So, DPT year 2 is off and running - or toddling anyway - and it has been a long, intense few days. Productive, at least in so far as I had a very helpful meeting with my supervisor, setting out an 'agenda' for the year ahead; enjoyable, in that it is good to catch up with people I know whether staff, students or friends from the 'real' world; mildly unsettling because the arrival of a massive first year cohort has radically altered the dynamic.
Arriving at the centre for the first day, we 'year twos' recalled our own uncertainty at the start of the process and were a little thrown when the new 'year ones' emerged from their first session looking way too confident, assured, and very noisy. Huddling together for reassurance we found ourselves unsettled and developing toddler-like behaviours. What had been a 'safe enough space' now felt threatening and we didn't much like it! Well at least that's the impression I got. Certainly we were glad to get our dedicated session today without any of the new students, rearranged the scattered tables so we could all sit together in one huddle and felt happier with life.
I am fascintated by this childish reaction. I had really looked forward to meeting the new students, not in a superior 'I'm a big girl now' kind of a way but because I'd always enjoyed the experiences whilst I was a student, both of engineering and of theology. Why now did I feel threatened by these new people?
As a few of us compared notes, it seemed that the new cohort were far more vocal than we had been, and they were possibly masking their own insecurity with posturing. Their numbers include some who are evidently more dogmatically of given theogolical persuasions and who make bold pronouncements that our little group probably wouldn't - after all we have been critiqued as being very nice to each other to the expense of theological thinking.
Over coffee this morning I managed to chat to a small group of the first year students who looked tired and a tad shell-shocked. Talking to some of us seemed to allow them to ask the questions they were too afraid to ask in the presence of their own, seemingly more confident colleagues. The claim that we 'make it up as we go along' and 'don't know any theology either' seemed to reassure one or two.
None of this much helps me to work out quite why I feel like a two-year old rather than the 'adult' I usually am in such circumstances. I know I wasn't alone in this feeling but it is rather bizarre! I'm sure these new 'babies' our 'parents' have brought into the 'home' are very lovely and that in time we'll look back and laugh at how we felt this weekend, but for now perhaps we have to scream and shout the confusion we cannot yet articulate!
(Picture pinched from www.cartoonebooks.com)