has settled into a sort of rhythm now that everyone’s gotten used to the unusual format, and you can tell pretty clearly who’s got the chops for this kind of proof-based mathematics and who doesn’t. Vignesh, for instance, was clearly born for this stuff, and he’s often the first to offer a correction whenever someone slips up. You can see that this gets Ruby’s attention, but you worry that he might be overdoing it, and make a mental note to tell him to tone it down.

In the hour before writing seminar, you find a bench outside the classroom and catch up on some of the readings that you hadn’t quite gotten to yet. As you work through yet another dense opus on critical theory, you wonder how the other students in the class are keeping up. Actually, now that you think about it, they might not be… there are one or two of the girls who clearly haven’t done their reading, and sort of stumble through their answers when called upon, but even the others pretty clearly stick to one or two of the readings in discussion. You get the hunch that even if they were going through everything, only a few of them are actually important enough to warrant a close reading.

You wrap up the essay you’re on just as the prior class begins to file out, a couple of the students talking about the Iranian revolution in hushed tones. As the first one in the room, you get first pick at the seats around the round table. You pick the one at the back of the room, basically across from where the professor typically sits, and then wait for the people to file in.

Lisa walks in first. She gives you a glance, and then takes a seat near the front of the room.

“Hey,” you venture, and she stares back at you.

“Is something up?”

“I was thinking, does anyone actually do all the readings?” An innocuous question, but you’re not sure what else you would bring up with your sister.

“What, you don’t?” Her retort comes just as Lucille walk into the room. The girl, as per usual, is dressed in black. She gives you a smile, and then takes a seat next to you.

“What were you two talking about?” she asks.

“Nothing,” Lisa shrugs, and then she’s back at her phone again, messaging people unknown.

Slowly, more students come into the room, until the table is filled up save for the last seat. The professor, as usual, walks in with hardly a minute to spare.

“Big news! As you all know, your first major paper will be due next Friday.” The professor looks around the room, taking in the reactions of the students. “Good, not too many looks of utter disappointment just yet. Anyways, I was thinking about the prompt, and decided that it should be something like this: ‘The modern, or post-modern if you will, conception of sex is fundamentally incompatible with the romantic ideal of love.’ You are, of course, free to agree or disagree with the statement as you like, so long as you make a cogent argument.”

Everyone in the room looks engaged now, various looks of interest or horror letting you know their thoughts on the prompt. It’s certainly an interesting one… relevant to the readings you’ve been doing, even though you don’t think any author has specifically tackled this question…

“Ah, that’s the more the reaction that I wanted to see,” the professor says, a wizened old smile resting on his face. The guy is just a little barmy. “So, I want some initial reactions from the room. Agree? Disagree? Just a one word answer please. I want to know if everybody’s going to be boring and pick the same answer and **** me to change the prompt. So, Brooke?”

The girl looks up from her sketchbook, where she seems to have captured the facial expressions of the people around the classroom. “Uh… I guess I agree.”

“I agree too,” Lucille says next, followed by an agreement from Annalise.

A couple others answer, all of them agreeing, and a small bit of concern starts to cross the professor’s face. Charmaine frowns as it becomes her turn. She thinks hard about it for a second, and then finally comes with an answer: “I disagree.”

“Finally! Our dissent!” the professor says. There are only two left who have yet to give their answer. “Lisa?”

She looks at you, and then glances away quickly, staring at the books she has stacked up on the table. Like Charmaine, it takes her a moment to come to a decision. “Disagree.”

“Now we’re talking,” the professor says. “And we have our final voice left now. What do you think, Alex?”