During our decision making “activity” I noticed that the process of attaining unanimous agreement among the class went through several “stages” of development. From the beginning there were disagreements among classmates, some disagreements were over minor details of what to propose to the professor and some were fundamentally different in every major aspect. Each different stage of the activity brought with it a different complexion; a different climate of negotiation. Through the entire activity I was primarily interested in coming to an agreement that would mitigate—or erase—the harmful effects that the outcome of the first midterm would have on my overall grade. During each stage, my approach to handling the conflict changed in accordance with the negotiating climate of the class as a whole.
Initially, when I heard ideas that came into conflict with my own, I sought to persuade others to see things my way. This approach—“compete to win”-- met with failed results (as I had suspected, but I figured I would try) so I soon abandoned this method. As time kept passing I noticed that the class as a whole was actually getting FARTHER away from unanimous agreement. For this reason I thought it would be best to try to do whatever I could to integrate peoples’ ideas and bring them together towards some sort of agreement; chances were that agreement on something would probably help us more than agreement on nothing.
As time kept passing and a group-- which appeared to be composed of representatives from each “district” of the class—formed into a cluster in the middle of the class and began to deliberate over what would be best, I thought to myself: “they think they are getting somewhere by holding a private conference but in doing so they are isolating those who are not involved.” For this reason I went to the marker board because I knew that the entire class had to be involved AT THE SAME TIME. If the entire class could see what was up for consideration, then the entire class could at least be on the same page--a good starting point. This was the “collaborative” approach. This idea was working well for the first five minutes, however, people then began to crowd around the marker board and it was again sending the message that only a few people were in charge of making the decision. Then, once someone grabbed the marker out of my hand, I concluded that it was hopeless; how would the group get anywhere if everyone was trying to take control and be heard without some sort of relative order?
Because of this, my approach—again—shifted to a more indifferent nature. This “withdrawal” , or avoidance method, was the result of feeling powerless to make a difference. As people continued to have private conversations--even when we actually managed to have one speaker stating the proposals--while we were taking votes on proposals, I just couldn't see how we would achieve unanimous agreement. As a result, I remained withdrawn for the rest of the time.
With the presidential election just over 1 week away, I figured I would ask the class: has anyone ever fallen into “withdrawal” mode regarding our nation’s politics? Do you avoid participation in our political process (a right which is ours only due to those who died fighting for that right, and those who struggled for women’s suffrage, and those who fought through the civil rights movement) because you feel you can’t make a difference?
