(no subject)
Teaching today I had an experience that isn't common here, but happens periodically. It occurred to me it would make an interesting topic to write about, though, since it's fairly outside most people's experiences.
The weather has dropped below freezing, so they've turned the heat on in the building where I teach. Unfortunately, they seem to have turned it on full blast, and the classroom has been boiling the last several days, so we've taken to opening the window to cool it down. Inefficient, but nothing else to do.
Today, mid-way through class, we heard a moderately loud explosion, and then another about 10 seconds later. This is very charactestic of a suicide attack where they send in the first bomber to detonate the gate, and then the second to go farther in and detonate inside. The students all looked up and at the window sharply. We waited another 5-10 seconds to see if there would be any more, and they alternated between looking at the window and looking at me with that "what should we do?" look. (This always seems a bit odd to me. Of all the people in that room, I'm the least experienced person to say what to do if we were actually under attack, although this was clearly a ways away and not an actual threat to us.)
So I shrugged and said, "Yes, that was a bomb, but it's not here on campus, and we have our final exam tomorrow, so we might as well keep studying."
They nodded agreement and went back to going over answers in the books and class proceeded normally.
From the sounds of the explosions, they were probably a couple miles away, and we could only very rarely hear gunfire. And so we went along studying with no overt signs of fear or nervousness.
But it was there, and the way it manifested itself is always interesting to me. Students would mix up where they were in answering questions. For example, I'd call on Jalali to answer question #4 and he would answer #3. I had the same trouble myself. At that particular moment, I was just going down the roll calling names, but I would get lost as to where I was. Of course I worked incredibly hard to act normal and like there was nothing at all to worry about, because teachers set the tone of the class. And I wasn't scared or panicked or anything. (There was no reason to be.) But it did take a bit of concentration to act like everything was normal and not to look out the window whenever I heard a gunshot.
But the reaction that is perhaps the most surprising, although I think it's to be expected if anyone has been in a situation where people are trying to hide fairly raw negative emotions is.... People laughed. A lot. At everything. I don't mean just nervous/awkward laughing. I mean all-out belly laughter of the kind you seldom actually hear.
The student sitting next to the window stood up and closed it, and the class busted out laughing as if this was the funniest thing on earth. Then he had troubles with the handle, and that set off more guffawing. A student commented that the sound from the bomb had broken it (completely absurd given the sound-level) and that was still funnier.
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After about 10 minutes, it became clear that it wasn't actually a bomb, but that it was the military practicing by setting off live explosions. They practice not far from our campus, so this isn't all that unusual. What was different is that it was louder than usual, and we didn't get a text message like we usually do.
So in the end, this was nothing. I have taught through a few attacks that were close enough to be heard (or even felt), however, and the reactions are pretty much always the same. The attack Saturday which you may have seen in the news was also within hearing distance of the university, but it was farther away and so with the windows closed we couldn't really hear it. Everyone knew it was going on, of course, but there's a different reaction to knowing something is happening a couple miles away and actually hearing it.
The weather has dropped below freezing, so they've turned the heat on in the building where I teach. Unfortunately, they seem to have turned it on full blast, and the classroom has been boiling the last several days, so we've taken to opening the window to cool it down. Inefficient, but nothing else to do.
Today, mid-way through class, we heard a moderately loud explosion, and then another about 10 seconds later. This is very charactestic of a suicide attack where they send in the first bomber to detonate the gate, and then the second to go farther in and detonate inside. The students all looked up and at the window sharply. We waited another 5-10 seconds to see if there would be any more, and they alternated between looking at the window and looking at me with that "what should we do?" look. (This always seems a bit odd to me. Of all the people in that room, I'm the least experienced person to say what to do if we were actually under attack, although this was clearly a ways away and not an actual threat to us.)
So I shrugged and said, "Yes, that was a bomb, but it's not here on campus, and we have our final exam tomorrow, so we might as well keep studying."
They nodded agreement and went back to going over answers in the books and class proceeded normally.
From the sounds of the explosions, they were probably a couple miles away, and we could only very rarely hear gunfire. And so we went along studying with no overt signs of fear or nervousness.
But it was there, and the way it manifested itself is always interesting to me. Students would mix up where they were in answering questions. For example, I'd call on Jalali to answer question #4 and he would answer #3. I had the same trouble myself. At that particular moment, I was just going down the roll calling names, but I would get lost as to where I was. Of course I worked incredibly hard to act normal and like there was nothing at all to worry about, because teachers set the tone of the class. And I wasn't scared or panicked or anything. (There was no reason to be.) But it did take a bit of concentration to act like everything was normal and not to look out the window whenever I heard a gunshot.
But the reaction that is perhaps the most surprising, although I think it's to be expected if anyone has been in a situation where people are trying to hide fairly raw negative emotions is.... People laughed. A lot. At everything. I don't mean just nervous/awkward laughing. I mean all-out belly laughter of the kind you seldom actually hear.
The student sitting next to the window stood up and closed it, and the class busted out laughing as if this was the funniest thing on earth. Then he had troubles with the handle, and that set off more guffawing. A student commented that the sound from the bomb had broken it (completely absurd given the sound-level) and that was still funnier.
------
After about 10 minutes, it became clear that it wasn't actually a bomb, but that it was the military practicing by setting off live explosions. They practice not far from our campus, so this isn't all that unusual. What was different is that it was louder than usual, and we didn't get a text message like we usually do.
So in the end, this was nothing. I have taught through a few attacks that were close enough to be heard (or even felt), however, and the reactions are pretty much always the same. The attack Saturday which you may have seen in the news was also within hearing distance of the university, but it was farther away and so with the windows closed we couldn't really hear it. Everyone knew it was going on, of course, but there's a different reaction to knowing something is happening a couple miles away and actually hearing it.