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Thu 15 Mar, 2007 01:50 pm
I would like to ask if there is any expert in the field of quality debate or discussions. I brought up some controversial issues at the "teaching" forums and I always end up being labeled disturbed and my ideas disturbing and ppl tell me I should quit my job. NOt that I am a perfect person who has never made a mistake, but the whole quality of my posts and other ppl's replies doesn't seem to be okay. There must be something wrong.
I think it is everyone's perfect right to come with an idea or opinion, like "you should quit your job" but what doesnt' seem alright is that I always tend to end up being hammered by a group of ppl whenever I come up with something that is not clearly understood or not their cup of tea. People always tend to laugh at me when I show some kind of weakness or something. But I would expect educated people at this forum to be more advanced than that.
So I would like to ask someone who is advanced in quality debates and arguments if tjhere are any basic rules or something. For example how do I know someone is trying to manipulate me? Imagine I am really a weak person who lets others manipulate me and I get loads of negative replies to my posts here. Then I may really start feeling something is wrong with me and label myself just based on some virtual ppl's ideas. Imagine we would really let ppl on the internet who merely post something change our lives! That would be a disaster.
I once talked to a group of French people and asked them What do you think of the Italians? I didn't know one of them was actually an Italian, and the Italian person said: What a racist remark!
This is a typical example. They have no clue if I am racist or not and just based on one question they assume I am a racist. Or I onced showed a picture of my girlfriend, who is 25, and perfectly adult, to a bunch of friends and they started to laugh and called me a pervert, just because the picture showed my gf when she was 18 and looked much younger. I get this kind of reactions all the time. People call me stupid, racist, imature, iresponsible, etc, etc . I am afraid the problem is not me, but some kind of argument distortion or something. Here at this forum, at the teaching forum I sincerely tell ppl about some experience flattering students (lets put aside the issue of how wrong or right it is for now) and ppl tell me what I do is disturbing and that I should not teach teenage girls. They have no idea what I really do or dont' do to my students and what benefit my teaching gives to my students, but they come with very extreme conclusions, never even having seen my picture let alone observing my lessons or asking my students what experience they have with me.
I think there is something wrong with the arguments probably both mine and theirs.
And aren' t there some general principles that should be applied before we judge someone?
It is not that I am not willing to be criticized but I am really not sure what use it is to be judged and labeled by people who never met you. If for example my real students who have known me for two years came up to me and said to me: We have suffered under your tyranny and we have had enough, I would probably really consider quiting my job. But it is just strange to keep getting excellent feedback from both colleagues and students and come across a professional teacher at the web who tells me to quit my job. Something really weird about it, I can't help it.
Anyone really not onesided and experienced in these matters of arguments and fair play, please, let me know what you make of it.
Your posts have led you to a lot of good advice.
Now it is up to you to decide whether to take it, take some of it, or discard it altogether.
You have also received some warnings, that had both your own interest and that of teenagers at heart.
Again, it is up to you to decide whether to heed them, or not.
Finally, any online discussion will yield a bunch of irrelevant or unhelpful stuff. It is up to you to filter those out. However, generally the danger is not so much that one takes the actual "noise" posts to heart, but rather that one ends up filtering out actually worthwhile advice as well, just because it wasnt what you were hoping or wanting to find. You've got to be a little hard on yourself.
For sure, people you talk to online will, for lack of information about you, sometimes jump to conclusions.
On the other hand, they are free to speak their mind clearly, whereas people whom you know in real life may check what they say to you because they like you (eg, friends), have to work with you (eg, colleagues), or depend on you (eg, students). So you might get honest feedback of the kind that "real life" people may soft-peddle.
You probably also tell people here online things that you wouldnt quickly tell your boss or colleagues or students. People here may be telling you things that other people might not tell you because they dont know - not in the way you've told it here.
thank you nimh
sometimes it is difficult to see on the internet who just gives you working advice and who is manipulative
and also difficult to find the border between plain intellectual discussion on issues like education or politics and talking morals which is something else
maybe i am reluctant to accept criticism from people who sound extreme to me because i have already heard so many stupid opinions on what is right and what is wrong, tht i am sick of it
you get ppl who claim poor ppl are irresponsible, you get ppl who claim that rich ppl are irresponsible, then you have blacks looking down on whites, women looking down on men and vice versa, Catholics criticizing atheists and vice versa, promiscous ppl looking down on puritans and vice versa, i mean who is right and who is wrong? doesnt it make sense that we shoul d rather try to help one another to live a better life in general, no matter if we are right or left, men or women, educated or simple?
what do i make of a person who labels me and walks away? how can i take such a persons view seriously?
thats why i really appreciated all kinds of specific advise but why do these same intelligent ppl end up judging me?
i have a friend who believes it is irresponsible to be poor because you cannot pay quality schools for your kids, so he works hard for a company, then i spoke to another guy who has his own company and wants to be a zillionaire and thinks the first person is afraid to take responsiblity and start his own company - ppl looking down on others and judging although they do silly things themselves
i cant even invite my friends to one place because they all cannot get along, one is a femminist, one is antifemminist, one is a racist, one is Catholic, one is promiscuous etc. I all like them for different reasons and dont judge them but they would never make friends
another bad experience from judging is that i used to have a friend who would label me awful things although he himself led a crazy life - so we aren t friends anymore , i think some mutual respect is necessary for any kind of working debate or discussion, but that is just my dream
i also noticed this kind of argument pattern in my threads
somebody says he owns a ferrari
then he says he likes the sound of its engine
okay with others
then he says the car can reach 250 mph
some ppl start raising eyebrows
then he says he actually once broke the speed limit and drove 100 mph on the motorway
then some people reply that it is disturbing
then he says he normally doesnt break the speed limit
then he says he is happy that the car can reach 250 mph although he decided to never drive that fast
some people become really concerned
then he asks what they would recommend as for speeding or not speeding
some people say he should never get a drivers licence because he might really kill somebody someday
he says that he likes to drive fast but he hopes he can feel what is safe and what is not safe but will appreciate other pps experience sharing
and some people say he always comes with an excuse when others show they are troubled because of his attitudes
I think the above example shows the same moral/argument problem that was displayed in my posts. In both cases, some people are in danger. At school, it is some emotional harm that the teacher can cause, or the teacher could bother a student with his behavior or some other problems. THe driver could really possibly kill somebody or oneself. So in both cases it is easy to start judging the person's morals. But it seems to me that judging the person's morals is off the mark. Because no one in the world has the authority to decide whether driving at 100 mphs is immoral or not.
And nobody in the world has the authority to decide whether flattering a student is immoral or not. Quite impossible to decide.
So the driver doesn't post his ideas to be judged but to discuss possible problems connected with speeding. He expects to get some kind of experience sharing, what may happen but is not interested in the ethical aspect because he thinks it is too complex to decide what is ethical and what is not in this case. So I think adequate response to his ideas would be sharing experience, telling him about car accidents and what usually causes them and suggest something practical. Something useful and not extreme.
The problem is that this hypothetical driver is saying something closer to,
"I have this problem. When I drive really fast I have been getting tickets, and have occasionally come really close to crashing. What should I do?"
Remember, by your own account you have already had problems due to your teaching style and interaction with your students. You came here asking for advice about those problems. Advice was given.
We judge because we're scared.
Fear not stach, your dream can become a reality, certainly the dream is worth striving for, if only for the striving. You don't beat hate with love, you don't "beat" hate at all, you embrace it. In the same way, you don't promote open minded and label-less discussions via judgement, you don't judge the judgers. Instead, you loosen your grip on who you are, just a little and you loosen your grip on your possessions (your beliefs & opinions). This way, you are more embracing of opinions and when it seems an idea you saw validity in does not bear fruit, little to nothing has been lost. You move on and explore some more.
Of course, I haven't read any of your other topics. :wink:
Ashers wrote:We judge because we're scared.
Fear not stach, your dream can become a reality, certainly the dream is worth striving for, if only for the striving. You don't beat hate with love, you don't "beat" hate at all, you embrace it. In the same way, you don't promote open minded and label-less discussions via judgement, you don't judge the judgers. Instead, you loosen your grip on who you are, just a little and you loosen your grip on your possessions (your beliefs & opinions). This way, you are more embracing of opinions and when it seems an idea you saw validity in does not bear fruit, little to nothing has been lost. You move on and explore some more.
Of course, I haven't read any of your other topics. :wink:
i agree, i think what you say is wise, i was just wondering why i so often become a plaything of ppl deciding who is right and who is wrong, i thought there was something wrong with the way i write things
sozobe wrote:The problem is that this hypothetical driver is saying something closer to,
"I have this problem. When I drive really fast I have been getting tickets, and have occasionally come really close to crashing. What should I do?"
Remember, by your own account you have already had problems due to your teaching style and interaction with your students. You came here asking for advice about those problems. Advice was given.
Advice was given. But some advice sounded crazy to me. WHat you adviced was mostly very practical, other than I should avoid trying to influence my students character, because you really dont have enough info about my character to decide whether I can inspire children positively or not. IT is my duty to do so anyway. If I neglect that I will have similar problems that I had with the drama queens.
I remember I talked and argued with a teacher about some discipline problems in her class and she also started to worry about me and my ability to teach and educate children. So I suggested that she come to observe my class to see what is REALLY going on. After the class she told me that the lesson was almost perfect (she really didn't expect that from me based on the blah blah weak arguments I always give ppl like here at this place ) and that she sees no discipline problems. She even told me that maybe I expect too much from the kids when it comes to discipline. SO here is an example of speculation and judging before seeing reality and reality itself, that can be much worse or much better or about the same. THat's why I am afraid some people lose touch with reality deciding what kind of teacher I am and am not without actually seeing my lessons.
Anyway I had a psychiatry teacher at university who claimed that anyone drinking a glass of wine a day is an alcoholic. And he was an expert, someone who teaches at university, so even experts can have crazy ideas.
So I was puzzled why experienced teachers tell me I should not teach teenage girls just because I said I considered them attractive. I was being really stupid because I believed whoever shows up at this forum would
be a sensible teacher expert not giving me any crazy ideas. But the fact is that everyone sometimes has crazy ideas, be it experts or people without education.
Plus I have to take advice of others into account but only I and nobody else can decide what I will do. Then I count on the consequences.
It is the same with the driver. He has to decide what is moral and what is not. Nobody else can decide that for him. Laws and rules are only guidelines, they don't represent what is ethical. They only suggest what should be ethical. They roughly suggest what should work well for most people.
I wish I had seen this topic before I wasted my 2 cents on stach.
stach, almost everyone who replied to your topics found your way of teaching/thinking disturbing. To actually believe that everyone is wrong
and you're right is even more troublesome since you are a teacher and
you are influencing young female adolescents.
if your posts can't even quite make it to nowhere maybe you need to change your approach...I mean.....MAN....
CalamityJane wrote:I wish I had seen this topic before I wasted my 2 cents on stach.
stach, almost everyone who replied to your topics found your way of teaching/thinking disturbing. To actually believe that everyone is wrong
and you're right is even more troublesome since you are a teacher and
you are influencing young female adolescents.
gee would you stop talking about my "teaching" you have never seen? everyone here says i am a bad teacher and almost everyone where i actually teach says i am a good teacher so i guess i will believe the people who dont know me
thank you for your two cents and i think enough is enough
stach wrote:almost everyone where i actually teach says i am a good teacher so i guess i will believe the people who dont know me
["..who know me", is I guess what that was supposed to say - nimh]
Thing is, Stach - "everyone where you actually teach" - do they
know the things you've been telling us?
Because the warnings you've received here specifically go to what you've told A2K about your thoughts and ideas regarding what is, or is not, a teacher's responsibility in relation to the teenage girls he teaches.
I am guessing - not sure, just guessing - that you havent been telling your boss or colleagues all the ideas you've mentioned here. So of course they dont criticize you about them either.
Here, though, you've spoken honestly about your ideas. And people have said that they are very risky, even dangerous, to both yourself and the kids. And there's been pretty much a consensus about that.
So is everyone here wrong? You want to discount their opinions because the people you know in real life dont give you the same warnings. But do those real life colleagues etc
know about what you've been telling here in the first place?
Stach--
Since you find the A2K posters hostile and our advice invalid (as opposed to unpalatable) why do you keep posting questions?
stach wrote:and also difficult to find the border between plain intellectual discussion on issues like education or politics and talking morals which is something else
I haven't read any of your other posts stach, but I just read through this thread and this particular statement struck me as... well, just as odd I suppose.
How is "talking morals" something else? Do you honestly think that people can fully seperate their moral holdings from every dicussion they have?
Most of this sort of thing is in how questions are asked or information is provided by the source.
If I ask for the mathmatical formula for calculating the radius of a circle people can answer simply and there isn't much discussion or morality involved.
But if I present a scenario and ask "What do you think about that?" or say "Please discuss" then I have invited not only the intellectual side of the question but the moral questions too. What I, or anyone else, "thinks" is a sum total of our knowledge filtered by our morals (and vice-versa).
If you don't want people to bring in morality then don't ask questions that invite them to do so. *shrugs*
i don't know, i am just never good at discussions, that's why i always try to stick to the practical side of things
unless i want to discuss morals
but here i didn't come to ask ppl about their opinions on morality and what is moral to do and what is not, what is right and what is wrong
it is like asking a car mechanic to make your car faster by installing a tuning chip - then you dont' expect his opinion on how bad or good it is to drive fast
and some ppl adviced me to filter out this and that - yes, but i am only human, i love my job and am very sensitive about reactions to my work, from colleagues, students and even, stupid me, from ppl on the web who don't know anything about the quality of my work
so i guess it is quite natural that i have a hard time listening to ideas like you should quit your job cause you are harming those innocent children, then i feel like i am dreaming or hallucinating
if there is too much negative and denouncing reactions to my posts here, i guess it is better to get out of here - not because i think everyone is wrong but because there is more harm than benefit to me and the ppl i work with and live with - the negative emotions involved both mine and yours are too much
maybe the point is that before someone gives me any extreme and definite conclusions, they should think twice - i guess there is something unprofessional about making academic conclusions based on someone's posts
so seriously, if somebody really wanted to know if i do any harm to any students, they should really visit the school where i teach and question all students, have some indepth psychological analysis of the effects of my behavior on their mental health, then question me, psychoanalyse me through a lot of different cutting edge tests carried out by experienced psychologists and psychiatrists, and only then there would be any serious conclusions about what kind of psychopatic or more or less mentally normal guy i am
i was here seriously accused of harming children mentally based on some posts i wrote about me liking them and telling them things that flatter them
what actually happened even i don't know exactly so less anyone who has only read my vague and incomplete info based on my vague and incomplete memory of those things
even if a teacher no matter how old, dated a 17 year old student , none of us knows for sure, if that would harm the girl or not - it is extremely difficult to come to such a conclusion, even if the girl was analysed and observed for years - we only know that the society as a whole doesn't accept such a situation, so we should respect that and that is all, but who is the authority who can decide about the moral side of this issue? God, maybe
another matter is what is legal and what is illegal, but of course, i don't come here to ask for legal advise
but i was asking for it, whenever you show up with something a little bit controversial, someone will always come with extreme reactions
i guess the learning is that next time i ask about something, i will keep it in general area, not personal, and will leave personal area to real friends i can trust
so luckily i can discuss these sensitive issues with friends who teach at the same school and know me as a complex person, not just the guy who wrote that..... so he should not be a teacher
nimh wrote:stach wrote:almost everyone where i actually teach says i am a good teacher so i guess i will believe the people who dont know me
["..who know me", is I guess what that was supposed to say - nimh]
Thing is, Stach - "everyone where you actually teach" - do they
know the things you've been telling us?
Because the warnings you've received here specifically go to what you've told A2K about your thoughts and ideas regarding what is, or is not, a teacher's responsibility in relation to the teenage girls he teaches.
I am guessing - not sure, just guessing - that you havent been telling your boss or colleagues all the ideas you've mentioned here. So of course they dont criticize you about them either.
Here, though, you've spoken honestly about your ideas. And people have said that they are very risky, even dangerous, to both yourself and the kids. And there's been pretty much a consensus about that.
So is everyone here wrong? You want to discount their opinions because the people you know in real life dont give you the same warnings. But do those real life colleagues etc
know about what you've been telling here in the first place?
the real life colleages know quite a lot
one teacher heard a student complain about me writing a "love" note which was gossip, and reacted immediately saying to her: THat is none of your business. This teacher has a very good reputation as being extremely careful and thoughtful and she didn't even ask me if that was true abou the love note. ANother colleague of mine who is my real friend and knows basically everything about me and my life and has always supported me and encouraged me and heard very positive feedback from students about me not only as a teacher but as a person in general, helped me understand the whole situation based on her vast experience, catholic background, knowing the attitudes of the bosses of the school and knowing much more about the psychology of those girls involved as she has taught them much longer than I have and discussed the whole thing with me in a positive way, telling me what kind of communication could complicate my work and my relationship with my students and colleagues etc. so that was really practical, nothing denouncing about it - so there is nothing i have hidden from her
you would also have to tell me what is that critical or key word or sentence that is so alarming to some ppl here
Stach
Stach, have you considered starting over with the some light humorous posts until you and A2Kers get to know each other instead of posting heavy duty serious topics? Jump into other person's threads in a brief friendly way until you become familiar with their interests.
BBB
Read his previous posts, BBB, and you'll understand.
Are you kidding Cal?
At this time of night and after what I've been through today.
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