Rant: Over indulgent parents strike again

In article IChPb.90925$sv6.318206@attbi_s52,
(Brent P) wrote:

In article , dragonlady
wrote:

So you don't know. It's up to the victim to make some undefined change
in behavior. Lovely.

No. The fact that *I'm* not good at this doesn't mean no one else is.
It was up to the person who WAS good at it -- the counselor -- to help
him identify things he could change.

You are arguing for something, you just don't know what that something
is.

I am arguing that sometimes it is possible to identify behaviors or
mannerisms that seem to invite harrassment, and that talented people who
can identify those things can also help (some) children modify the way
they behave so they are targeted less often.

This isn't "giving in" to the bullys, or blaming the victim, or any such
crap.


Frankly, if someone were coming at me with a car, I'd get the hell out
of their way. Standing my ground could get me killed, and even if I was
"in the right" -- thanks, but I like being upright, relatively mobile
and uninjured.

And what most people don't understand is that the other person knows
exactly what they are doing. They don't want to even have the paint
on their new SUV scratched. I call their bluff instead of giving in
to the aggression. Instead of compensating for their aggressive behavior.

And that's what irritates me from school yard bullies on up. Not only
that it is now the victim that is in the wrong for standing up, not only
that everyone else should modify their behavior to get along with the
bully, but... That this society has simply decided that practically
nothing is worth fighting for and standing up for one's self.
It's the same thing from the school yard up through world fairs,
appeasement and modification of one's own behavior to avoid conflict.

I don't think I suggested that standing up for yourself is wrong; some
of what my son may have learned was how to be more effective when he DID
try to stand up for himself. Nor have I suggested appeasement, or
conflict avoidance. I have suggested that if there are things a person
does (note: not things that they ARE; things that they DO) that seem
to increase the liklihood of being targeted, there is absolutely NO
downside to helping them identify that behavior and modify it.


When everybody is told to give into that behavior? How will it ever?
Do you expect a bully to stop if you keep giving him your lunch money?

Hardly, but I don't think the situation is analogous.

snip

I don't think so . I think I have more faith in humanity than you do,
and that your "strong defensive posture" may well do more to increase
that behavior than simply walking away would.

It very much is going to bring an end to or reduce the behavior because it
takes the gain out of it. Giving these people what they want will never
do anything but further encourage the behavior.

I haven't noticed that folks who get agressive in return have done
anything to reduce the amount of nastiness in the world.

It's getting ahead by shoving others out of the way. Since it's
in poor taste too stand up for one's self these days one
has to choose if he wants to be shover or the shoved. I don't like
that choice, finding both of those to be the ones in poor taste. I
choose not to be the shover nor allow myself to be shoved.

Avoiding conflict through appeasement is usually not the right answer when
dealing with an aggressive, violent species that will generally only see
it as a sign of weakness and want to take more. The only effective way
to avoid conflict is to make clear one will not be shoved, one will
not give in. This is true from the school yard on up.



There is a difference between appeasement and a non-violent response.

It is NOT in poor taste to stand up for oneself. However, I think there
IS an option that includes being neither the shover nor the shovee.

meh
--
Children won't care how much you know until they know how much you care

In article , dragonlady wrote:

You are arguing for something, you just don't know what that something
is.
\
I am arguing that sometimes it is possible to identify behaviors or
mannerisms that seem to invite harrassment, and that talented people who
can identify those things can also help (some) children modify the way
they behave so they are targeted less often.

Which cannot be addressed because you cannot describe what those
behaviors and mannerisms are.

This isn't "giving in" to the bullys, or blaming the victim, or any such
crap.

Depends on what the behaviors and mannerisms are now doesn't it?
Also, since this started wrt school policies, I find solutions
that require action of a person who has done nothing wrong, to
be unsuitable.

And what most people don't understand is that the other person knows
exactly what they are doing. They don't want to even have the paint
on their new SUV scratched. I call their bluff instead of giving in
to the aggression. Instead of compensating for their aggressive behavior.

And that's what irritates me from school yard bullies on up. Not only
that it is now the victim that is in the wrong for standing up, not only
that everyone else should modify their behavior to get along with the
bully, but... That this society has simply decided that practically
nothing is worth fighting for and standing up for one's self.
It's the same thing from the school yard up through world fairs,
appeasement and modification of one's own behavior to avoid conflict.

I don't think I suggested that standing up for yourself is wrong;

That's nice.

some
of what my son may have learned was how to be more effective when he DID
try to stand up for himself. Nor have I suggested appeasement, or
conflict avoidance. I have suggested that if there are things a person
does (note: not things that they ARE; things that they DO) that seem
to increase the liklihood of being targeted, there is absolutely NO
downside to helping them identify that behavior and modify it.

Like ride a bicycle on the roadway. That's something I do. To avoid
conflict I could stop doing it.

Since you cannot describe what you are talking about beyond a vague
conceptional level, I have to deal with it on the conceptional level.
On a conceptional level I find this idea wrong because of the greater
consquences.

I don't think so . I think I have more faith in humanity than you do,
and that your "strong defensive posture" may well do more to increase
that behavior than simply walking away would.

It very much is going to bring an end to or reduce the behavior because it
takes the gain out of it. Giving these people what they want will never
do anything but further encourage the behavior.

I haven't noticed that folks who get agressive in return have done
anything to reduce the amount of nastiness in the world.

Again, it's not about being aggressive in turn its about not being
pushed around. There's a *HUGE* difference. For instance: Driver
B to get ahead tries to cut off driver A assuming driver A will nail
the brakes and let him (an intentional act). Driver A responses:

A) nail the brakes and let driver B do it.
B) continue as if driver B doesn't exist, holding his ground.
C) Ram his vehicle into driver B's vehicle.

A) is appeasement, B) is holding ones spot, C) is a violent
response. I am arguing for B.

It's getting ahead by shoving others out of the way. Since it's
in poor taste too stand up for one's self these days one
has to choose if he wants to be shover or the shoved. I don't like
that choice, finding both of those to be the ones in poor taste. I
choose not to be the shover nor allow myself to be shoved.

Avoiding conflict through appeasement is usually not the right answer when
dealing with an aggressive, violent species that will generally only see
it as a sign of weakness and want to take more. The only effective way
to avoid conflict is to make clear one will not be shoved, one will
not give in. This is true from the school yard on up.

There is a difference between appeasement and a non-violent response.

Nobody is arguing for violent response here. Rather not being affraid
of the aggressor who is threatening violent action.

It is NOT in poor taste to stand up for oneself. However, I think there
IS an option that includes being neither the shover nor the shovee.

Not being shoved or shoving is holding one's ground.

"dragonlady" wrote in message
...

Last time I checked, non-familiarity with British slang wasn't cause for
considering someone a bad parent.

Yeah, but never having watched Monty Python *is*.

In article ,
dragonlady wrote:

I am arguing that sometimes it is possible to identify behaviors or
mannerisms that seem to invite harrassment, and that talented people who
can identify those things can also help (some) children modify the way
they behave so they are targeted less often.

I agree with this. And I think it is similar to having a child
study martial arts, not only so they will be able to defend himself
should that be necessary, but also, and often primarily, to help
the child exude an air of self-confidence that will help him be
less likely to be bullied in the first place.

However, I also think it is a fine line between suggesting changes that
are "harmless" and help reduce bullying and suggesting changes that
unreasonably ask the victim to change his personality. If a boy is
very sensitive and prone to crying readily, getting him to stop that,
if it's even possible, would probably reduce his being bullied, but
is that a reasonable change to ask?

Also, I think that by suggesting that there are ways that one can
avoid bullying, it *does* give the subtle message that when you get
bullied anyhow, it is your fault. I think a lot of women who are
raped feel at least partly to blame, even if people are telling them
otherwise, especially if they didn't follow all the rape preventions
guidelines often suggested. I suspect the same can happen for kids
who are bullied even after being coached in bully-avoidance.

I have suggested that if there are things a person
does (note: not things that they ARE; things that they DO) that seem
to increase the liklihood of being targeted, there is absolutely NO
downside to helping them identify that behavior and modify it.

I guess that would depend just how important being able to safely do
those things is to the person in question.


Robyn (mommy to Ryan 9/93 and Matthew 6/96 and Evan 3/01)
--
Be the first on your block to own the comprehensive and comprehensible
TCP/IP Guide! http://www.tcpipguide.com

For a challenging little arithmetic puzzle for kids and adults alike,
check out http://cgi.wff-n-proof.com/MSQ-Ind/I-1E.htm

dragonlady wrote in message ...
In article ,
(Gniewko) wrote:

Teaching "how to think" without teaching skills and knowledge first is
absolutely useless. The US educational system tends to teach "how to
think" with absolutely disastrous results. Schools in, for example,
Eastern Europe (based on personal experience) and in other parts of
the world concentrate much more on skills and knowledge, and their
students do much better on all kinds of tests, etc. There is a good
reason why so many science graduate students, professors, and Nobel
prize winners in the US are immigrants from other parts of the world,
who did a lot of their schooling outside of the US. And why kids from
other countries who end up in US high schools find school laughably
easy.

Just to give you a data point: in Poland (where I'm originally from)
trigonometry is taught in 8th grade. Physics starts in 6th grade.
Chemistry in 7th. Things that everyone learns in physics in 7th grade
aren't taught in the US until 10th or 11th grade, and then only to
some students.

American schools try to teach very young kids "how to think", but
without giving them basic knowledge - the substance of what to think
about. And that's just a waste of time and doesn't work. If you teach
knowledge first, the "how to think" part can be taught more easily
later. Also: math, science, and literature teach kids how to think,
not show-and-tell.

-Gniewko

I agree; I'm not suggesting that we NOT teach the skills -- only that
adding the "how to think" portion is also important to be fully
educated. What good is being able to parrot facts and techniques, if
you don't know what to do with them -- or how to live in the world?

meh

Unfortunately school days (and school years) are limited in length. If
you spend time teaching "how to think" (whatever that means), you
displace teaching of knowledge and skills, which is infinitely more
important. If someone doesn't acquire a solid base of knowledge first,
he/she can't even begin learning "how to think". So teaching kids "how
to think" early on is completely useless and horribly
counter-productive.

Also, I don't think that teaching kids "how to think" (as separate
from teaching for example math and science) is such an important
issue. Smarter kids who have acquired enough knowledge and skills, and
did enough math and science problem sets normally figure out how to
think on their own, and those that can't figure it out usually can't
be taught how to do it anyway. As I noted before, the education of
people who as kids lived outside of the US consisted pretty much
exclusively of learning facts and skills, but they do very well -
better than Americans trained in thinking - when they come to the US.

-Gniewko

"dragonlady" wrote in message
...

Yes, it does. It is originally from the word (German, I think, but I'm

Nope. It doesn't even sound vaguely German. French in origin.

not sure) for the kindling used to start fires. During the witch
craze,
wood was not considered (by some) to burn well enough to actually kill
the witches, so men who had been in jail for committing homosexual acts
were tied to the wood, and lit on fire to kill the witches.

Pro-Bush rants aside, this is one of stupidest things I've seen on reeky
in months!

For one thing, why would they need humans as kindling to burn humans?

Good question!

Well, the sources from which I got this seemed pretty solid at the time.
Witches were NOT considered human -- or at least not just human --
that's why they had to be killed.

No, they were human and had entered into a contract with Satan-- itself a
crime-- and used this illicit power to prosper personally in ways that did
harm to others.

However, I no longer have those sources at my fingertips, so I checked
one online source that I trust; this is from
http://www.religioustolerance.org/hom_term.htm

There are lots of good etymology websites out there-- a quick Google
search turned up a good discussion on one of my favorite sites: Wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faggot
and another interesting discussion he
http://www.wordorigins.org/wordorf.htm#Faggot

In short you can see that basically, no one has much of a clue how a term
that meant kindling sticks came to be used as a derogatory term for gay men,
although there are lots of ideas. The whole burning at the stake thing is
stupid-- I know that people weren't routinely burnt at the stake for sodomy
in the Middle Ages (it wasn't even particularly punished, for the most part)
and the Wikipedia article states that this practice first occured in the
17th Century-- right around the time burning at the stake disappeared
altogether from the penal system. IOW, it's incredibly unlikely that this
would have been the source of the slang use.

So you could be right: it could be apocraphal. However (she said with
a slightly evil grin) telling that story -- the one about the witches --
to kids who insist on throwing the word around generally convinces them
to stop using it!

Why? Do kids have a realistic fear of being burned at the stake in your
area?

On Tue, 20 Jan 2004 23:28:27 GMT, "Ice Queen"
wrote:

"dragonlady" wrote in message
...

Last time I checked, non-familiarity with British slang wasn't cause for
considering someone a bad parent.

Yeah, but never having watched Monty Python *is*.

At this time, a friend shall lose his friend's hammer, and the young
shall not know where lieth the things possessed by their fathers, that
their fathers put there just the night before, about eight o'clock. A
man shall strike his donkey and his nephew's donkey and anyone in the
vicinity of his nephew or the donkey.

--
Al | '98 FLTRI
Brennan | '98 T509 EN
owl tuna| '83 GR650
hot mail| '57 6T

(Brent P) wrote:

In article ,
Charles Soto wrote:
(Brent P) wrote:

In article , toto wrote:
On Tue, 20 Jan 2004 05:01:30 GMT, (Brent P)
wrote:

At this point, such a kid may start playing with
the projector wanting to explore how it functions.

There is nothing wrong with kids exploring how a projector functions,
but I am not talking about the teacher *lecturing* using a projector
in this case anyway.

*sigh* it was a comment about how the children in this form are being
forced down a certain path. A child who was bored out of his skull
with an exploration of hair and hairstyles is left with nothing. No,
math, science, engineering (yes engineering principles can be tought
in grade school), history, english, etc. Just all the cute
multicultralism.

"Multiculturalism" is not a bad thing. It is not, however (and just
like Creationism), a subject to be taught in schools. It's a product of
life experience. It's exactly what "tracking" aims to eliminate - keep
the white kids (or kids of enough means for their non-whiteness to be
ignored - to a point) away from the brown kids.

It appears you want to say that tracking is some sort racist thing
designed to separate the so called 'races'. Well, I am sorry, it isn't.
It's about allowing those who can learn more do so without being
dragged down by those who don't want to learn or learn more slowly.
There were a number of "brown" kids in my honors classes in HS, BTW.
Even some whites from the poorer areas that fed the HS too! Imagine
that. Tracking is only racist if the school's staff make it that way.
And if there is a tool for teaching racism, multicultralism is easily
subverted into that compared with tracking.

Well, I'm sorry, but you may be comparing the ideal with the practice.
Also, double-check my definition of "white kids."


I am tired of the teaching of real subject matter being dumbed down
and pushed out by time constraints to teach social and political agendas.
If kids were educated properly they could arrive at their own opinions
instead of having the offical one of the school implanted into them.

Dumbed down? How does keeping kids in the same class "dumb down"
anything?


How a someones's hair is different is of no interest. It's different,
wooptie freakin' do. That and other such trivialities are a waste of
time. Teach the basic rights we are supposed to have in this society
(aka the bill of rights) instead. That will drive home that these
differences are trivial and don't matter in the big picture. No stupid
be an _X_ for a day games or other such silliness. People can do
what they wish with regards to their own lives, one doesn't need
to experience it to respect that.

Eh?


It's also forced interaction, when some students may not want to
interact. Just leave alone and be left alone. They are there to
learn subject matter.

We are ALL forced into interacting with others. That's nothing new.
Don't want to be? Become a hermit (see Kaczinski, Theo.). They WILL be
exposed to different cultures, unless specific measures are taken to
vanillafy their experiences. And, there's no reason this can't be a
topic of discussion (just as theology or other philosophies), but not at
the expense of critical disciplines.

So much for the respect of others. Kid wants to sit in the corner
and read a book instead of going through some silly hair touching
experience he's a problem. How dare he not want to go through the
'experience' he must be a *racist*. He'll just have to banish himself
from society and then be assoicated with the criminal acts of someone
like the unibomber or submit to the multicultralists.

Eh? Who brought up hair?

Charles

--
Charles Soto - Austin, TX *** 1999 GSF1200S, DoD No. "uno"

("Meepmeep" is "rr," as in "roadrunner.")

On Mon, 19 Jan 2004 22:03:13 -0600, toto
wrote:

In schools, this consists of actively teaching empathy and tolerance.

You mean teaching kids that it is normal to be gay, and abnormal to be
straight? That tolerance?

reading, use books from many cultures, use books that show

Yes, it is much better to teach kids about Chinese, Indian and
Australian culture than to teach them about George Washington,
Lincoln, and Kennedy. Teachers have had those horrible subjects
removed from textbooks as they are so unimportant.

In math, show the children different ways to solve
problems that were developed by various cultures.

Now I know why schools are so bad. We are now teaching kids they can
do math how they want, regardless of the answer.

On Tue, 20 Jan 2004 05:01:30 GMT, (Brent P)
wrote:

In schools, this consists of actively teaching empathy and tolerance.

I don't believe that's the school's job.

Agreed. The school should set basic rules of conduct. You break
them, you pay.