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Hello everyone. Last Tuesday's class was quite exciting and so while I can understand everyone's enthusiasm, I cannot understand the violation of Anne's first day rule: no raising of the hand while another person is talking.

I was happy to hear her views about it. I have encountered the phenomena in a number of my classes and I find it rude. I have seen people raise their hand noticeably, raise their hand and put it down on the desk, or run it through their hair, only to raise it back up again. It's really distracting when my eyes are focused on the speaker and someone's hand shoots up in my peripheral vision and I find myself turning my head. More so, I find that it shows you don't really care what the other person is saying because you're too busy trying to remember the point you were going to make.

I spoke with Anne about it after class and she suggested I post it on the forum. Since I accept that my way is not the only way (keeping our hands down and paying attention until the speaker is through), I wanted to hear what other people's thoughts about this were. Should we abolish the hand raising all together and allow people to speak when they have an opinion? Should we be more mindful of paying attention when others are speaking and then allow a few seconds to go by before we raise our hands? I am pretty open to anything, I just found it a bit disconcerting that we weren't giving our full attention to one another.

Asia G.