New encounters, new subjects, new classrooms... always a mixture of excitement and anxiety.
I happened to read a piece of advice for teachers the other day. It said that if you are a teacher, you should never talk negatively about your predecessor.
Such as, "No? You guys didn't cover the nine essential nutrients for Martians last year? That can't be! ... All right, I will prepare an extra handout on that subject and distribute it next time. It's very, very important."
With eyebrow knitted and eyes squinted... The article said that from then on the students would start making claims that the previous instructor skipped the topic whatever it may be.
Including the ones that they had been taught.
I hereby confess that I committed a crime that is similar in nature in the past.
I am shocked!
It is again to my disadvantage to be endowed with good memory and a strong will to be impartial... Almost all of us are guilty of the same, but many conveniently are unconscious or forget about it.
So much for excuses. Let's hear what you have done.
When the school year started, we had a new teacher. She was a substitute until the regular hire came back from her maternity leave.
That's not unusual.
We knew neither instructor before. When the term was over for the fill-in and we got to know the regular instructor, we found out that we liked the substitute much better. We talked nostalgically how nice and good she was. One day, I showed my exam to my parents and said that I would have gotten a perfect grade had it been the former teacher.
It's a very flimsy excuse, comrade.
The scary thing is that I believed in it. All of my classmates were of the same opinion. So, when my parents told me that my explanation for the grade was not a good one, I told them that everyone in the class thought the same.
Yes, yes, that familiar "everyone," which can mean a handful of persons.
They replied that we would be saying the same had the regular been the substitute, and the substitute the regular.
It was not about their teaching methods or even personality, but about the role that they assumed.
I was very much surprised by their take on the event, of course.
Did you believe it?
I didn't dismiss it. I remembered it and wondered how that could be. Although I do not recall whether we claimed we had not been taught something we should have, I have a vague feeling that I participated in that kind of collective rewriting of history with my classmates. I think we knew that our claim might not have been true, but after some time, we simply believed in the revised "facts."
Hmmm... we as adults engage in acts of the same genre to more disastrous results.
People who deny all sorts of atrocities, such as genocides, fit that description.
They must have started their training early in their lives.
My recent discovery is that it happens on a smaller scale, too. Some people truly believe in what I think is grossly distorted versions of events. When I confront them, they are adamant that their version is true.
They must be thinking the same about you.
How come that they always come out unambiguously favorable in their stories?
Whereas you do not in your versions?
I know that it's not quite tight, but I claim that it is a proof that I am less biased than they are.
If your argument holds, some people may make themselves appear only partially guilty when they are wholly so, and claim that their take on the event is the true one.
The lack of impartiality in this world is mind boggling. What is even more flabbergasting is that the ones who genuinely believe in their distorted, self-serving history more than often win in the end. At least, they never lose thanks to their single-minded tenacity.
Blessed are the believers...
Back to my memories from school years, we once had a teacher trainee whom we liked very much because she was a lot closer in age. She had big sunglasses and boyfriend sweaters on. Her hair was adult and feminine. She radiated youthful confidence. In sum, she was awfully cool.
Everybody liked her, I bet.
Yes, until I was told to stop chitchatting and pay attention to her lecture.
Aha...
When some students got together and talked about how cool and effective in teaching she was, I snorted and said I wasn't sure. Then one in the circle said, "You changed your mind, because you were told to be quiet.''
There's no denying that it's a very good point.
I was shocked, because I realized then that it was true. The teacher trainee was no different before and after her telling me to be quiet, but I allowed myself to be biased against her in aspects that had little to do with her telling me so.
Don't you think maturity is founded on the separation of our private impressions of and feelings about persons from our judgments of their attributes?
You certainly can say that again. Professionalism is a kind of maturity that pertains to a subset of our activities. What puzzles me is that there seems to be little recognition of that very important principle.
You shouldn't make such a universal statement. It's your little living and working environment that you are talking about.
There is basic courtesy that should be observed regardless of our feelings toward that person.
We talked along this line some time ago.
I recently discovered that for people...
In your little environment, ahem.
All right, in my teeny-weeny environment, enforcement of rules are subject to how much positive feelings the enforcer has about the subjects.
"According to the official schedule, it is your turn to do this not-so-fun job, but okay, I know you are busy, so I will do it for you." That kind of a thing?
I would say so if the person is under pressure, although s/he has not been slacking off, and that to every such person.
People around you are totally confused because you help whom you like and don't like in the same way.
There are times when I want the people that I like to be strictly rule-abiding with me, although there are not many who defy rules and whom I like.
If I recall well, the willingness to be considerate and courteous is not only related to the feelings that we have for the persons involved, but also how repairable the relationships are with those people.
For some, the desire to go by the accepted rules is proportional to the fragility of relationships that they have with the parties involved. In extreme cases, they would go along with anything if they see that the person who is in front needs to be made happy.
Comrade, your hands are trembling with anger...
I tell you, it's total breakdown of communication! You would think that you have gotten an okay to something, only to learn later that it was a no, for example. It creates an anarchic and chaotic world. We have rules and laws precisely so as to be fair and predictable when we make important judgments.
You would doubt whether such persons have any principle.
It's balls that they don't have.
Hush, comrade.
Should I say instead that the ones that they have are shriveled up and about to fall off? They fail to understand that liking a person should neither be necessary nor sufficient to be ethical with her/him. Similarly, we do not have to pretend that we like someone in order to act ethically toward that person. If we do, it would be...
Comes your favorite word of the season, right? The one that starts with an 'h' and ends with a 'y'? There's a 'p' in it, a 'c' in it...
When people turn chummy because they want me to do something for them, I feel as if they were trying a cheap trick on me. If it is in my power to do it and if I see it necessary and reasonable, I would. It has no relation with whether I like her/him or not!
They are again totally confused, because they were nice to you and you agreed to carry out the task, but you look as if you were about to blow fire out of your mouth to scorch them.
The same people think that if they shower me with praises I would become fond of them.
Of course, they shouldn't lie.
They have absolutely no idea that they are showing the ends of their diapers as they walk around...
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