do nothing assignment

The Sociology of Doing Nothing: A Model "Adopt a Stigma in a Public Place" Exercise

• October 2001
• Teaching Sociology 29(4):423

• Pennsylvania State University

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Doing Nothing & Learning Deviance

Want to teach your students about norms, deviance, and the social construction of reality in a way that they’ll never forget? Try Doing Nothing, literally. Have your students silently stand in a public place for 15 minutes with absolutely no expression on their face. If anyone approaches them they are to reply to any and all questions by saying, “I am doing nothing.”

Students laugh when they hear the directions. Anxiety washes over them as they take their places. They struggle to contain nervous laughter and their fight or flight instinct that is screaming RUN in their head. All of a sudden those abstract concepts, deviance, norms, stigma, all become uncomfortably real. Students learn with their own two eyes how people react to non-conformers- to deviants. This is lived sociology.

Doing Nothing is not my own idea. Karen Bettez Halnon (2001) in Teaching Sociology outlined how she had her students individually do nothing in a public place for 30, of what I assume must have been excruciating, minutes. All I’ve done here is tweak her idea and amplify it to an extreme.

I figured if I have a class of 262 students why not put it to use. One person doing nothing is strange, but 262 students doing nothing is a sight to behold. Also, doing the activity as a class allowed me to verify* it was carried out and that students safety** was maintained.

Public Sociology: Despite sociology being inherently social, it is surprising how rarely we use the public in the instruction of sociological concepts. I am most proud of how interactive this learning experience was. Students learned by doing (and at a grand scale).

Now, with our YouTube video, the students and I are trying to teach as many people as possible the sociological lessons we learned yesterday. My hope is that my students will see how their actions started a small social movement and created change and learning in others. I plan on using this as an example of how they can change the world around them. If you teach for social justice, if you hope to inspire your students to do more than just memorize some facts for a test, then we have to find ways to role model, or better yet provide a platform for, creating social change in our communities.

As a final note, it would mean a lot to me if you would take the time to watch the video above and pass it along to someone you think would enjoy it. The more people who watch the clip the more my students will feel capable and empowered to create social change. I have loved giving away as much as I possibly could over the last year and now I am asking for one small favor in return. Five minutes of your life to watch the clip, send it to someone else, Tweet it, post it on Facebook, etc.

Thank you, Nathan

Event Logistics: If you’re going to do anything with 262 people you’re going to need help and a lot of planning ahead. I recruited 11 student volunteers to help me with maintaining safety and crowd control. I created a handout to communicate to the volunteers what their responsibilities were ( download it here ).

I also created a set of concise and explicit lecture slides that visually explained the directions for the activity (see below | Download them here). Note that students were required to participate, but not to be video recorded. Students had the option to do the activity in another location away from cameras, but none of my 262 students chose not to participate (which was a delightful surprise). Students who were going to be recorded had to sign an image release and consent form.

*Break a norm in public. That is arguably the oldest sociology activity in the book. Problem is, most students don’t actually do it; opting instead to write the paper based on what they imagine the experience would be like. When this happens your break-a-norm activity turns into a short fiction assignment. Doing Nothing as an entire class allows you to verify students had the experience.

**As Bettez Halnon mentions in her Teaching Sociology article, students are left vulnerable in a public place if you ask them to do this activity alone. Every time I have done this activity I have found that passersby will try to coax a response out of students by touching them in some way. Typically this is a simple poking on the nose or lifting up an arm and then letting it fall, but I’ve seen students attempt to pull on students coats and backpacks. I absolutely would not do this activity without supervising the event myself. Along these same lines, I also instruct my students that if at any moment they feel unsafe in anyway they are to discontinue the activity and return to the classroom.

RESOURCES : Bettez Halnon, Karen. 2001. “The Sociology of Doing Nothing: A Model “Adopt a Stigma in a Public Place” Exercise.” Teaching Sociology 29(4) Pp:423-38.

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The Do-Nothing Assignment

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The Do-Nothing Assignment*  

  Bernard McGrane suggests that we actually “do” rather than just study sociology.  This assignment is an adaptation of one of his suggestions.  

Step 1: Conducting the Experiment  

This exercise requires that you go to a relatively busy public space (mall, square, plaza, street corner, park, sidewalk, etc.) and literally do nothing for 10 minutes.  That means just stand (stand, not sit) there and be unoccupied.  Don’t be waiting for someone, taking a break, sightseeing, or otherwise engaged in a normal kind of activity.  Also don’t daydream, fantasize, or think about the past or the future; don’t entertain yourself with plans or internal dialogues.  Don’t whistle, hum, fidget, look in your purse, play with your keys, take notes, or anything else that might distract you from just being there and doing nothing.  Do, however, observe the reactions of others to you, and pay attention to your own thoughts and feelings during these 10 minutes.  

Step 2: Thinking and Writing About the Experience  

After conducting the experiment, write a journal entry (casual in tone) describing the experience and its meaning to you.  Describe other people’s reactions and your own thoughts in as much detail as possible.

The purpose of this exercise is to get you to see that changing your perspective (from “doing something” to “doing nothing”) makes everything different.  It helps turn the ordinary world into a strange place.  It makes you more aware of your own sense (or lack) of self and how identity is constructed in society.  You can’t take for granted that you “just know” what other people are doing or thinking or how the meaning of a situation is being defined or interpreted.  Divested of your usual perspective as an everyday actor, you’ll learn how the most mundane activities (like just standing around) can become major objects of critical inquiry.  

Step 3: Write-Up  

After you complete the exercise, write a 750-word essay describing your feelings.  You may want to include snippets of your journal entry to illustrate your points.  Points will be deducted for papers that are sloppily written and for those that are less than the required length.  Make sure to include your word count. 

* As adapted from The Real World , by Derry Ferris and Jill Stein    

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The Disciples’ First Assignment: Do Nothing

More by trevin.

J. D. Greear in  Jesus Continued:

Let’s go back to that moment when Jesus first laid the Great Commission on the disciples. He said: “First assignment, do nothing but wait .” (Luke 24:49, my paraphrase). Think about how hard (and humiliating) that instruction must have been! Every person on earth needed to hear the gospel, and these are the only guys who know anything about it. Some of the disciples had to be type-A. Can’t you just hear them murmuring under their breaths: “Uhh … wait ? But there’s a world of great need out there, getting more lost by the moment! We need to raise money, now ! Matthew, take up an offering! Peter, write some sermons! John, write a book! James, organize a pastors’ conference! Thomas, get to work on an apologetics manual!” Advertise on TGC jQuery(document).ready(function () { var adContainerName = jQuery(".editorial_inline_Container").last().attr("id"); googletag.cmd.push(function() { var section = window.location.pathname.split('/')[1]; var author = window.location.pathname.split('/')[2]; var sidebarAdSizesMobile = googletag.sizeMapping().addSize([768, 0], []).addSize([0, 0], [323,323]).build(); window.SideBarMobileOne = googletag.defineSlot('/22036558786/tgc-article-sidebar-ad', [323, 323],adContainerName) .defineSizeMapping(sidebarAdSizesMobile) .addService(googletag.pubads()) .setTargeting('section', (section ? section : 'home')) .setTargeting('author', (author ? author : 'none')); googletag.pubads().collapseEmptyDivs(); googletag.enableServices(); googletag.display(adContainerName); }); console.log(adContainerName); if($("#" + adContainerName + " iframe").contents().find("body").length Regardless of what they might have thought, however, they did just what Jesus told them to do. They waited. For ten days, they did absolutely nothing about thousands of unreached people groups languishing without the gospel, millions of people in slavery, and thousands of orphans in need of adoption. They waited. For the Holy Spirit. Why did Jesus make them wait for the Holy Spirit—why not give the Spirit immediately and have them get on with it? Probably because he wanted them (and us) to learn that the Great Commission was not something they could accomplish for him . It was something he must do through them . “ I will build my church,” Jesus had said, “and the gates of hell will not prevail against it;” not, “ You will build my church, and the gates of hell will admire it.” He is the architect, we merely the unskilled laborers. We are conduits, not “co-Messiahs.” Ironically, we will do more when we realize that the weight of the matter rests on him, not us. Let this sink in: The weight of responsibility for the mission does not rest on our shoulders, but on Jesus’ shoulders. He leads; we follow. He commands; we obey. He supplies; we steward. He delivers; we worship. At our best, we are only unprofitable servants, costing God the blood of his Son. In other words, our contribution to the kingdom has been net-negative. And for that reason, he gets all the glory.

Trevin Wax is vice president of research and resource development at the North American Mission Board and a visiting professor at Cedarville University. A former missionary to Romania, Trevin is a regular columnist at The Gospel Coalition and has contributed to The Washington Post , Religion News Service , World , and Christianity Today . He has taught courses on mission and ministry at Wheaton College and has lectured on Christianity and culture at Oxford University. He is a founding editor of The Gospel Project, has served as publisher for the Christian Standard Bible, and is currently a fellow for The Keller Center for Cultural Apologetics. He is the author of multiple books, including The Thrill of Orthodoxy , The Multi-Directional Leader , Rethink Your Self , This Is Our Time , and Gospel Centered Teaching . His podcast is Reconstructing Faith . He and his wife, Corina, have three children. You can follow him on Twitter or Facebook , or receive his columns via email .

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Do nothing when "other side" of ternary operator is reached?

Note: I've seen this question asked sometimes before ( a , b , c ), but neither of these was in C#, nor helpful.

Assume I'm using the ? : ternary operator like this (to do nothing when false is the case):

I'm getting an error. Putting something there will obviously solve the problem. How can I still keep the other side empty without making some random empty function?

• syntactic-sugar

• 1 Can you give a non-psuedo code example? –  krillgar Commented Dec 14, 2016 at 15:58
• 7 Possible duplicate of Do nothing keyword in C#? –  mammago Commented Dec 14, 2016 at 15:58
• 2 What is the use of a ternary (conditional) operator when you know that you don't want to do anything for one case? –  Steve Commented Dec 14, 2016 at 16:00
• 2 @krillgar r==5? r=0 : <nothing> ; –  devRicher Commented Dec 14, 2016 at 16:01
• 3 If you really want to use the conditional expression you could use r = (r == 5 ? 0 : r) but you should just use an if statement i.e. if (r == 5) { r = 0; } –  Lee Commented Dec 14, 2016 at 16:06

6 Answers 6

You can't. The whole point of the conditional ?: operator is that it evaluates an expression . You can't even just use:

... because that isn't a statement. You have to do something with the result... just like when you access a property, for example.

If you want to only execute a piece of code when a specific condition is met, the ?: operator isn't what you want - you want an if statement:

It's as simple as that. Don't try to twist the conditional operator into something it's not meant to be.

• 7 It's like saying you either want to call bar(). –  BoltClock Commented Dec 14, 2016 at 16:02
• 1 My example was kinda off, I updated it to what it's supposed to be now. –  devRicher Commented Dec 14, 2016 at 16:04
• 1 @devRicher: The principle remains the same. –  BoltClock Commented Dec 14, 2016 at 16:05
• @devRicher: That's even worse, as your 2nd operand is now a side-effecting one. What are you actually trying to accomplish? It sounds like you want if (r == 5) { r = 0; } . If that's what you want, why not use it? –  Jon Skeet Commented Dec 14, 2016 at 16:06
• 2 @devRicher: You mean you want it to go 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 0, 1, 2, 3, 4 etc? If so, you want: r = (r + 1) % 5; . Again, no need for a conditional operator. –  Jon Skeet Commented Dec 14, 2016 at 16:12

Why would you want to use a ternary when you obviously need two parameters? You can simply use an if statement:

The other answers are correct, but they miss out a key point which I think is the main thing you're having an issue with. The thing to notice is that

apart from assigning r a value, returns the same value too. You can think of it like a function. You can call a function, which maybe does some other stuff apart from returning a value, which you may or may not put into use.

Take for example:

So, now suppose you may have two usage cases:

Note that both statements output 'Calculating...' but the former assigns a value of 2 * 2 or 4 to x .

Even better, let's say we have a function:

Now the function is obviously redundant, but let's suppose we can use it for better understanding. Assume that it is equivalent to the assignment = operator.

That said, we can come back to our scenario. The ternary operator <condition> ? <true expression> : <false expression> takes in two expressions to return on the basis of a specified condition. So, when you write:

it is equivalent to:

both of which are essentially:

That brings back the hard and fast rule that the operands must be expressions as the entire thing must boil down to an expression. So, you can get a kind of 'nothing' equivalent for an expression by using its default value.

Or, as the other answers mention, use an if statement, straight and simple:

Extrapolating from the code you provided, I'd guess you're doing something with the evaluated expression. You can store the value in a separate variable result and do whatever with it:

Now, you can substitute result for your previous expression you wanted, i.e., r == 5 ? r = 0 : <nothing> // Pseudo-code .

Hope it helps :)

You can now achieve this using the Discard operator, if you really want to.

You can now also do

As long as Bar and Baz return the same or convertible type.

I can suggest an extension method like this:

And use it like this:

• 1 Because many are much more proficient at reading logical symbols quickly and accurately than an english statement when looking at an entire monitor of code. Syntax that can be read efficiently is efficient coding. This includes native english speakers. Anything involving many parenthesis, which extend above and below lowercase letters can dramatically increase the visual noise across an entire screen. –  Chris Commented Sep 27, 2018 at 16:37

Just pass undefined to the side you want to do nothing with.

// An array of numbers let test = [12, 929, 11, 3] // Adds 100 to the element in the text array if it is divisible by 3. test.forEach(function (element, index) { element % 3 ? undefined : test[index] += 100; }); // Logs the test array to the screen console.log(test);

Passing "undefined" to the side of the ternary expression you want to disregard does exactly that.

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Do Nothing Assignment

As sat there, I was slowly turning my mind off and trying to not look at anything or anyone. I didn’t want to make it look like I was waiting for someone because I was very curious if this task could be accomplished. It took me probably a good hour to finally get where I needed to be mentally. I was kind of amazed though that when I finally had a clear mind, all feelings of emotions went away; positive and negative. I just tuned out the background music and was in a relaxing state of mind. It took quite a while and tutee a few tries to get this way. Again, this was extremely hard to accomplish.

At first, I kept getting distracted by kids yelling and running around and people talking loudly to each other or on their cell phones. Plus I was a little skeptical about doing nothing in a place full of people because I was afraid of the reaction from them. As I sat there, I was slowly turning my mind off and trying to just not look at anything or anyone. I didn’t want to make it look like I was waiting for someone because I was very curious if this task could be accomplished. It took me probably a good hour to finally get where I needed to be mentally.

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I think this feeling of emptiness was there because there is always something going on in my head and it is very rare that am not actually thinking about something. It also made me feel relaxed and less confused. The mall is so full of busyness with people shopping and hanging it out and not really thinking about anything but getting that perfect gift or getting to that perfect sale. There is so mulch more in the world to think about that us as a society doesn’t really think about the important things in life when we are focused on the small stuff.

As I was sitting there blankly staring into the shopping world around me, noticed that no one really paid attention to me. No one said anything to me and no one really looked at me. It was weird to feel ignored when usually in a social setting like this, I am usually talking to someone. It was almost like I was an invisible lost puppy in a big world of people who could care less about anyone or anything but themselves. On the other hand, it felt kind of relieving to not have to think about stuff going on in my life.

With all of the negative activity going on in this world and everyone being horrible to each other for various reasons, I personally think that everyone should try doing nothing and maybe everyone in our society would start being nicer to each other and caring more about others. I enjoyed the experience and now I know what it feels like to just forget everything and everybody around me and just focus on me and my open mind. This was a very eye opening and positive experience for me and I may have to do it every so often to clear my head and live in more positive light.

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Tim Walz, Who Spent Decades as an Enlisted Soldier, Brings Years of Work on Vets Issues to Dem Ticket

A retired Army National Guard noncommissioned officer who was once the top Democrat on the House Veterans Affairs Committee could become the next vice president.

Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris announced Tuesday that Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz will be her running mate. That puts someone with an enlisted background on both presidential tickets after Republican nominee former President Donald Trump chose Marine veteran Sen. JD Vance of Ohio as his running mate.

Patrick Murphy, an Army veteran who was Walz' roommate when they were both freshmen in Congress, called Walz a "soldier's soldier."

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"The two largest federal agencies are DoD and the VA, so someone who has intimate knowledge of both is incredibly important," Murphy, who served as Army under secretary during the Obama administration, said in a phone interview with Military.com. "He was a field artilleryman who has tinnitus as diagnosed by the VA, so he understands the plight of our brother and sister veterans."

Walz enlisted in the Army National Guard in Nebraska in 1981 and retired honorably in 2005 as the top enlisted soldier for 1st Battalion, 125th Field Artillery Regiment, in the Minnesota National Guard, according to a copy of his records provided by the Minnesota Guard. He reached the rank of command sergeant major and served in that role, but he officially retired as a master sergeant for benefits purposes because he didn't finish a required training course, according to the records and a statement from the Minnesota Guard.

His Guard career included responding to natural disasters in the United States, as well as a deployment to Italy to support U.S. operations in Afghanistan, according to a 2018 article by Minnesota Public Radio . Walz earned several awards, including the Army Commendation Medal and two Army Achievement Medals, according to his military records. Working a civilian job as a high school teacher and football coach, the Nebraska native was also named that state's Citizen Soldier of the Year in 1989, according to official biographies.

During the 2022 Minnesota governor's race, Walz' opponent accused him of leaving the Guard when he did in order to avoid a deployment to Iraq, though Walz maintained he retired in order to focus on running for Congress, according to the Star Tribune newspaper .

Far-right commentators and media resurfaced those allegations and knocked him for never serving in combat -- something he has never claimed to do -- in contrast with Vance's deployment to Iraq as a combat correspondent.

"Looks like it is time to bring back Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. Oof. Walz is a really unforced error. He bailed on the military when they decided to send him to Iraq. JD Vance actually served," conservative talk radio host Erick Erickson posted on social media Tuesday.

Walz was first elected to the House of Representatives in 2006, becoming the highest-ranking retired enlisted soldier to serve in Congress.

His tenure in Congress included sitting on the House Veterans Affairs Committee, rising to be its ranking member in 2017.

"Walz' leadership on behalf of his fellow veterans when he was in the U.S. House of Representatives is notable at a time when our all-volunteer force continues to struggle to recruit," Allison Jaslow, CEO of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, said in a statement praising the choice of a veteran to be vice presidential nominee. "How we care for our veterans is as important to our national security as how we care for our troops, and Walz has a record to prove that he understands that imperative."

As the top Democrat on the committee, Walz was a chief adversary for the Trump administration's Department of Veterans Affairs . He battled with then-acting VA Secretary Peter O'Rourke in 2018 during a standoff over O'Rourke's handling of the inspector general's office, and pushed for an investigation into the influence of a trio of informal VA advisers who were members of Trump's Mar-a-Lago club. An investigation by House Democrats completed after Walz left Congress concluded that the so-called Mar-a-Lago trio "violated the law and sought to exert improper influence over government officials to further their own personal interests."

Walz also opposed the Mission Act, the bill that expanded veterans' access to VA-funded care by non-VA doctors that Trump considers one of his signature achievements. Walz said in statements at the time that, while he agreed the program for veterans to seek outside care needed to be fixed, he believed the Mission Act did not have sustainable funding. VA officials in recent years have said community care costs have ballooned following the Mission Act.

Walz supported another bill that Trump touts as a top achievement, the Department of Veterans Affairs Accountability and Whistleblower Protection Act, which sought to make it easier for the VA to fire employees accused of misconduct or poor performance. But the implementation of that law was later part of Walz' fight with O'Rourke . The law also faced legal challenges that prompted the Biden administration to stop using the expedited firing authorities granted by the bill.

Walz was also an early proponent of doing more for veterans exposed to toxins during their military service, sponsored a major veterans suicide prevention bill and advocated for the expansion of GI Bill benefits. And he repeatedly pushed the VA to study marijuana usage to treat PTSD and chronic pain, something that could come up in a future administration if the Department of Justice finalizes reclassifying marijuana into a category of drugs considered less dangerous.

Walz' time in Congress also included a stint on the House Armed Services Committee, a perch he used to advocate for benefits for members of the National Guard .

Walz consistently voted in support of the annual defense policy bill, as well as advocated for repealing the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy that effectively banned gay and lesbian service members.

"He was my battle buddy in the fight to repeal 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell,' and it wouldn't have happened if we didn't have Command Sgt. Maj. Tim Walz helping lead the fight," Murphy said.

Since becoming governor of Minnesota in 2019, Walz' role as commander in chief of the Minnesota National Guard has come under a spotlight several times. In response to a request from the Minneapolis mayor, he activated the Guard in May 2020 to assist law enforcement when some protests over the Minneapolis police killing of George Floyd turned destructive. At the time, Minneapolis' mayor accused Walz of being too slow to order the deployment, a charge he denied.

"It is time to rebuild. Rebuild the city, rebuild our justice system, and rebuild the relationship between law enforcement and those they're charged to protect," Walz said in a statement when he announced the activation.

He also activated the Guard to protect the Minnesota state Capitol in January 2021 amid fears that Trump supporters could riot at state houses like they did at the U.S. Capitol that month. And he's used the Guard for missions that are more routine for the service, such as to help after heavy flooding earlier this summer .

As news broke Tuesday of Walz' selection, he quickly won praise from other Democratic veterans.

"Having a person who wore the uniform and who deployed around the world adds to the ticket someone who can connect with veterans and military families in a way that no one but a veteran can," Jon Soltz, chairman of liberal political action committee VoteVets, said in a statement.

-- Steve Beynon contributed to this story.

Related: Here's Kamala Harris' Record on Veterans and Military Issues

Rebecca Kheel

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The one student who does nothing for group projects

Hey guys! I have a question that relates to the group projects that in many cases are part of the final grade of a class. What I am wondering is this: can the members of a group claim to the professor that another member of the group did not do his part and should receive a lower grade? Thus basically accusing him in front of the professor of not having studied? I mean, it is always the case that in a group there is the one student who does almost nothing, but can the professor actually value the work of this student on the basis of only the accusations of the others? I would argue that it would be fair to notify the student of these accusations, ideally his group mates should do it but so should also the professor. I believe it would be very unfair to grade a student on the accusations of his or her group mates without giving him/her a chance of explaining his/her side of the story. Does anyone have any experiences in such a situation? Does it depend on the professor what happens? Thank you in advance!

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