The Complete Stranger Rule: Clarifications, Finding Someone, Possible Lessons.

Preamble.
Here's a pattern I am picking up as we move onto the Heavily Edited, It's Also About Me Interview Assignment: A good percentage of y'all want to do The Oral History of Myself Assignment for your last project. Which is fine—I am excited about teaching it, talking about it, as I am for the Extended Q and A Interview Assignment.

Thing is, when you choose that, the thought occurred to me--and this thought doesn't occur completely from the passive-aggressive part of my brain; it comes from my pedagogical planning part, too:

Many of you have gone out an interviewed a complete stranger.
This, to myself and others, is the reason why we go out and interview people: to get to know other people, to hear others' stories.

Pedagogical backgrounds.
So one thing I am thinking about, from a teaching and logistical standpoint, is how do I enforce this complete stranger rule in an effective way, especially if you are planning do to the Oral History of Myself Assignment, especially if you A Had me russle up an interviewee at Equinox B took an assigned person from me for the Haunted Houses interview and C don't want to interview a complete stranger.

Oddly, one way I can "enforce" this Complete Stranger Rule is to assign, you guessed it, a complete stranger.

So perhaps this is all wasted energy. Perhaps you get just as much out of the interviewing process with someone you know or kind of know. Perhaps that part of the class is not important.

As I was clicking away at the past student interviews, many of which appear at Banalbany.com, I looked at each one and thought--oh, this student was a roommate with this person, this student is cousins with this person, etc. It was fine at the time--this was a one-shot assignment among many in a 300-level class.

But this a class dedicated to the interview, and for many of you, this may be your only Q&A-style interview. So I am flipping the script a bit, or I am enforcing some rules.

In the past, my criteria was that the person must live or work within the city limits of Albany. Not someone currently employed at or attending The College of Saint Rose. Then students went and interviewed their cousins, roommates, friends of roommates.

Here was my first rule: The person you interview should be someone you do not know.

This, as you know, led to a series of clarifying questions. We talked about Facebook friends as perhaps one metric of how well you know.

Here's my clarified rules for some you can and cannot interview for your next assignment, now called

The Complete Stranger Rule.

Not someone you went to school with in the past.
Not a classmate.
Not a roommate.
Not a friend of a roommate.
Not a housemate.
Not a friend of a relative.
Not a friend of the family.
Not someone you knew all your life and you're going to interview the person interview anyway, because how could my professor tell I knew this person. I will know. The interview will give it away.
Not a Facebook friend.
Not a relative or friend of relative, blood or by marriage.
Not a friend of a friend.


Here's how you find someone to interview.
You go somewhere you don't usually go.
You go somewhere you usually go.
You look at someone you've always wanted to talk to.
You find someone you never wanted to talk to.
You find someone who frightens you.
You look at a place that always interested you, or frightened you, or confused you,.
You enter that place.
You try to find a person in that place.
The person in that place might be someone you do not know (see above).
You ask around.
Ask people about someone who might be interesting to talk to—by "interesting," let's say compelling, confusing, frightening, funny, eccentric, inspiring.
Someone with whom you could have a 15-30-minute conversation.
Someone you could research and ask questions about.
Find a random person you don't know. Challenge yourself.
Find what you might think to person most unlike you at an event or gathering you attend—a concert, party, shopping mall, church, keg party.
Go in the middle of a park, twirl around three times, and point. Whoever lines up in your finger, that's the person you interview.
Think of songs you love. Think of ones where there is a name mentioned. Google that name along with "Albany, NY." Contact or Facebook-search that person. My favorite karaoke song is Rick Springfield's 1982 hit "Jessie's Girl." I will go and look up a "Jessie." [Leaves, comes back.] I found a Joseph Jessie in Albany, NY on Facebook.


Possible lessons learned from interviewing a random person.
We are all human beings.
We all have stories to tell.
It's fun to talk to people we don't know.
It's fun to talk to people from other walks of life—class, gender, sex, religion, address, age, dress.
You will have to talk to random people all your life, and you might as well start now.
This will increase and complement your already considerable interpersonal skills.
Your brain will hurt at first, then it will loosen and new knowledge will pour in.
Random life-affirming events might happen.


Other ideas about this assignment.
Do we want the interviews to have a common thread?
Example: Should we all just go down to, say, Lark Street, and find people?
Or should we just randomly call/email people?
Should we all ask the same initial questions