There's nothing more frustrating than class discussions that continuously stray off topic. Now, I love my English narrative class, but I hate it when we go into abstract philosophical issues without any reference to the texts that we are studying. Today, for instance, we started the idea of predestination versus free will in Chaucer's "The Nun's Priest's Tale" from The Canterbury Tales and ended up going through the whole "if God is good, how can he allow evil in the world" argument. It's not that I have anything against religious/moral/philosophical discussions, it's just that when you're in a narrative class studying a particular work of narrative, you'd think it'd be more valuable to discuss the ideas only so far as they relate to the readings.
Sure, abstract "this is what I think" type discussions can be interesting, but in larger classes it can also get downright repetitive and boring. As judgemental and harsh as it sounds, I often wonder if people contribute to discussions just to hear the sound of their own voice. People make points that have already been made as if they're totally different ideas simply because "well, I think" rather than what he or she thinks. Yes, it's nice if you agree with a statement that someone else has already made, but for crying out loud, don't waste the class' time talking about how you're in agreement unless you have something new and insightful to add!
Actually, that particular complaint applies to more than just class discussions, it also applies to meetings. Meetings are often actually worse than class discussions because while class discussions have a time limit, meetings (for extracurricular activities, clubs and what not) often do not. It's pure torture to sit through meetings that simply drag on and on because people don't know, excuse the cliche, when to stop beating a dead horse. Absolutely everyone feels that they must make their feelings known and to make it even "better" everyone also has to add their replies to everyone else's feelings! Then there's that habit of arguing over issues that don't even necessarily require solutions right now. Sure it's good not to put things off to the very last minute, but arguing without all the data needed to make a decision is absolutely pointless, as is repeatedly bringing up contentious issues before they need to be dealt with because the discussion will simply drag on until we're forced to table the discussion anyway.
*phew* Sorry about that. Can you tell this issue holds a lot of pent up frustration for me? I know that I can be longwinded, especially in forums, emails and the like, but at least when I'm physically present and discussing things I try to be brief because I know that people are busy and that unlike things posted online, discussions and conversations can't be skimmed through to save time.
