Me as the "Other"

In order to get a small taste of what students of different background might feel coming into an new environment, I needed to go somewhere that was foreign to me.  I decided that a good place to start would be going to Tuesday Club Night in the Wilkinson Center.  I’d never been to a club night before.  I'd never even been to a non-language oriented club at all.  I was nervous about what it was like and how I would know what to do or where to go.  I couldn’t even find out online what clubs might be there, so I was walking in blind and clueless.  At the front, I was delighted to find that guys were giving out free BYU brownies!  I shyly took a brownie and asked them how things were run, although they seemed to think that it was self-explanatory and didn’t say much. 

I then saw the map got a good idea of where things were and started walking around to the different places.  The ones that seemed most join-able were the dancing clubs.  I saw people country dancing, but it looked pretty normal and there were lots of people there.  It wasn't something super foreign to me. Then, off to the side, I discovered the Hip Hop club.  I know nothing about hip hop and am very uncoordinated.  I rightly guessed that this would be a good place to be the "other."  I took off my coat and kind of just stood in the crowd with the other people of the room.  I felt suddenly terrified.  I had no idea how this club functioned or what to do.   I was sure that I was going to stand out like a sore thumb and look really stupid.  I was also late and had a lot of questions. Were people supposed to sign up for clubs?  Was I supposed come with someone or come prepared?  Did the other people already know what we were doing?  Did I miss anything?    Then, to my further mortification, the person directing the activity reminded everyone that they were supposed to have a partner.  I panicked and decided I would just dance off to the side and hope no one would notice me.  However, someone did notice me and asked to be my partner.  He was super nice and said he’d never danced like this with two people before.  He also could definitely move his feet though, whereas I could not.  As we started learning the steps, I noticed that most people in the room were in comfortable exercise clothing and light shoes while I was still wearing my polo, jeans, and heavy tennis shoes that I'd worn to school.   It made dancing even harder that it might have been - not only because of restricted movement, but also because I was much more conscious of how I appeared (focusing on that instead of performance some of the time). 

Eventually, I started to get it down, sort of. When the fear faded, I started to get excited about doing something new and learning how to move my body more freely.  I was able to at least fake it pretty well - as long as I could see the lead couple, but when they were out of view I got completely lost.  At these moments, I was no longer scared, but on the boarder of past caring.  By the end I was putting a lot less effort into it, feeling a little hopeless. We never mastered the dance.  I’d gone through stages of fear, excitement at a new opportunity, and a sense of futility as I couldn’t seem to get the steps right no matter what.  I felt a little bad for my partner, but he was so nice about it and we had fun.  He let me get a picture of us at the end of it.

The dance involved a lot of foot-work and fast movement.  I could easily imagine that people near me were judging me when I got to close the their dancing space. I also was always worried when my partner was too far away from me that it was my fault. I was worried he'd be annoyed. Here's a sample of the other dancers doing things with their bodies that I couldn't figure out:

(I took these pictures and the video myself, but more professional ones should be available on the BYU Hip Hop Facebook page soon.)

From this experience, I learned a little bit about what it means to be the "other."  I learned that it can be terrifying.  Students who come to a new school probably anticipate running into a lot of school culture that they know nothing about.  Those first few days are probably terrifying when they don't know what is expected of them. I think teachers can help by explicitly explaining some things to classes.  I think it's also important to a student's success that they have a positive attitude.  The hip hop experience would only have been worse if I hadn't come in actually willing to try something new.   I hope to learn what I can do to help students have good attitudes about new experiences.  I also learned that there really can be something exciting and valuable from being in strange surroundings.  It forces you to reach beyond yourself.  There's a lot both students and teachers can learn from each other and their different backgrounds if they are willing to reach out. The most concerning thing about the experience though, was when I started to grow more apathetic towards my progress when it got to difficult and when I knew I wasn't going to fit in. When students come to school with a different level of social and cultural capital than most students, it can be hard for them to have self efficacy.  A lack of efficacy can cause them to give up easily and not give their best because they lose hope for themselves (as I definitely started to lack self efficacy when the lead couple stopped directing.)  I think teachers can be encouraging and positive around students, as well as to check for understanding and give clear instructions, to help students maintain self-efficacy.  A little help and attention goes along way, just as help or support from my partner was really important while I was learning the dance.