3 ms·

Somewhat tangentially, I had very few writing teachers/profs that forced me to write better. The ones that did were not the hard-asses willing to bruise my ego

Somewhat tangentially, I had very few writing teachers/profs that forced me to write better. The ones that did were not the hard-asses willing to bruise my ego and fill the page with red ink; they were the ones who could destroy my thesis and render my examples impotent with 3 comments at the end of the paper. Invariably, if I got a teacher/prof who bled all over my creations, I'd start with B-s at the beginning and end up with As by the end. I didn't improve my writing. I just figured out the teachers pet peeves and learned to work around them. My teachers were invariably smarter and more experienced than me when dealing with the subject at hand, but that doesn't prevent them from being flesh-and-blood people with idiosyncrasies and inconsistencies. I'd love to believe I'm just a millenial who could stand to learn at lot from an ego-crushing set of experiences, but just because a person hurts your feelings doesn't make them a better teacher.

brc 17y ago
I'm going to have to go ahead and disagree with you. The ego needs to be bruised in order to deflate the head of the youngster so learning can begin. I too had my ego bruised and spirits crushed by hard-marking, discipline demanding examiners. In each case, they're the only the ones I remember. All the wishy-washy as-long-as-you-tried ones are as forgotten as they were useless to my learning. Half the battle in teaching young people is making them realise the scope of the things they don't know, so they can appreciate how far they have to travel. Call me old-school, but I don't see how you can do this without brusing a few egos and crushing a few spirits. It's precisely the ego that says 'this is good enough, I'll submit that'.
- sophacles 17y ago
  If only I had known 10 years ago what I would claim ignorance of today...
- trjordan 17y ago
  I suppose I should have been more clear. There's a difference between drowning a paper in red ink and words like "trainwreck" and actually showing error. More bluntly, yelling at a student for being stupid and showing a student where they made their errors are entirely different, and I would argue that the second is much more effective. To my point above, the vindictive teachers were not necessarily the most insightful, and they were not the ones who deflated my ego. The comments that hurt were the terse ones that showed both that they clearly understood what I was trying to say, and that I was wrong. Pointing out a logical inconsistency in my argument in a polite way is a much less abrasive and much more effective way of teaching. Perhaps I should say that a students ego often gets in the way of producing increasingly better work, but being a dick to them isn't always the answer.
  - brc 16y ago
    >Perhaps I should say that a students ego often gets in the way of producing increasingly better work, but being a dick to them isn't always the answer. And I would agree with you there. As long as the point is driven home that the work is below par, and the reasons why, without any fancy wrapping or ego-massaging. Being direct without being a dick, though there are plenty of people who don't know how to do one without being the other. I'm still appreciative to a Grade 8 maths teacher who humiliated me in front of the class for slacking off during the semester and letting grades slip. Because I sure worked hard to prove him wrong next time. I don't know if there would have been any other way to get through to me at that time.

brc 17y ago

I'm going to have to go ahead and disagree with you. The ego needs to be bruised in order to deflate the head of the youngster so learning can begin. I too had my ego bruised and spirits crushed by hard-marking, discipline demanding examiners. In each case, they're the only the ones I remember. All the wishy-washy as-long-as-you-tried ones are as forgotten as they were useless to my learning. Half the battle in teaching young people is making them realise the scope of the things they don't know, so they can appreciate how far they have to travel. Call me old-school, but I don't see how you can do this without brusing a few egos and crushing a few spirits. It's precisely the ego that says 'this is good enough, I'll submit that'.

sophacles 17y ago
If only I had known 10 years ago what I would claim ignorance of today...
trjordan 17y ago
I suppose I should have been more clear. There's a difference between drowning a paper in red ink and words like "trainwreck" and actually showing error. More bluntly, yelling at a student for being stupid and showing a student where they made their errors are entirely different, and I would argue that the second is much more effective. To my point above, the vindictive teachers were not necessarily the most insightful, and they were not the ones who deflated my ego. The comments that hurt were the terse ones that showed both that they clearly understood what I was trying to say, and that I was wrong. Pointing out a logical inconsistency in my argument in a polite way is a much less abrasive and much more effective way of teaching. Perhaps I should say that a students ego often gets in the way of producing increasingly better work, but being a dick to them isn't always the answer.
- brc 16y ago
  >Perhaps I should say that a students ego often gets in the way of producing increasingly better work, but being a dick to them isn't always the answer. And I would agree with you there. As long as the point is driven home that the work is below par, and the reasons why, without any fancy wrapping or ego-massaging. Being direct without being a dick, though there are plenty of people who don't know how to do one without being the other. I'm still appreciative to a Grade 8 maths teacher who humiliated me in front of the class for slacking off during the semester and letting grades slip. Because I sure worked hard to prove him wrong next time. I don't know if there would have been any other way to get through to me at that time.