<p>"I think it’s funny and a little bizarre that you were surprised your students were so quiet when they had dinner at your house. It seems obvious to me that they would be! Normally a teacher is in a position of great authority. We walk in to class, they talk explicitly about the course material, we get up and leave. "</p>
<p>It matters how you were raised. I can remember being invited to a prof’s home with some other students when I was at Harvard. We conversed with him. I remember learning how he told us that he’d learned to cook when he had worked his way through college as a short order cook. It was truly a fun evening. </p>
<p>“But during dinner, while maybe it would have been ok to compliment the sculpture, asking for the personal story behind it would feel way too much like crossing that professor/student line.”</p>
<p>Funny, I also remember when some friends and I were invited over to another H professor’s home, we did ask about one of his sculptures, and got into a rather sprited discussion about it at his house and afterward. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, S, 20, has long been on first name basis with some family friends who are college profs. He also is on first name basis with some profs at his college. From what I’ve seen, at his LAC, students and professors frequently talk informally together. </p>
<p>The school where I taught and where H still teachers is a public university known for its small classes and nurturing teaching. I was used to having a lot of casual conversations with students. While the structure was formal – in that students called instructors “Dr.” or “Professor,” it was normal for students and professors to talk to each other outside of class. A lot of times, I’d have trouble leaving my office because of students who wanted to chat – not necessarily about their coursework, but about things in general. The students even had seen my own kids – who then were elementary and middle school age-- around the college a lot.</p>
<p>That’s a big reason why I was surprised that when students came to our house for Thanksgiving dinner, they basically didn’t speak unless spoken to. They literally didn’t seem to know how to carry on a conversation with adults. They acted like they had been invited so we could test them on their knife and fork skills. This was a miserable experience for me and probably for them, too.</p>
<p>I can remember interviewing high school students for scholarship programs. The students from the suburbs, the majority of whom came from professional families, knew how to converse during an interview. The students from the city – many of whom were going to be first generation college-- spoke only when spoken to, and gave very brief answers. They seemed to have been taught by their parents to be deferential, but not taught how to converse with adults in an assertive way. Unfortunately, being deferential and giving monosyllabic modest answers is not behavior that results in scholarship wins.</p>
<p>Anyway, when it comes to social skills, it’s important for all young people to learn how to handle the give and take of conversing with people who are older than them. There’s a big difference between asking a rude question like, “Why does your nose have hair coming out of it?” and, “How did you decide on your career?” or “What kind of things do you enjoy doing when you’re not at work?”</p>