“Would you rather have your phone fall out of your pocket at USP during a moment of silence or scream ‘six, seven’ in the Stu during lunch?”
We at The Measure would argue for the latter (public humiliation beats disrespect, after all), but, as many of us learned this Monday morning, most Milton students would rather quietly nod to whatever the first speaker says.
At 9:30 a.m. this past Monday, Upper School students gathered in 59 new “Stables,” twelve or thirteen-student groups with as close as possible to even grade, boarder-day, and gender ratios. Refer to page 15 for SGA Secretary Kaci Maddix ‘26’s introduction to the Stables, which were organized by the Head Monitors and the rest of the SGA Executive Council. News Editor Dilan Payne ‘27 was assigned to the rare Stable where everything came together: after suffering through ten minutes of dry, Google Form-copied announcements, her newly-formed Stable leaned into the absurdity. She, alongside her Stable, played along with corny icebreakers, dissected each would-you-rather, dove into the details of the freshmen’s weekends, and laughed at jokes that barely deserved a smirk. Somehow, by pretending to care about the conversations that would take place, her stable actually began to do so—for half an hour, the micro-community worked.
Unfortunately, such experiences were few and far in between. We firmly believe that an idea like this is exactly what the Milton community needs, but an exciting system can’t work without equally excited participants. After flocking to assigned classrooms across campus, students spent much of the half-hour block (of 21 groups the editorial board surveyed, only eight used the full time) engaged in awkward and perfunctory dialogue. While some embodied the participation Stables asked of them, many were visibly disengaged and even cantankerous.
In recent years, Milton students have lost the ability to have dialogue with those who aren’t close friends. Heated debates often occur among our inner circles, but once put into an unfamiliar environment, we shut down, nodding along to the first person brave enough to speak. The single-leader format of Monday didn’t help; one student took on the responsibility to move along each group’s conversation while others took on a passive role. Feeling forced into these awkward encounters first thing on a Monday, students failed to take the leap to speak up in a group of strangers.
The “bystander effect,” first studied by John M. Barley and Bibb Latané in 1968, states that people in larger groups are more likely to remain bystanders, believing that others will step in. Alone in a room with someone having a fake seizure, 85% of the study’s participants intervened. However, when they were told that there were four others also present, only 31% helped, taking on average three times as long. That’s for something as life-threatening as a seizure; it’s even easier to sink into the shadows when the intervention is lower-stakes and a single student leader is already designated for the job. We can further extend this phenomenon to the trash in the Stu, spilled food in Forbes, and abandoned wrappers on ACC bleachers—when we assume somebody else will handle our mess, we prioritize our five seconds saved from a visit to the trash can over the ten minutes of an underappreciated staff or faculty member picking up trash in the evening. When only one student is the designated leader of Stables, others seem to naturally fall back.
Stale conversations at Stables are only the most recent example of a trend prevalent across campus; from awkward Campus Conversations to sluggish Harkness discussions, students seem to get tongue-tied the moment they sit among strangers, even when given direct prompts to address. Ironically, our closest friends were at one time coincidental interactions, too—why are we so unwilling to start that process anew? One only needs to go to class a few minutes early to see the root of the problem: each student cradling their phones in absolute silence. Yet even at dorm dinners where phones are confiscated, students often opt to gnaw at their meals in silence instead of asking someone how their day was.
The current agenda for Stable meetings features a more serious conversation for the third meeting, but we at The Measure believe that liveliness is the best way to surmount awkwardness. Think physical games or competition—while USM activities such as musical chairs make most students disconnected spectators, the smaller spaces of Stables would allow for full engagement. Furthermore, a change in leadership structure would further distinguish Stable meetings from advisory meetings. Currently, both contain one figure of authority who dominates the space, discouraging more widespread participation. We suggest a dual-leader system, where meetings are led by one upperclassman and one underclassman. An additional underclassman representative would not only diffuse the potential fear and inaccessibility of a sole upperclassman group leader, but would also allow younger students to experience first-hand the challenges and opportunities of leading a space. Once we learn to connect, we can have the sit-down conversations we were meant to have on Monday. No matter how fun the topic, students seem to need to feel more comfortable before they’ll speak up in a group.
Top-down organizational changes can only extend so far. Ultimately, the Stable promotes itself as a student-led space. We need to “Stable”-ize our shared spaces at Milton, and students should work to feel comfortable speaking up in less familiar groups.