So yeah. If you sometimes wonder why I am quite so obsessed with teaching people the basics of things, maybe that provides some context.
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When I write things like https://notebook.drmaciver.com/posts/2021-07-20-00:32.html … it's not just because I'm sad about other people having difficulties (though I am), I've very much been on the receiving end of it and hold a massive grudge over the whole thing.
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David R. MacIver Retweeted David R. MacIver
I guess I should say that it mostly wasn't their job. This isn't really their fault as individuals, they couldn't actually provide me with the support I needed. It's a problem with how we do school, not something I blame individual teachers for.https://twitter.com/DRMacIver/status/1421501291801583619 …
David R. MacIver added,
David R. MacIver @DRMacIverBut it was very clear from the ones I did not do OK in that where I couldn't figure out how to make that leap myself (e.g. music, art, oddly history but that may have just been bad teaching), teachers absolutely didn't consider it their job to do more than tell me to try harder.Show this thread1 reply 0 retweets 15 likesShow this thread -
...mostly. There were definitely teachers who made the problem much worse (I'm not saying I wouldn't piss on my art teacher if he were on fire, but I might if he weren't), and teachers who I sure wish would have acknowledged the flaws in the system even if they couldn't fix them.
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A minor example I think about a lot was learning piano. My teacher would constantly tell me to relax my hands, and then get frustrated when I didn't. I literally didn't know how to do what he was asking me to do, and he didn't know how to teach me.
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And that was even with one on one instruction! It's sortof fine that he didn't know how to teach me. It's a hard thing to teach. But I wish he'd acknowledged that this was the case.
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A principle I try to maintain as an adult, both for myself and when helping others, is this: Barring significant disability preventing you, it is overwhelmingly likely that you can be perfectly adequate at any subject you set your mind to, given the right support for learning it.
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I'm not saying you can be amazing at anything you can set your mind to. I'm less certain about the nature of talent when it comes to peak ability, but I'm pretty sure you can be fine, and the reason you're bad at it is a collective decision that it was too expensive to help you.
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The emotional response to this principle is very variable (both between individuals and between subjects for a given individual). It tends to run the gamut from intense relief to profound betrayal. All I can offer in its defence as a principle is that it does seem to be true.
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Anyway, this has been your episode of David unpacking his school related trauma in public. I didn't quite intend to go into that much detail.
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no its good and i was glad to read it lots to think about
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