Over 100 students, professors and staff gathered in front of the LRC at Mesa on Wednesday Nov. 30 to attend the Teach In event which started at 12:30 pm but lasted well after the scheduled ending time of 2:30. People stayed after the audio equipment ran out of battery to continue the discussion with each other. The Teach In was created to provide a forum for faculty and staff to share perspectives on what this election means to them specific to their field of study but not limited to that.

This event, held in front of the LRC with construction noise in the background that brought the intensity to an appropriate level for these kinds of discussions, brought out the deep questions and discussions that needed to be had after this election. In the speeches given by the professors, they discussed issues that are relevant to those fields of study, for example the psychology professor discussed how people interpret the events which happened after the election, including the incitements of violence, which is extremely important in fields like psychology. The way people are feeling about the results of this election and how anxiety is pervasive throughout the population is something that affects the mental health of many people and this can often be misunderstood or written off as something that is not real, so it is extremely important to create a platform for a professional in the field of psychology to talk to people from the whole school population. That way it can be seen that other people may not be aware that these issues actually exist, which may be easy to forget by watching the mainstream television media.

This kind of forum is what should exist in place of television media, because it is obvious that tv media cannot do its job to educate the population on the wide spectrum of issues that need to be given appropriate time to allow everyone to understand them. This event is the basic idea of the news media, but done in the right way.

Giving professors, who know about their field of study, a platform to discuss and share information with an audience of students as diverse as Mesa’s, and then allowing for discussion on these ideas between the students and the professors. This way of sharing information and issues that affect the country is extremely better than the echo chambers which many people are familiar with, or rather exist inside of, on sites like facebook. In fact humans are good at being comfortable with only sharing information and discussion with others who are like them. But this Teach In allowed for some uncomfortable sharing of objective ideas and facts, and breaking subjective walls down in people’s minds.