A couple of weeks ago I decided that I wanted to try something more extreme…
On this course I’ve met some amazing individuals and observed some of the fantastic concepts they are coming up with for their projects. I’ve also seen a bit of procrastination which was discussed during a couple of lessons with Richard and Sasha. Like me, I’ve seen some of my classmates worry if their project was any good. I do think most of us on the course keep our cards quite close to our chest. We have all felt at times over the past few weeks revealed some securities in volunteering our ideas to a wider group. Some of us have confided in others whilst some have laid bare their infuriating ‘writers block’. We were all seeking some form of perfection. A perfection we were never going to attain.
The intervention with the group.
I decided that I would tell all of the group individually that I was to use their idea but rather than exactly replicate it, I would almost quite arrogantly suggest that my idea would be a better one. I was intrigued to see their reaction. To initialise a creative jealousy and to determine if they felt as passionate about their project as they were at the beginning. In truth I wasn’t exactly sure what I wanted to achieve, but I certainly knew that my own question needed a massive jolt.
It’s difficult to leave the teacher behind while I’ve been on this course. And due to the ideas, I’m having, I felt a natural instinct to try and help motivate individuals around me. I did feel that I may upset someone with this but thought it may be worth the risk for either party. I felt it might be just what we all needed. I wondered what my reaction would be if someone told me that they were in effect doing a very similar project to me.
This has made me more determined to go on with a mentoring theme in some capacity. I really want to make a difference to people that have not encountered normal support networks. There were some positives and negatives to take from the experience. The juxtaposition of mentoring whilst deliberately sabotaging people’s thoughts and process was exhilarating. Overall the experience was positive as the feedback I received from my classmates made me re-evaluate some themes. Firstly, most were all very positive and quite nurturing in their responses. To my surprise very few were uncooperative and in some cases even encouraged me to share their concepts. More importantly I felt I actually learnt more about myself through the experiment. I know that if someone in the group had tried to do this same technique I may have got angry and even dismissive. I learnt that perhaps I shouldn’t be so protective with my thoughts. Sharing is something that I have got a lot better with and is something I will explore further with in another essay.
This wasn’t a task that was weeks in the making. I gave it a couple of days thought and just went for it. In retrospect I could have elaborated and produce more evidence and justification as to why I was plagiarising their ideas but I also just wanted to take us all by surprise.
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