School in Session
From 8 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., over 250 students visited the Cube, teaching us how to run a marathon, speak Swiss German, spot a vampire, factor trinomials, navigate Taipei’s public transit system, and score bubblegum off a friend, among other things. They spoke; we furiously scribbled down notes on pre-printed lined paper “lesson sheets.” Some students imparted their lessons and then ran to class; others hung around, drew diagrams, conjugated verbs, and created origami models to illustrate or enhance their lessons. A student a capella singing group even bum-rushed the cube, refusing to leave until they had performed three songs for the gathered crowd.
Contrary to our initial worry of being those uncool weirdos hanging out in the lobby, the cube was almost *too* popular: teachers began to bring entire classes down for period-long visits. One-on-one interaction with the students went by the wayside, and we had to hand out the lesson sheets to be completed by the students. The performative, “teaching” role assumed by the student disappeared, and the “lesson sheet” became just another assignment to complete for a class!
Also gone with this reassertion of the status-quo was the chance to speak candidly with the students about the culture of achievement at the school. In other words, while individual students seemed to “get” the link between what was going on and the broader issue of academic integrity, the nuances may have been lost on these larger groups.
