My life is a giant social experiment

Mar 20, 2007 23:56

Formative moments in my sociopolitical/epistemological paradigm:

"Grade Three"

The Rule:
"You must mark each-other's papers with a red pencil-crayon.
If you do not have a red pencil-crayon, borrow one from the child in front of you."

I remember noticing:
(a) the red pencil crayons were defective, as the lead often popped out the back when you pressed on them
(b) the functional ones were in demand and wearing down;
(c) we were allowed one extra set per year
(d) our class of thirty children was down to two functional red pencil crayons, and this caused considerable delays during markng

So I started using orange.

Other kids noticed and followed my lead.

This did not go over well.

I recall other, similar, failed attempts at management.

I respect leaders that demonstrate their relative expertise. Others I do not so much rebel against as ignore. This is happening in Biology, where I do the labs more or less in the way that I see fit, while correcting mistakes on the handouts. My marks are okay.

I make sense of it by concluding that all this BS was a useful experience, much as outlined in this thesis on educating gifted children.

I've finally started to spin this into something I've wanted for a long time: being able to shrug off personal affronts. Someone can tell me off and I can address it, but in other cases, I can turn around and say "wow, that's... really weird - I guess that I'll igoner it." I think that some of this has to do with being in a supportive social environment; and some of it has to do with knowing that I can fix, ignore or complain as I see fit.

It's a good way to feel in a situation like this
(I am not asking for you to comment, let alone anonymously.).

Here, I am not just referring to the posts about me, or even the blog itself, so much as the "debate" surrounding the post-impeachment student society. The impeachment needed to happen, and it only succeeded because of the extended labour of about a hundred volunteers. Since then, I have heard many complaints. Perhaps a handful of people raise siginificant, thought-out qualms; others are simly deficient in information; but most of the objections make up for in vitriol what they lack in critical thought.

It's contstant and it's wearing. I can now ignore what pertains only to me (the gender comments confuse rather than offend), but when it touches on my social circle and the work we do, then I'm not sure how to deal with it. Guess that's the next thing I'm gonna learn.

Life: it never stops until it's over.

whoami, anxiety, sci-fi, life, deviance, cbt, identity, politics, social experiments

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