The Gunner

"A gunner, especially in medical schools and law schools, is a person who is competitive, overly-ambitious and substantially exceeds minimum requirements. A gunner will compromise his or her peer relationships in order to obtain recognition and praise from his or her instuctors and superiors. " (Quoted from Wikipedia.com).

The gunner is the guy who always has his hand raised, regardless of whether he has something intelligent to say about the subject. In the gunner's mind, the fact that his hand is up is evidence that his comment is valid. Most of the time his comments are off base, watered down, or just plain pointless. The gunner believes that quantity is more important than quality. He believes (incorrectly) that his endless comments will be rewarded with a grade bump and the admiration of his professors.

In most classes there is one or two gunners. However, my Employment Law class has created a whole class full of gunners. 1/3 of our grade is based on class participation and we are required to participate every class. Participation can either be orally in class, or we can post a 50+ word comment on the course web board. Because it is much easier to get the participation points by participating in class, at any given time about half of the class of 120 students has their hand up. Because we are only graded on participation and not the quality of our participation, most of the comments in class and on the web board are off base, watered down, or just plain pointless. Yes, I swore I would never be a gunner, but today my hand was ready to shoot up like I was a gunslinger in the wild west. I saw an opening when the topic shifted and my arm shot up. I heard my name called and I gave my obligatory 1 sentence answer: "the employee's purpose must have been for collective bargaining or other mutual aid." Pretty insightful stuff. At that point my turn was over, my points were recorded by the professor, and my temporary transformation as a gunner was thankfully finished -- until Thursday's class anyway.