this post was submitted on 14 Dec 2024
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My guy: You raised an issue with how I was participating. I explained why I was doing it, but also offered to correct it, admitting that you kind of had a point. You said you weren’t going to count that as good faith, but that I was “free to try again.”
I don’t know what sort of person you are trying to engage with, but it is some sort of obedient robot or sniveling quisling. I wish you luck in finding that person. They would probably also respond well to being told that it’s not your job to find sources for your statement, but their job to find sources for your statements. I think you will have difficulty in finding such a person but like I said I wish you luck.
I gave a reason for it, which you ignored to instead deflect and be flippant. Like I said, a great demonstration of bad faith. Excellent way to wrap this up.
PS this is the second or third time you have said you are done ans goodbye.
I engage very patiently. You were being irrational and combative from the very beginning, which is whete most people will write you off and maybe call you a name. Something I am sure you will repeatedly experience when you talk to someone that knows more than you about something. I then matched your tone to give you opportunities to reflect on that tone and progress via your apparently preferred form of discussion. This also did not work, as your selective engagement and preferenve for vaguely puffing up your "method" instead of directly discussing what was said results in either derailment or pointless repetition. Note that I still did not write you off over this period, as most people will do when met with such unserious arrogance.
I have now simplified it down to one thing: addressing, in good faith, the issue of highly selective responses so that we go in circles. And right off the bat you demonstrated that you didn't even read or think for 30 seconds about the simple couple of sentences I wrote. And even thrn, I gave you another chance, which you have now squandered.
I teach and screen people irl who are new to such topics on a regular basis. Nearly weekly. This requires a lot of patience, as many people learn to adopt opinions before they have done investigation ans they absorb these opinions into their idr tity, feeling attacked when contradicted and becoming combative. It is a common task to figure out who should be directly pipelined for the central education pathway and who needs to be isolated from it lest they become pointlessly disruptive to others' learning, as they have demonstrated that they will interrupt with silly ideas they have not really thought about or will double down on chauvinism, rather than engage in goos faith.
I have given you about as much patience as we give to a combative chauvinist, which is more than you will receive in pretty much any context outside of when someone is paid to interact with you.
It is literally not my responsibility to do that, yes. You seem to be very confused about this conversation and its commitments. Contrast our expectations. You expect me to fetch sources and explain and justify them to you while you make various silly allegations (e.g. surprise that I was critical of what I sourced for you) like this is some kind of debate and repeatedly act in bad faith. In contrast, I only expect you to respond germanely and accurately to what I say.
I recruit and onboard, in average, 2-3 people per week, and lead sessions of 10-30 every week. I have no problems whatsoever in doing so despite various personality conflicts, ranges of curiosity, and tolerance for arrogance.
Anyways, because you are not demonstrating good faith and are now making up a nonsense version of the kind of person you think I expect, and because you seem to want the last word regardless of how many times you say you are done and goodbye, I will help you out by ending this conversation and leaving you the last word.
And all of a sudden, it all snapped into focus.
I've been involved in education for almost all my adult life. The number of times I can remember having to do something like this is once, for one person, in all of that time.
Way up at the beginning, I said "In non-authoritarian contexts" certain modes of interaction are common, and you asked, "What on earth are you talking about." This is what I'm talking about. It's very strange and inhuman, to me, for the teacher to say that someone's ideas are silly, and for that reason they need to be removed from the class before they disrupt everyone else's "learning." One of the most important parts of teaching is understanding where people are coming from, actually truly coming from, so you can address their current perceptions directly, so they can understand. They might be right or partially right, they might be wrong, or they might be silly. It's fine. Another critical early stage of the process is to earn their respect, demonstrate that you know what you're talking about, so that in a genuine sense they'll want to learn from you. That can be incredibly hard, because there's not really a system for it. It has to be a human thing. If you can do that, though, everything after is easy. The students are coming to you because their current understanding isn't there, presumably, and because they want to fix that. If you can show them you're qualified to improve their understanding, then of course they will listen to you instead of being "silly" as you say it.
If you say something, and they don't understand it or don't agree with it, and then you abandon them and say they have to be separated before someone else hears what they have to say, that's a massive red flag to me. It might be for reasons of time or organization, you don't necessarily need to hear out completely every beginner idea that every single student has to say. But also... presumably, they're there because they have some interest in what you're teaching. Hopefully. If during the course of the interaction, they're espousing ideas you think are wrong, they're probably not the only person in the class that thinks that way. Some other people just might not be saying it. If you can address things in a productive way, then you give everyone else in the class the chance to hear out the exchange of ideas. That's hugely instructive. That's actual education. Hopefully, your ideas are solid enough and you have the skill to address it in a way where overall it's pretty clear that your ideas are the "right" ones. To everyone else, if not to the "silly" student, or not to them right away.
I don't truly know anything at all about your method of teaching. But like I say, this makes it all come clearly to me. You've been sort of giving me orders about how I am required to engage with you. You're trying to "instruct" me, which is a fine thing to do obviously, but you clearly haven't earned the right to do that, in my eyes. I was confused about why you kept approaching the interaction as if you had, and I needed to "get with the program" and treat you that way, but again, now it makes sense. You're treating me like one of your students.
Most people work in this way that I'm describing. If you want genuine respect from your students, you need to engage with them as human beings, and not become so aggrieved if they're not taking part in the process with completely correct ideas already formed, or with "correct" behavior already in place. Most people operate by respect, not by obedience, although certain types of coercion will cause them to obediently fake it. All you'll do by demanding obedience whether or not the respect is there, though, is produce insincere students, which is a terrible thing. And you'll also miss the chance to actually educate someone, if their inner ideas don't match the things you're trying to teach them.