In my four years at Cornell, one of my most surprising realizations was the culture — or lack thereof — of participation. Coming from a small, all-girls high school where every subject from Ethics to Math was taught through Harkness-style Socratic seminars, I was shocked by the silence in my first-year writing seminar. At first, I attributed it to nerves, assuming my peers would grow more comfortable over time. But in a silent room, no one wants to be the first to speak up. Call it conformity or cowardice, but I wasn’t about to be the lone voice trying to animate a class of students with their heads down and arms crossed. So, I became one of them.
Where does this silence come from? With late-night prelims and early-morning classes, it’s hard to muster enthusiasm when it doesn’t directly affect a grade. But more than enthusiasm is required to speak. Participation requires conviction — not only in the value of one’s thoughts but also in their ability to withstand scrutiny. And beyond the effort, there’s the risk. Somewhere along the way, the classroom started feeling like a place to perform. No one wants to be the one with a shaky answer, an unpolished thought or a statement so obvious it makes them look like they weren’t paying attention. No one wants to be labeled a “try-hard” or “teacher’s pet,” failing to read the room of silent students in an early morning class.
This reluctance isn’t confined to the humanities. I’ve felt it in STEM classes, where answers are either right or wrong. Physics and chemistry discussions go quiet when graduate teaching assistants ask for an approach to solving a problem, even though high prelim averages suggest at least some people know what’s going on. We justify silence by telling ourselves that participation isn’t necessary, that our understanding is proven through our grades.
Adding to the complexity, external incentives for participation often generate inauthentic engagement, motivated by grades rather than genuine curiosity. In my classes that grade based on discussion, most students will speak once or twice per session, receive their credit and check back out. While I’m sure this isn’t the case in upper-level humanities courses where students are more intrinsically motivated, I’ve found that many classes — even those requiring participation — fail to foster a truly collaborative intellectual culture.
Beyond the cultural taboo of speaking up, we all have another great crutch for silence, usually right in front of us. Relaxed technology policies, aimed at providing access to class material or fostering note-taking, allow for easy distraction. I watch as classmates play games, respond to emails or shop, all while absolving themselves of silence. A bright screen hedges against the discomfort of a quiet room, but maybe we should address that discomfort rather than ignore it.
At the same time, we all know that person. The one who hijacks discussions and turns them into their personal podcast — asking an unrelated “question” that’s really just a flex or using a follow-up comment as an excuse for an unsolicited monologue about their childhood trauma. You want to call them a teacher’s pet, but even the TA looks tired of their voice. By allowing them to dominate, we reinforce the notion that classroom discussion exists in a binary: strange self-promotion or painful silence.
But Cornell, we can do better. We are an Ivy League institution, learning from professors who are experts in their fields. And yet, the same intellectual curiosity we all wrote about in our Common App essays seems near-extinct. When I talk to individuals, they’re always up to something cool — a new club or research lab, a unique summer job or thesis. And yet, once we step into a classroom, we homogenize into a wall of silent, disengaged students.
Watching a professor pose a question to a room of intelligent, capable students — only to be met with blank stares — pains me. We owe it to ourselves, to our professors and to those who will never have the same opportunities as us to raise our hands. No one here is too cool to participate or too smart to learn from their peers.
Julia Poggi is a senior in the College of Agriculture & Life Sciences. Her fortnightly column The Outbox is a collection of reflections, advice and notes to self about life at Cornell, with a focus on coursework-life balance. She can be reached at jpoggi@cornellsun.com.
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