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NutAgain!
Trad climber
South Pasadena, CA
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Topic Author's Original Post - Sep 17, 2018 - 04:56pm PT
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https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2018/09/teens-think-they-shouldnt-have-to-speak-in-front-of-the-class/570061/
I'm biased because I did well in these and even won local speech competitions and earned scholarships in part from speaking skills. So I acknowledge a bit of a blind spot in terms of my empathy.
But really? Does it serve our nation to continue watering down standards, to continue removing stresses from kids? There already seems to be a trend where young people raised on smartphones are uncomfortable looking people in the eye when they talk. Should we add grease to the slippery slope of physical disconnection, because kids don't feel comfortable doing it? Is it a parental failure to let kids grow up with this disability, or is it a logical and unavoidable consequence of a smartphone-immersed culture?
Seems to me that the more adults cave in to children's wants (without recognizing the healthy discomfort that leads to children increasing their capacity to handle different situations), the battle lines keep getting redrawn to more and more ridiculous positions. On the other hand, with more and more people buying into this "avoid children discomfort" mindset, those who try to instill reasonable values in their kids start to look like monsters, and it alters the perceptions and receptivity of the kids to positive instruction.
Discuss amongst yourselves...
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EdBannister
Mountain climber
13,000 feet
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Sep 17, 2018 - 04:59pm PT
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Comfortizing,
Doninni's term applies here equally...
does nanny state come to mind??
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jogill
climber
Colorado
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Sep 17, 2018 - 05:03pm PT
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"“Nobody should be forced to do something that makes them uncomfortable,” says Ula, a 14-year-old in eighth grade, . . ."
Next phase: No more tests. No more grades.
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Toker Villain
Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
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Sep 17, 2018 - 05:37pm PT
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I'm pretty disappointed with our young people; poorly educated, they hasten the decline of our mess of a country.
Public speaking is a skill everyone should have (along with the ability to cook an omelette, dress a wound, write a sonnet, unload a weapon, sharpen a knife, give orders, take orders, write a balance sheet, belay yourself, ride a horse, track at night, fight a fire, do trig in your head, maintain a compass course, etc. etc. etc.)
"Specialization is for insects" Lazarus Long
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Sep 17, 2018 - 05:45pm PT
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I second Toker. ‘Education’ now seems all about not making anybody feel bad. And this feeds right into ‘comfortizing’ routes!
HARDEN THE PHUK UP YOU LITTLE LOOZERS! LIFE AIN’T A GIMME!
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Jan
Mountain climber
Colorado & Nepal
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Sep 17, 2018 - 05:47pm PT
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Don't forget knowing how to swim. That's an important survival skill.
As for being unable to deal with problems, these snowflakes are primarily from the white middle class as far as I can see. Motivated kids from the lower classes and enterprising immigrants are doing fine. Of course that's what the white middle and lower classes are afraid of. They don't want to compete and soon they won't be able to. Having lived in East Asia, I can assure they have no idea what they're up against.
On the bright side, we still have a huge country with many resources and can live better than most even if we do sink somewhat.
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Chaz
Trad climber
greater Boss Angeles area
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Sep 17, 2018 - 05:53pm PT
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Just too traumatic to do their thing in front of class, but at the same time they're begging for subs on their YouTube channel.
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bobinc
Trad climber
Portland, Or
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Sep 17, 2018 - 06:03pm PT
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I attended an oddball college where the only required classes were english comp and public speaking.
These were the two most rewarding classes I had.. I only wish I would have worked (been worked) harder on the first one. There is nothing more challenging and exhilarating than speaking in front of your peers.
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thebravecowboy
climber
The Good Places
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Sep 17, 2018 - 08:29pm PT
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would somebody please think to blame the children?
it's certainly not possible that adults are to blame for any or all of this eh?
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ontheedgeandscaredtodeath
Social climber
Wilds of New Mexico
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Sep 17, 2018 - 09:47pm PT
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Looks to me like a couple of folks here should get off the snowflake bandwagon and focus on their own critical thinking skills. The article cites some teenage tweets and an education professional that says maybe an alternative should be provided in cases where the student has a diagnosed disorder.
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NutAgain!
Trad climber
South Pasadena, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 17, 2018 - 11:44pm PT
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I wonder if inability to overcome adversity is itself a disorder, or just a type of conditioning that requires practice and some kids are raised in a way where they don’t get enough practice. And so when they face some personal challenge that requires the ability to overcome adversity, instead of rising up, our current society gives a new label to diagnose their excuse for not overcoming adversity.
I think the main reason is our society is converging on a shared idea that the goal of life is to be happy. And many people, instead of digging deep to understand what are the real and sustainable things that lead to this state in an individual and a society, they look for short-cuts and immediate results and superficial measures to imitate happiness. It is fundamentally the lack of trust to subordinate short-term feelings or impulses to a longer objective with a better overall outcome. The cost-benefit doesn’t seem worth it if your past experience shows you can’t trust receiving a future payoff.
The marshmallow experiment. What an awesome (in the literal rather than slang sense) responsibility that parents are charged with, to be reliable and consistent, to build trust in kids so that they can trust a future outcome, that it is worth investing in that better outcome rather than taking the cheap and easy quick fix. It is easy to see it as kids being lazy, but it is less comfortable to acknowledge how perfectly logical is the response, given the set of life experiences with which they have been programmed.
Schools can’t consistently fix this- it is fundamental programming that is hard-coded at a deeper level than memorizing multiplication tables. It takes a mind-blowing amount of work to change deeply ingrained patterns... almost as much as say raising a child in a healthy way.
I wonder what the current state-of-the-art parenting books say on the topic.
G’night all.
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Degaine
climber
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Sep 18, 2018 - 02:22am PT
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An article like that seems to be written about every 5-10 or so years. Take out the references to social media references, and I would have felt like I was reading an article that was published in 1989, or 1995, or 2001, etc.
It seemed almost as cliché as this statement:
Toker Villain wrote:
I'm pretty disappointed with our young people; poorly educated, they hasten the decline of our mess of a country.
Yeah, dude, what generation of adults isn't disappointed with "our young people." How did you react when your parents Ward and June said the exact same thing?
That written, if you push the fluff in the article aside, there are a few good points about applying a teaching style that works best with the student you have in front of you. Not an easy task at hand, but if the goal is for all students to learn a given subject/technique, then changing styles for those at either end of the bell curve seems appropriate.
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Degaine
climber
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Sep 18, 2018 - 02:35am PT
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jogill wrote:
Next phase: No more tests. No more grades.
When learning something, evaluation is a good thing, but I'm not for or against grades per se.
I remember reading / listening to something Malcolm Gladwell wrote (or maybe it was a This American Life podcast) regarding the negative effect of making grades the end game or telling kids how smart they are (if they are smart), and that teachers and parents would be better off teaching kids how to work hard and solve problems than focusing on a given grade on a given test for a given class.
Cheating, in my opinion, is a result of focusing too much on grades, where we should focus on mastery of a subject (or at least the fundamentals: reading, writing, and math) before sending a student on to the next level.
While there is certainly a correlation between good grades in high school+college and job success, there is not necessarily a causation. I know plenty of people who were middle of the road in high school and who are now considered the top experts in their field. Smart people for whom grades and end did not interest them, but once on the job, a passion the chemistry (mining, construction, toxic waste remediation) grew.
Anyway.
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fear
Ice climber
hartford, ct
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Sep 18, 2018 - 05:12am PT
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As long as the speaker's podium isn't bolted I'm good with it.
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Charlie D.
Trad climber
Western Slope, Tahoe Sierra
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Sep 18, 2018 - 06:54am PT
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How can they accept the trophy they didn't earn?
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Flip Flop
climber
Earth Planet, Universe
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Sep 18, 2018 - 07:02am PT
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"You! Yes, you! Stand still laddy
When we grew up and went to school
There were certain teachers who would
Hurt the children any way they could
By pouring their derision
Upon anything we did
Exposing every weakness
However carefully hidden by the kids
But in the town it was well known
When they got home at night, their fat and
Psychopathic wives would thrash them
Within inches of their lives"
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Trump
climber
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Sep 18, 2018 - 07:18am PT
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I’m pretty disappointed with other people. Most of the sh#t they do is ridiculous!. Why can’t they be reasonable, like me?
Repeat and rinse. Eventually we’ll die and reality will continue along its ridiculous unreasonable path, with others taking up our “other people are disappointing ridiculous and unreasonable” thought processes, just in a slightly different environment.
In my kids elementary school, they give them options, including videotaping it, or just presenting to the teacher. Elementary school.
Kids these days are too soft. Nothing like the remembered threat of being enslaved to set our priorities straight, if that’s something we tough guys can remember. Heck, I went to an Ivy League school, I don’t see why everyone else can’t do that.
What’s the matter with kids these days? Why can’t they just take opioids, like everyone else is doing? Stress?! Pffft!
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Gnome Ofthe Diabase
climber
Out Of Bed
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Sep 18, 2018 - 07:22am PT
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WWife tells me that Texas is dropping the inspirational teaching that is the story of perseverance to overcome great odds, Hellen Kellar, is being dropped from the elementary schools.
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dirtbag
climber
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Sep 18, 2018 - 07:24am PT
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Next phase: No more tests. No more grades.
No more life, actually. When is life ever completely comfortable?
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okay, whatever
climber
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Sep 18, 2018 - 07:55am PT
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I was talked into taking debate class (and hence being on the interscholastic debate team) by my high school counselor way back when in 1970, and while I was reluctant, I did it. It turned out to be one of the BEST experiences of my high school education. Obviously, formal debating requires one to have done research, organized that research, and then be capable of presenting it coherently. My debate partner and I took third in the Kansas state 5A (big high school, 2000 students or so) debate finals when I was a senior. The public speaking ability and confidence that engendered in me has proved beneficial in all the years since. I know public speaking is not everyone's cup of tea, but I DO think it's a worthwhile thing to learn as a young person, if you can manage it.
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