Last week, a group of students banded together in a show of group problem-solving. As their professor struggled to make a video show in the class, the entire student body leapt up to provide suggestions on how to fix it.
One of the students spoke up about his experience. “We were all really excited to watch a video instead of writing, so when the DVD player broke I was like ‘oh no, now what?’ but then everyone started saying stuff like, ‘turn it off and back on’, ‘no, we should go into settings and check if it’s hooked up’ and ‘those are both terrible ideas, we should take it apart and check all the parts. Trust me, my uncle taught me how to fix basically everything and so I’m way more experienced. Shut up, Trent, you’re not even an engineering student.’ It was really inspiring.”
The professor said she was “overwhelmed” by all of the student’s wonderful suggestions. After trying out everything the students were clamoring to suggest, the professor wound up just taking the DVD and playing it through her computer.
Most students were happy with this, but one went out of his way to make a comment. “Look,” he said “I know how to handle DVD players, just because Trent said we should put the DVD in the professor’s computer doesn’t mean that my suggestions were wrong. I know what I’m talking about.” What a reminder that there’s more than one way to break an egg.
