Rebel yell.

Carlos Gonzalez Guitierrez, the consul general of Mexico, spoke at Sacramento State on Monday to share his perspective on the relationship between "Mexico and California: together 200 years" - a topic that any Californian should be interested in.

Before Guitierrez was introduced to the audience, Sheree Meyer, One Book faculty coordinator and English professor, walked up to the podium and made an announcement aimed to all students who were there on "class-obligation." The announcement was this: evidence of your attendance to this lecture can be obtained at the front desk.

Immediately, mumbles and mutters broke out across the University Union Ballroom.

"Oh thank god, I was going to ask about that."

"Ok cool, didn't want to come here for no reason."

 Nothing like a warm welcome for our guest speaker.

Let's be honest, I was there on "class-obligation" as well, but I definitely was not trying to make it so obvious.

"Hey Mr. Guitierrez, I only expect to get class credit out of your insights, okay thanks!"

Talk about disrespectful.

Sure, requiring students to attend a specific event can be useful to many classrooms, but looking at this announcement from the Guitierrez's perspective places it in a whole other category of rude.

When Guitierrez begin to speak, his first words addressed how much he had anticipated speaking at Sac State. He said, throughout the week leading up to the speech, he boasted to his Carmichael neighbors about his publicity he had on Sac State's light-up billboard.

After Meyer's announcement his ego might have dropped a bit, but it is kind of hard to take parts out of a speech when reading them verbatim off of a script.


The problem with requiring students to attend an event, like this lecture, is that most students have an innate need and want to rebel.

Anything assigned is immediately less appealing; for example assigned reading.

If a teacher assigns you a book - you automatically dread reading it. Because reading a book for a class means deadlines and gateway assignments. Even if the content is interesting and insightful you will look past it and "skim-read" just to get the information necessary to pass the class.

If a friend recommended that same book during the summer, things would be much different. You would probably read it in one sitting and then rant and rave about it - maybe even decide to write a book review. Just for fun.

The only difference between these two circumstances is that one was assigned and one was recommended but to the reader the differences are worlds apart. 

Furthermore, there is no way any one teacher can keep his or her eye on all the students spread out across the Union Ballroom - So students were simply getting the information they needed from this speech within the first five minutes and then talking and cracking jokes for the remainder. Inhibiting any audience members who were actually there to hear the speaker's sentiments - which seemed to be next to none.

Admittedly, I am not a saint. I was victim of being a stereotypical student with a need to rebel, at this lecture, but at least I passed notes instead of talking way above a whisper.

The problem for me is that I recognized my indifference to Guitierrez's speech.

I turned to my classmates as I walked away from the ballroom and said, "Well, I wish I wasn't such a brat and actually listened to him speak, because any other day - if it wasn't assigned - I would have probably learned a lot from what he had to say."