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Some Students Say Having To Speak in Front of the Class is an Unreasonable Burden For Those With Anxiety and Are Requesting Alternative Options (theatlantic.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: For many middle and high school students, giving an in-class presentation was a rite of passage. Teachers would call up students, one by one, to present their work in front of the class and, though it was often nerve wracking, many people claim it helped turn them into more confident public speakers. "Coming from somebody with severe anxiety, having somebody force me to do a public presentation was the best idea to happen in my life," one woman recently tweeted. According to a recent survey by the Association of American Colleges and Universities, oral communication is one of the most sought-after skills in the workplace, with over 90 percent of hiring managers saying it's important. Some educators also credit in-class presentations with building essential leadership skills, and increasing students' confidence and understanding of material.
But in the past few years, students have started calling out in-class presentations as discriminatory to those with anxiety, demanding that teachers offer alternative options. This week, a tweet posted by 15-year-old high school student declaring "Stop forcing students to present in front of the class and give them a choice not to" garnered over 130,000 retweets and nearly half a million likes. A similar sentiment tweeted in January also racked up thousands of likes and retweets. And teachers are listening.
But in the past few years, students have started calling out in-class presentations as discriminatory to those with anxiety, demanding that teachers offer alternative options. This week, a tweet posted by 15-year-old high school student declaring "Stop forcing students to present in front of the class and give them a choice not to" garnered over 130,000 retweets and nearly half a million likes. A similar sentiment tweeted in January also racked up thousands of likes and retweets. And teachers are listening.
It scared the crap out of me, but I came out of my shell with encouragement from some kindly teachers.
It's a rite of passage because in life, we have to be brave about many things. Not just big stuff like warfare and hurricanes, but life choices and eventually confronting mortality (put it off as long as you can).
We need to raise people to overcome their disadvantages, not revel in them. We can be compassionate and help them do so, but they need this ability to be brave and we need them to have it.
Alternative Right.
I have history anxiety.
I have grammar anxiety.
I have science anxiety.
I have PE anxiety - in spades.
Can I just go home now?
I just asked my 14 year old, who has social anxiety. Even he realizes that it is an important skill to have experience with, even though it scares the crap out of him. This seems to be a 'bubble wrapped child' problem.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
"Stop forcing people to interview in front of employers and give them a choice not to".
Learning should include uncomfortable situations.
I'm a 40-something who just went back to school for another BS degree. I can't believe how many 18-20 somethings are *addicted* to their phones. It's much, much worse than I suspected. A lot of these kids freak out at doing *anything* that isn't an "app" on their phones. It's a really big societal problem that parents need to be aware of and address as early as possible.
I don't respond to AC's.
Is discriminatory against your crippling social anxiety.
Can nanny state bring all life and make it happen there?
Have you never heard about Plato's tale of the cave? Part of the work of a teacher is turning some (not all, some) of the lazy people into hardworking ones, with a combination of curiousity-inducing and forcing. It's not easy to do, and admittedly, that was why I was a bad teacher at the time (at some point, I realized I just prefer to let the lazy ones fuck themselves up and only have fun with the ones who want to learn).
Avantgarde Hebrew science fiction
I have an opposite fear: Sometimes I have to sit in an audience while someone who knows diddly squat about Open Source gives a speech about it (or even a keynote), and I would really like to engage them right in front of the audience and point out all of their mistakes, but in general that doesn't work for the audience. I just hate to sit through those things. About my most productive response was to write this in response to a completely clueless speaker.
But how did I become a speaker? I had a neurological deficit resulting in a speech impediment and coordination problems. Throughout 1-12th grade, I took at least 10 years of either instruction from a speech pathologist or year-after-year enrollment in the school's rhetoric class (which wasn't really addressing a problem in speech pathology). So, any fear of audiences was beaten out of me.
Most people hate and fear being in front of an audience. For some, the solution really is for them to one-on-one with a teacher. But for most, the solution would be early instruction that makes them more comfortable with the situation. The sink-or-swim method of just putting them in the front of the room is probably not the right way.
Bruce Perens.
You've never had to present an idea/report to your coworkers/boss?
Part of the purpose of a formal education is to push you out of your comfort zone -- to have you try things that you wouldn't normally be inclined to do. My concern is that if schools pander to kids not wanting to give presentations, that entire skill set will wither away. We're already raising a generation -- a couple generations now, I guess -- of kids who are disinclined to interact with other humans. I don't think encouraging that is a good idea.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Ya, in 20 years when you're too afraid to walk out the door, you be demanding that "universal basic income" because you never developed communication or personal skills and it's society's fault -you're just another victim.
When you think about harm, you are ignoring one thing: frequency. Frankly, I'd rather be beaten up once than having to hear every day, for 6 years, "loser" by everyone around me, and that is the power of bullying in schools. While I agree with you that making a fuss out of every time a kid swears at another is stupid, constant psychological pressure is something that has an effect. If armies can use this to manipulate their soldiers and countries can use this to manipulate their citizens, then children can use it to hurt other children.
Avantgarde Hebrew science fiction
Just when you thought the snowflake generation couldn't possibly get any softer... they pull some shit like this.
> I know it really upsets you anti-SJW people, but the truth is
I AM the kind of person you are trying to white knight here.
You just need to shut the fuck up.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Not just with standing in front of the class, but with dealing with humanity in general. Or technology, really.
Alternative Right.
Some other students say that having to clean their room and do homework before playing video games is an unreasonable burden for those with phat loot to grind.
Seriously, I hated speaking in front of the class, being forced to do it made me a better person.
Communication skills are critical in today's world, public speaking is a part of this and it's a vitally important skill. You need to learn that others rarely judge yourself as harshly as you do - everyone else is wrapped up in their own lives. Those that judge you don't matter and those that matter don't judge you. The sooner you realise this, the better your life will be.
Specialist Mac support for creative pros, Melbourne
Seriously, with those lights, you can't see anything when you're up there. Any anxiety should be drowned out by the effort you expend keeping your pupils from shrinking down to nothing.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Think that life is going to be easy and they will never have to speak in front of people. Man do they have a wake up call coming when they have to get a job. Imagine even having to get thru an interview with the social skills of your typical basement dweller.
What if those great thinkers became the great thinkers they were because they were pushed into uncomfortable situations constantly from a young age?
Had they been allowed to retreat into their shells and play gameboy (or insert era appropriate menial diversion here) would they have amounted to anything?
Struggle is what leads to character, maybe a bit of social anxiety is actually a gift.
That work should have already been done in K-12. If you come to university and you're lazy, it's best if you go try to become a YouTube star and let the rest of us get on with it.
You are welcome on my lawn.
I just convinced myself to have absolute confidence and rehearsed in my head then volunteered to go first for the speech project so I'd do a perfect job and make everyone else twice as nervous by setting the bar that high. It worked and everyone was pissed.
This test is too hard! (So we lower the standards)
You are being ripped off every second of every day, so that advertisers can help rip you off even more tomorrow.
Social anxiety is not a terminal diagnosis. If people have severe social anxiety we should help them with treatment so they aren't crushed by it. The only "penalty" would be withholding the skill and experience necessary to help them overcome or at least better cope with their social anxiety.
There are 2 elements to consider here:
1) A students score in an academic subject should not depend on their public speaking comfort and performance. Think about that. It makes good sense. Why does your science research project mark depend on 'eye contact' and not saying 'um' ? That's as ridiculous an grading a mathematics assignment on your singing voice and fashion sense.
2) Public speaking, and speaking in front of others is an important life skill and students need to learn how to do it; and should not be excused from doing it, even if it makes them uncomfortable.
Reconciling this really shouldn't be that hard. Separate the academic marks from the public speaking/presentation marks. Your science mark is what you know in science. Offer separate classes in public speaking and debate etc. Still HAVE the science presentations though, but apply your science presentation "presentation performance" mark to the other course. So no matter how badly you blow the presentation performance it doesn't affect your science mark; that's graded on the content you hand in.
People with anxiety will struggle in this 2ndary course; but at least it doesn't affect their academic marks. I'd say this 2ndary course should be mandatory -- public speaking is an important life skill that people need to do, but i extreme cases could be excused.
The operative part of this is "from a young age". It's not really that hard to figure out who's for real and who's bullshitting. I mean, the first time a student's grandma dies, it's one thing. By the third or fourth time, there's something else going on.
You'd be surprised how much can be learned just by observing and simply speaking to a student. After all, it's not just the students that are there to learn.
You are welcome on my lawn.
When debating was offered at school to our grade 5 and 6 kids, we jumped at the chance to shove them in at the deep end. They were nervous and unsure of themselves, but we persisted. We helped them with the debates, we practiced with them. Now in high school, they are both confident public speakers and are able to structure their own debating material. It's easy to spot the newbies from other schools.
Everyone needs to develop a few callouses before hitting the big world. Perhaps the parents of anxious children need to work on this at home.
When they came for the communists, I said "He's next door. Take him away. Goddam commies."
children can't vote.
Boo hoo. Some of our most brilliant authors, scientists, mathematicians, etc may get a bad grade on one assignment because they have crushing social anxiety. This may even lower their overall grade. It's almost as if part of grading a person in school is determining how able people are to adapt to difficult, for them, circumstance and overcoming them as necessary.
You want to help out your students? Tell them to do their best and accept the consequences. Tell them to not give up (or be delusional). No one is saying to "crush their souls under your ... boot heel". Do you act the same way towards people who have difficultly with math, science, or language? Just give them an A and a pass because it's too hard?
I say this as an asshole who was always really good at math, science, not quite as good at language, and also has [not crushing] social anxiety. If you approach someone wrong, they may take it as soul crushing, but that doesn't make pushing people to do stuff they're anxious about is soul crushing. Honestly, I feel a lot worse for all the people who feel towards math the same as I feel towards social presentations. In life, that's a lot more soul crushing. Social interaction and presentations are things you have a lifetime to perfect and fuck up on, and people tend to be a lot more forgiving.
Yes, there will be lazy-ass bonespur children who just use this as an excuse to get out of a difficult assignment
But laziness is not why people feel reluctant to present, it's anxiety. A lot of people (myself very much included) just need that push to actually do the presentation, and then figure out that it's not quite as horrible an experience as anticipated; but if given the option we'd just as soon not do it in the first place. Of course everyone is different, but it seems to me this is not about recognising difference as much as it is about helping people to overcome their fears and gain skills that will be really beneficial to them in life.
Some of our most brilliant authors, scientists, mathematicians, etc were people who had crushing social anxiety and it would be a damn shame to penalize them so early in the game because of it.
Sure, but the best of those were the ones that didn't let their social anxiety get in the way of doing great things; in order to do that they had to figure out how to deal with it. Choosing to opt out doesn't seem like a real way of dealing with it to me.
First, I was very uncomfortable with presentations when I was in school. I even dread the "Introduce, and say something about yourself." If I am a subject expert then I am fine with presentations; if I am not presenting as a subject expert then it is still painful, we are talking cold sweat and strong stress indicators level of painful. I will frequently choose to not go to events and meetings where I will be forced to speak. So, yes, I do understand.
Secondly, having students speak is boring. I really don't want to listen to the same thing over and over again.
However, it is in my state curriculum and I am required, by the district, to have a public speaking component in all of my classes.
One time I made a mistake, A student said, in class, "What happens if I don't get up and speak?"
I told him that he would get a zero on that portion of the overall score. He replied with "Oh, Ok, I'll take a zero." It was infectious, all through the room as I called on students the response when it was their turn was to say "I'll take a zero too." This was done in a cheerful tone. They felt, and stated to others that they had outsmarted me, all they had to do was take a zero. I heard about this from another teacher because several students were laughing about it in her class.
At this point they receive a zero and they wait in the office. Do I like doing it? No; but I am required to have a public speaking component in all of my classes. That is non-negotiable.
I know it really upsets you anti-SJW people, but the truth is it's not that hard to make accommodations for students who are made up a little differently from the rest of us. Some of our most brilliant authors, scientists, mathematicians, etc were people who had crushing social anxiety and it would be a damn shame to penalize them so early in the game because of it.
There is a difference between penalizing them and helping them deal with their anxieties; because once they get in the real world it will penalize them for not having that skill unless they have a specialized talent to rely on. If they don't, the may find they've plateau in terms of upward mobility in a job. With proper help that anxiety can be overcome in many cases; but part of it is practicing and doing it. I say this as someone who has overcome those types of challenges and makes a living talking in front of people.
Yes, there will be lazy-ass bonespur children who just use this as an excuse to get out of a difficult assignment, but chances are they're not going to amount to much anyway unless they inherit some money, so I'd rather see ten of them skate than to lose one really talented student.
I'm coming at this from the point of view of a lifelong teacher in higher education (and elsewhere). It's your job to help out the students, not to crush their souls under your Jordan Peterson-esque boot heel.
There'll always be slackers; but in my experience a good teach can weed out the slackers from those who need help and encouragement. Unfortunately, a lot of what passes for education today is simply letting kids get by so the parents don't complain. I know teachers wh o have been told to let the kids do whatever they want and don't write them up so that the parent's doesn’t complain and the administration doesn't have to deal with problems. No wonder something like 70% of the teachers in our district plan on leaving as soon as they can retire or find a better job if they ar new to teaching.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
They shouldn't be forced to learn because it may make them uncomfortable to learn. /s
...doesn't even know where to start with that ridiculous run-on headline.
Not even university. At the community college I work for I often ask myself in meetings "are we working with adults in college or are we going to treat them like it is grade 13 and 14?"
What is sad is that we have dual enrollment students - juniors and seniors in high school who are completing half or all of an AA degree by the time they finish high school, real college credits not AP courses. Often times, they are more on the ball and in with it than the "traditional" students. Most older folks who are working and doing school are usually on top of things, and students in the military or just out of the military are extremely well organized and on top of their school work (no surprise).
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
I know it really upsets you anti-SJW people, but the truth is it's not that hard to make accommodations for students who are made up a little differently from the rest of us. Some of our most brilliant authors, scientists, mathematicians, etc were people who had crushing social anxiety and it would be a damn shame to penalize them so early in the game because of it.
Since we haven't implemented this yet I think we can say it didn't help all those famous people. What that does leave is if it would have harmed them or done nothing at all.
The failing here is that the softer and more protective we make school the softer and more defenseless we make the students before we throw them our to the wolves in the real world. We already do horrific damage by not teaching them to think and giving them roughly 0 education in world skills like how credit cards really work.
Lets face it lower schools are generally concerned with trying to pack and incredible amount of knowledge in the student's skulls in a really short amount of time. Rote wins the day, thinking can happen in college.. maybe. Why do you think Algebra is the most hated class, it is the only one that asks kids to think rather than remember.
So now they can hit the world brainless, debt ridden and now with no longer knowing how to talk in front of people.. unemployable, since they can't do interviews. This doesn't sound like winning to me.
To get ugly about it, if they let fear rule their life they are cowards. Welcome to Generation Scared.
In my day you'd get a boner indicating you were going to get called up to the board to answer and algebra question. When get called to the front you just had to hope your boner was better in the eyes of the class than the last kid's.
I puked multiple times in grade school and even my first year of college when I had to do public speaking. I did finally get over it and through repetition I don't even get nervous anymore. Having anxiety about public speaking isn't unusual and attempting to face and overcome it isn't unreasonable.
Sorry, but in real life you are eventually going to have to speak to others, even if it's just your job as a McDonalds register.
You are doing no favors by shielding people from talking to others. It may be rough but you have to at least try, otherwise go find a cabin in the woods and live out your days - in that case skip the classes as you'll not need them.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Seriously, just do it.
I was *extremely* awkward and shy in High School/College and *HATED* public speaking. It's still high on my list of things I look for to NOT have as part of my job description. I am seriously bad at this kind of thing, but the fear of it it doesn't control me.
I was forced to do this in High School and College so I KNOW that I can do a presentation to a group, even a group of strangers. Where I still actively avoid such duties, but I'm not paralyzed with fear when doing such things is necessary. I don't want a job as a motivational speaker, but it was the standing in front of a class that got me past the fear of speaking in public. I don't like it, but I can do it.
So I say, get up there and do it, even if you are afraid, even if you are not very good, even if you make a total mess of it. If it's really bad, do it more often, join Toast Masters, what ever you need to do to make public speaking something you can at least muddle though. Your career and self esteem will thank you.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Those students will always be more on the ball. The traditional students are a mix of people without the money for a university (so are probably working) and without the grades/motivation (so will always be behind). The high schoolers there are a mix of highly motivated individuals who work hard as hell and are excelling academically, and the just plain smart kids who may not work as hard but breeze through the work. The first two groups will have very few people who compare well with the second (and most of those will be in the money saving group).
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
... students have started calling out in-class presentations as discriminatory to those with anxiety, demanding that teachers offer alternative options ... a tweet posted by 15-year-old high school student declaring "Stop forcing students to present in front of the class and give them a choice not to" ...
Can't wait until he/she tries this at a job ...
But, more to the point... While I appreciate the difficulty presentations and public speaking may pose for those with anxiety disorders, people and life aren't always going to accommodate you. Learning to handle situations like this in a relatively consequence-free environment, like school, is to your benefit.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
It makes me uncomfortable to pay taxes. Yay, I'm excused from it! It makes serial killer uncomfortable not to kill. Yay, they can kill all they want!
Social Media connects people and brings people together!
BULL-FUCKING-SHIT.
All so-called 'social media' does is let you pretend to be 'social', while in reality it's giving you every excuse to not be social at all. Text on a screen, or even pictures on a screen, over the Internet is not a substitute for actually interacting, live and in person, with other people.
I also blame smartphones being used by children and teenagers for this. 'Texting' someone is also not being 'social' in any real sense, it's just another excuse to not interact with people in live settings.
We've now hamstrung an entire generation because of smartphones and 'social media'. They have 'social anxiety disorder', don't know how to interact with people in a live setting, are socially avoidant, and because of this they now will not develop properly into adults. They'd rather be shut-ins and text people instead of being out of their houses and with their peers.
Want to prevent your own kids from being reclusive shut-ins as adults? Get them off social media and take away their smartphones.
I have gym class anxiety, please change my C into an A.
I have testing anxiety, so, I should automatically pass the bar exam. I know of an attorney whom received 2x time on the California bar because he had testing anxiety, so that is almost an automatic pass.
We are raising a bunch of snow flakes that they are entitled to everything. There is free tuition, just not for dumbasses or double dumbasses.
I am triggered because you were not offended at what triggered me.
Fight Spammers!
Being able, as a human, to speak to other humans should be a required skill to graduate from public school. I don't think that's at all unreasonable. The number of kids today who have *anxiety* is either a direct result of phone addiction, or it's bullshit, or we've changed the definition of the word "anxiety" in the past few decades, and I didn't realize it. I think it's 100% fine to make children be able to speak to other children, in order to graduate high school.
I don't respond to AC's.
... down both legs when I had to give a speech in front of a class and the goddam subject was chosen for me.
I lectured in college about computer stuff and, because that was my wheelhouse, and I could answer questions on the fly or simply admit that I didn't know, I did well.
Later on I taught computer science on campus to adults after hours.
I even testified in court, drawing a scene and relating the facts and felt right at home.
I figured out what the problem was: When I was forced to make shit up, I did not feel I belonged on the goddam podium.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
"Stop forcing students to present in front of the class and give them a choice not to"
Don't they already have a choice, to pass or fail? Oh wait, no kid left behind means you can't fail a kid, because reasons.
It seems to me in middle school and high school we teach everyone a little bit of math, a little bit of science, a little bit of English, a little bit art, etc. Some people enjoy math and are good at it. Some people don't like math and aren't very good at it. People who don't like math shouldn't major in math at a university, but I think it makes sense for everyone to learn a little math, a little English, etc. Everyone should have some basic competency.
Same with making a presentation - not everyone enjoys doing that, and like it's good for everyone to learn a bit of math, it's probably good for everyone to do a couple of presentations and gain a tad bit of very basic competency. Most jobs will require a presentation at some point, every job will require taking a deep breath and and doing something you're not 100% comfortable with. Asking for a raise sure does, at most any job. Some basic competency in doing presenting, and a little bit of experience doing something that isn't easy, seems like a really beneficial thing.
Don't mistake normal anxiety with the kind suffered by students with a real anxiety disorder. It's not hard to tell the difference. After a few years, it was easy to determine. After a few decades, it was second nature.
You are welcome on my lawn.
That's all I'm saying here, and I'm being excoriated for it.
Not at the higher-ed level. You see it in K-12, but not so much above that.
You are welcome on my lawn.
"You can see a lot just by looking" - Yogi Berra
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Maybe you should go read a little bit about John Nash, and the accommodations that were made for him.
You are welcome on my lawn.
In the U.S. we have the Americans with Disabilities Act, which I'm sure applies here. Schools have to make reasonable accommodations for disabilities.
A student/parent should be able to ask for a reasonable accommodation if public speaking is likely to trigger some serious negative outcome, legitimately CAN'T reasonably perform the task (e.g. severe speech impediment, etc.) etc.
But this seems to be asking for more. That it makes a student "uncomfortable" doesn't rise to the need for reasonable accommodation.
I wonder how many of these students have no problem at all making YouTube Videos, live-streaming on their favorite social platform, or entertaining their friends in person with their latest misadventures?
Maybe a remedial program to "bridge" these "skills" to the valuable skill of public speaking...
You can never go wrong with a little Yogi wisdom.
You are welcome on my lawn.
If you can't stand up in front of me and explain why I should hire you, maybe you should apply at McDonalds.
If I interview you part will be explaining something to me with a pen and a whiteboard. Communication skills are non-negotiable.
...laura
Who said anything about liking public speaking? You don't have to like it, you just have to *do* it. One of those life skills that, unless you never have to interview in your life, is going to come in handy no matter how much you hate it.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
I've become accomplished at public speaking, but I understand where these students are coming from. Part of it is that some students are just facing too much stress, and having to speak out in class is just too much especially since some of these students don't really have the skills to deal with the stress.
Yeah, it's a fact of life _later_ in life. But there's no reason to be harsh on everyone who has a fear of it and make them go up right away. How about instead have counsellors for students to help them deal with these issues, and let students speak in class when they are ready. Sometimes, throwing someone in the deep end is actually too much.
"What lies behind us, and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us." Ralph Waldo Emerson
If somebody has trouble in that area, perhaps special classes or work-shops can be provided whereby the student works their way up: speak to progressively bigger groups/crowds for progressively longer times rather than dive into the deep end on Day One.
We all have weak areas that we probably need special classes and/or assistance with.
I've seen no definitive evidence that traumatizing children makes them better adults, and perhaps has a net negative impact. Barring clear evidence for either side of the cowboy-vs-coddle debate, I believe my suggestion is reasonable and common-sense. However, it does require resources that poorer students and/or districts cannot afford.
Table-ized A.I.
Whatever happened to picturing your audience naked?
Then again; boys in grade school, jr. high, and high school who try that technique would probably end up with an embarrassing in front of the class boner...
And in other cases, they may have such a vivid imagination that the imagery in their brain of some classmates naked could paralyze them even more to the point of them invoking cartoon physics and turning to actual stone... :)
So I guess picturing them naked may not be a good idea in most cases after all. Never mind. :)
This space unintentionally left blank.
The part that you miss is you completely limit your potential by reveling in your bubble. Enjoy it, but know you are less than you could be. Using your illness as a crutch only makes you a cripple.
Good-bye
Honestly, if you've got to your Junior year in high school and still hate public speaking then you're going to hate it for life.
Just one data point to the contrary, I hated speech class in high school though I don't remember if I took it junior or senior year. I definitely didn't want to be up in front of the class talking about anything. Now I enjoy speaking at conferences, provided that the topic is in my area of interest and expertise.
I would say that I started enjoying public speaking sometime after college.
Any scientist or engineer must be able to clearly and correctly explain things in front of an audience, even if that audience is larger. If somebody has anxiety (a serious mental condition, no argument) then they must find a way to still be able to do presentations to a group and interact with that group during and after the presentation or they will not be able to fulfill the requirements for the qualification they are aiming for. Sorry, no exceptions. You can't do it, you are not qualified.
I am all for helping them finding a solution or a workaround to the anxiety, but the presentation skills are a hard requirement.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
This brings up memories, not of myself but of one specific girl in high school that was absolutely terrified of doing presentations. the first time she went up in front of the class she barely did a minute and had her eyes stuck on her paper (which was blank actually) the whole time. She ran out of the class crying afterwards... the teacher went to speak with her and made her come back into class. The second the door closed everyone stood up and started clapping. Not surprisingly she did a lot better the other time around. That was freshman year... by the time Senior Year rolled around she was as comfortable as anyone in front of the class. I added her as a friend on facebook when facebook started becoming popular (yeah i'm old) and i was a bit surprised to learn she was actually working in theaters... The point is it`s not only the teachers that help people come out of their shell but also the people in the class that can make a difference. In today's individualistic society people are more likely to bully that person and that is the reason all those anxious kids don`t want to stand up in front of their peers
So which relative of yours landed you that job? Because nepotism is the only way I can think of that you managed to avoid having an interview.
...you think any of these Einsteins will make any correlation between this article and the "teens would rather text with their friends than talk to them in person" article earlier today?
Yeah....
I know it really upsets you anti-SJW people, but the truth is it's not that hard to make accommodations for students who are made up a little differently from the rest of us.
Whether or not it's difficult is irrelevant. Is it in the best interests of the student to do so?
Some of our most brilliant authors, scientists, mathematicians, etc were people who had crushing social anxiety and it would be a damn shame to penalize them so early in the game because of it.
It would be an even bigger damn shame to have brilliant authors, scientists, and mathematicians unable to function in a social environment, given that we're a social species. Also, how is this penalizing?
Yes, there will be lazy-ass bonespur children who just use this as an excuse to get out of a difficult assignment, but chances are they're not going to amount to much anyway unless they inherit some money, so I'd rather see ten of them skate than to lose one really talented student.
Some of our most brilliant authors, scientists, mathematicians, etc were people who were lazy...
I'm coming at this from the point of view of a lifelong teacher in higher education (and elsewhere). It's your job to help out the students, not to crush their souls under your Jordan Peterson-esque boot heel.
If making someone read a sheet of paper in front of 30 other people crushes their soul, they're not going to amount to much anyway....
Show me on the 1st Amendment bobblehead where the moderator touched you...
Indeed. If we all limited "work" to only things we like, not a lot of it would get done. An academic degree is a sign that you can read and write documents and that you can present things in front of people. For some degrees, that is the most important final job qualification. You must be able to competently do it. You are not required at all to "like" it. And yes, I know what anxiety looks like. You may be tripping sweat and shaking while doing this. You still need to be able to do it and that can only be achieved with practice. If you later go for a career where you have to do this only rarely, not a problem at all.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
The article doesn't appear to be talking about anxiety disorders. These aren't kids with a note from their doctor or something diagnosed. They're near-adults complaining that âoeNobody should be forced to do something that makes them uncomfortable"
Further, isn't âoeExposure therapyâ commonly used as a behavior therapy to help treat anxiety disorder?
Show me on the 1st Amendment bobblehead where the moderator touched you...
When you have somebody truly gifted, allowances can be made. This will be 0.1% or less of all cases though and hence is not really relevant to the discussion. For example, I recently had a student with a cognitive disability (and a doctor's note to that effect, verified by the academic institution) that makes him somewhat slower in reading comprehension, but not in actual ability to solve things. He got exactly the same examination, just some additional time and a bit of an extended possibility to ask questions regarding comprehension. But the actual requirement was not reduced one bit.
So I am all for making the public specking part a bit easier if there is a real, medically verified, problem but dropping it is out of the question.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
“Nobody should be forced to do something that makes them uncomfortable,”
Yes indeed. Like taking an exam, learning a subject they are not good at or learning about what happens when they screw up in their job....
If you cannot do things that you feel uncomfortable with, then you are disabled. I am all for supporting genuinely disabled persons, but they (with some exceptions) cannot be engineers or scientists. Sorry about that, the degree is not an award, but a certification of competence.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Millennials...proving once again to be the lamest generation yet.
http://www.themainewire.com/20...
1) doing things you don't like but have to IS something worth learning how to do.
2) if you don't like it, why don't you just come up in front of the class and explain why?
-Styopa
When it comes to lifelong attitudes, K-12 probably has more impact on someone than four years of college.
How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.
While I was going to College one of the best things I ever did for myself was get myself promoted to a supervisor on the front end of the grocery store I worked in. Yeah, it was constant panic attack for me for a while but within an admittedly lengthy period (most people wouldn't have taken as long and I was put on discipline a few times for making mistakes due to my nerves and was literally almost fired) I had that shit nailed and coming out of that I am far more well adjusted. After that experience I intentionally put myself through my rate of panic attacks drop to record lows and nowadays I literally just don't get them. In fact, for some absurd reason people generally regard me as an extrovert nowadays.
Now trust me, it fucking sucked ass initially but honestly I regard that move as equally valuable as the degree I got going to college. Also, don't get me wrong here, there are people that have very legitimate psychological issues well above and beyond what I used to have and my trial by fire experience might even be harmful for those types. Ultimately though, those people really are the minority and most shy people just need to force themselves out of their shells.
Shy people: The simple fact is you'll be far happier forcing yourself out of your shell. It will be awkward hell at first but humans are inherently social creatures. Ultimately, we need social contact to thrive.
Also, your sex life will probably be better in the end.
I ignore Anonymous Coward posts. If you want to discuss something, that's awesome. Log in.
You are missing a lot. Role-playing is not useless and focusing on the channel (speaker to audience) not the content is a good exercise for some things. Even presenting meaningless things is a good exercise for some things, for example on how to handle a disinterested audience. Sure, the school-setting is not the full deal. But you have to start somewhere or you will never get to the more advanced settings.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
You want to be a leader? It's a fact of life that a leader cannot be like this. It doesn't matter whether you're a man, a woman, gay, straight, pick a race, etc. Human beings simply don't want to follow someone that introverted. Human beings in positions of authority will not put someone that introverted into authority over people knowing that it will be systematically dysfunctional.
Not news. But now social media has popular opinions of CHILDREN dictating policies as if this was new information. WTF are the parents doing? It isn't parenting if they are backing up their kids on whatever popular whims.
I say this as someone who had major anxiety and I really don't like heights... it was far easier to jump out of an air plane the 1st time than it was to give a report. Suck it up you punks. Seriously.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
>A meaningless kind of role-playing. ... and you just described 90% of high school. The entire environment is horribly artificial, and generally manages to completely miss the point of even the education. Knowledge rots without usage, and it's a rare class that teaches you the skills to effectively use that knowledge outside of class.
I am sorry nobody challenged you to make your presentations worth the time to listen to, much less prepare. I seriously doubt you had any presentations that were literally regurgitating classroom content, where a little independent research couldn't have added a great deal of additional information and classroom merit (and maybe even improved your grade). I had some teachers early on that made it clear that was the *point* of giving a presentation, and never encountered one in all my years that objected. I was shy and pretty much always hated having to give presentations, but at least I learned early on that the point was to practice conveying information, wish I had caught on earlier that it was also about engaging the audience. If you can engage an initially utterly indifferent classroom audience about an arbitrary topic... that's a skill set that will serve you well whenever you need to convey information or influence decisions. Sort of throwing you into the lion's den on that front, but it's a large enough audience that you can probably interest at least one or two enough to pay attention. Probably help if there were an explicit speech-giving course squeezed in there at some point.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Or had "bone spurs"
Meh, I am fine with this. My kids will be taught how to address an audience and be forced to confront the minor fears all kids have. And they will turn out to be better rounded people as a result. I fully expect that they will make more money and command more popularity than other kids too, because charismatic people do well in life. If other people don't want to prepare their kids for success, it isn't my problem.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
I know many adults who've taken public speaking courses to get over their fear of it. And yet, kids are just told to do it by their teachers as if it's a perfectly natural rite of passage. Why isn't public speaking taught as a skill in school? It only comes naturally to a few, and I'm sure even those few could benefit from some instruction.
Dear Will, the plums were poisoned. -- Cheese Club
I had to present my grad school research to a smallish group of people once. So I got up there and did all the typical smooth talker thing, the opposite of how I really am, hand waving, always sounding confident, etc. Afterwards they shook my hand and said it was a good talk. When they left I then told my prof that I was nervous since I hadn't prepared as much as I should have and was winging most of it. She blew up and told me I wasn't being professional, yada yada yada. But it worked. I can still pull out that character and put on a good handwaving show when I need to, or even when listening remember to ask relevant questions to make up for the fact that I wasn't paying as much attention as I should. It's a useful skill.
(Later the prof was upset I hadn't signed up for a local conference, and she said "it doesn't matter if you're interested in the topic or not, you need to get out there and schmooze!" Good advice that's better to learn earlier than later.)
I find such situations extremely uncomfortable to the point where I think I might pass out.
But avoiding them is unthinkable.
You're supposed to be anxious in those situations, snowflake.
Let someone off for citing "anxiety" and anyone can get away with it. In fact some clever bullshitters can do this now to get time off work, special treatment in exams, assignments, etc.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
I was a student made up differently from everyone else. I was diagnosed with ADHD and as a result, I was given unlimited time on all tests, because that was mandated due to my disorder.
I NEVER once used that "privilege". I felt that my job would not offer me an unlimited time to do work, so that I should learn to grow up, focus the best I could, and develop strategies to workaround my disability. Learning the lessons of facing life head on and never giving up has served me well in life.
I have a real disorder. I also have high neuroticism and may have undiagnosed aspergers and/or depression & anxiety. On paper, I'm a mess. But I've always viewed my limitations as obstacles to overcome and I've overcome them. I now have a successful marriage, wonderful kids, and I get top reviews at work and lead a large group of engineers. Going into software development, I never thought I'd need public speaking, but I need it daily at work. It's one of my most needed skills.
Accommodating everyone who's made up a little different isn't the answer. There are a plenty of students with disorders, myself included. A small number of those students truly need serious accommodation to function, or they won't be able to grasp school. We need to accommodate those. But in general, we accommodate far too much and don't teach people the hard lesson that is "when you leave school, life in general won't give you a pass because of your disorder." Learning that life lesson is more valuable than any class assignment in school. The alternative is they leave school without having learned how to grow up. Then these immature people who are already struggling to function have the world crash around them when the real world happens. That's not good for them or society.
Btw, Jordan Peterson is tremendously helpful for many individuals in that group of people, because he tells them the truth:
Society as a whole doesn't care about your problems, and won't give you a pass. You can either grow up and do something with your life or accomplish little and live a life of depression. So set goals, grow up, and make something of your life.
I don't know what message you heard from Jordan Peterson, but that's actually an incredibly empowering message, not a soul crushing message. Many people have recovered from serious depression and drifting in life by listening to Jordan.
-=Lothsahn=-
Well, not much besides 1 or 2 times in the early years, nothing as a teen.
Considering I'd rather go to jail or something than publically speak, I think they should probably try and help kids with this.
Overcoming this is possible, but it's not going to be solved by a teacher saying "come to the class now or you'll get an F!" When getting an F is the lesser of the fears then guess what the result will be. Also they don't call this anxiety or phobia "crippling" because it's a minor case of stage fright.
I know exactly how the other side thinks. Anyone can do it, it's simple, stop being a crybaby, etc. I know because that's exactly what I tell myself when I find myself unable to get past my phobia. Nobody can beat me up over this more than I can beat myself up.
I'm a professor and I have anxiety about today's educational standards.
Can I just teach you something challenging and useful now?
Should passes be given for tests, reports, and projects?
We had a high school in our city which introduced a "no zero" policy that no student could even be given a zero in a test. They made the local headlines for firing a physics teacher who refused to not give a zero to students who, after repeated deadline extensions, cajoling etc. still refused to do and hand in assignments.
I got a laugh out of my colleagues in maths for suggesting the perfect solution to this. Don't give them zero, give them an imaginary number as a grade. It's consistent with the letter of the policy, it's an extremely appropriate grade for their imaginary work and, while the students may have learnt nothing else because they have done no work, they will have learnt what imaginary and complex numbers are!
Yep. And if an anxiety disorder makes you get bad grades on all your presentations because all you can do is whisper and shake -- as it did for me -- then so be it. Dyslexia will make you flunk spelling tests, dyscalculia will hurt your math grades, and of course people should have sympathy with that just as they should have sympathy with anxious presenters -- but the grades are supposed to appraise your demonstrated skills at something, not what unfair hurdles you have to overcome.
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I had to undo all the conditioned anxiety of this school presentation torture. But after that, it just became a great way to influence people to my PoV.
It's weird how everyone says all kids have to suffer in the same way they did. It's like a rape victim everyone has to be raped.
Further, isn't ÃoeExposure therapyà commonly used as a behavior therapy to help treat anxiety disorder?
Yes, and people who've have PTSD. One of the key components of social anxiety disorders is "easing the person into the world" to the point where they are comfortable enough to do so on their own. They don't have to interact, it's removing the fear that something bad is waiting out there for you. Because once you're already out there, you eventually realize that the only thing stopping you from doing something was you.
Om, nomnomnom...
This is precisely what Special Ed is for.
Who logs in to gdm? Not I, said the duck.
These geniouses who you talk about, how many of them had social anxiety. How many scientists do not have it?
Being able to talk to a group of your peers is a requirement. Bit like this that looks like a classroom https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik...
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Honestly, if you've got to your Junior year in high school and still hate public speaking then you're going to hate it for life.
I hold myself up as a counter example.
I hated public speaking in secondary school (Junior year is same as lower 6th in teh UK I think), and I certainly wasn't fond of it by that age. These days, I both like it and am decent at it. The education I got in school did take it from bloody awful to merely bad. The intervening few decades sanded off a good bit of the remaining badness.
If a big enough carrot is dangled (or a stick) you might get over it, but rather than spending time hoping for a carrot that might never come the kid's time is probably better spent being left the fuck alone to study.
There was neither a big carrot or stick. Everyone was expected to stand up and do it. Maybe the stick was the social pressure? Looking back that was one of the more valuable things in school, more so than the majority of the studying there.
Turns out people often benefit from being pushed out of their confort zones.
And having sat through far too many awful buisness presentations, I think we could do with much much more pblic speaking training.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Just one data point to the contrary, I hated speech class in high school though I don't remember if I took it junior or senior year. I definitely didn't want to be up in front of the class talking about anything. Now I enjoy speaking at conferences, provided that the topic is in my area of interest and expertise.
I would say that I started enjoying public speaking sometime after college.
This matches my experience. I'm glad for those times in school I was pushed, because I wouldn't have reached this stage without it.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
That suggests that the way it is taught in school is not very good, and could be improved to make it more enjoyable for more students.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Next up: Water wet! Pope catholic!
Ok, jokes aside. You have speaking anxiety? Quit winning and get some speaking and/or acting classes.
I did performing arts and even have a diploma in that and that has helped me to this very day. Highly recommended.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
A shy and timid big guy doing ballgame announcements in high school and college. He learned to break through. We all know the results. They may not be pretty at all times, but they were effective.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
DoN'T FoRCE ME To DeAL WiTH MY PRoBLEMS! FuCK YoU, THAT iS UNFAiR!
Doing something that you don't like because you've been instructed by an authority figure is part of life. Do it in school and learn from the experience.
I remember a school biology lesson where we were each given a cow's eyeball to dissect. One girl in the class was really grossed out and didn't want to do it. "It's part of the course work - you have to do it" was the blunt reply from the teacher. (And in response to a statement that the pupil was vegetarian "I'm not asking you to eat it, just cut it up")
For better or for worse, success in life goes to the most successful and that generally means people who are the total package -- intelligence, charisma, attractiveness, social skills and a stable, self-regulated individual psychology.
Most everyone isn't the total package, they're only the partial package and only get the partial rewards that come with partial success. Unfortunately we've reached the point where people feel like they deserve the full rewards for only partial success.
I think some of the problem, though, is that our economic system has become so dominated by a winner-take-all mindset that we've kind of eliminated the idea of partial rewards for partial success. It's become either total success and total rewards, or no rewards at all. Partial success has become about the same outcome as total failure.
And I think we've built that unfortunate bias into our educational system and ultimately into our kids' psychology. I think we've created a society that generates anxiety and fear because we wind up punishing any failure and making that failure status permanent. Get behind in 8th grade? Now you're fucked. No AP classes in high school, no good college admission, no good degree, and a lifetime of economic and social marginalization.
I realize that this isn't completely true -- people can and do overcome problems, but the idea is so pervasive that I think we've put an entire generation into a permanent state of anxiety.
The line "teachers are listening" bothers me. Sure they are listening, but they are listening to parents, who are allowing their children to set the rules. It shouldn't work that way.
He who forgets will be destined to remember. - EV
But in the past few years, students have started calling out in-class presentations as discriminatory to those with anxiety, demanding that teachers offer alternative options
Provided there's an actual medical justification (say a person is truly suffering from a verifiable anxiety disorder or something part of the autism spectrum), I don't think this is justifiable. If you can't come out of your shell when you are medically capable of doing then you shouldn't expect to be a functioning member of society.
The whole point of education is to prepare people to face the real world. Real world doesn't give a shit about real trauma (which is unfair mind you), so why should it give a shit about someone's discomfort?
Unless someone develops some sort of telepathy chip, this is ridiculous. I typically take heed of people's challenges, for there's a lot of real pain in this world. But his is fucking bollocks.
And a if a normal person who had a bad life experience, who *should* be sad, is incorrectly prescribed this same drug. They also feel like a zombie because they are dulled even from normal. They can deal better with stress because they feel it differently, and they become dependent on that to cope. They end up being OK with things they shouldn't be. I have coworkers like this. They have been on SSRIs since their teens and they don't say no or draw boundaries like they should because they don't feel all that they should. One coworker who was normal lost his spouse, got put on SSRIs and then tried to shoot the bouncer at a strip club. He didn't own a gun or go to strip clubs before the pills. The suicidal and homicidal side effects are well documented. These drugs can help people who are sad or anxious when they shouldn't be, particularly to get them out of bad thought patterns, but persistent use has life changing effects that aren't all upside even for the clinically depressed. And giving them to people dealing with loss or stress that is a result of actual life events that should cause those feelings is a cheap but horrible alternative to therapy.
refactor the law, its bloated, confusing and unmaintainable.
The one thing I envy about the American education system is its insistence for pupils to speak in public from an early age, starting with the Show-and-Tell sessions in pre-school. As a result, the vast majority of educated Americans, shy or otherwise, can stand up in front of crowd and do an at least passable job of presenting some material - certainly much better than people who were brought up in an education system where such a thing was not cultivated. What that kid is proposing is stupid and self-destructive - he/she might just as well be proposing to stop teaching mathematics to kids who have "math anxiety".
This 'proposal' to do something else is very WEAK indeed. :-)
Anxiety is there to get over.
If they never try to conquer their fears they never will get over their fears and then they stay weaklings.
I myself conquered a slight fear of heights by going paragliding:
First on the winch (we are in the Netherlands).
Try not to look down when grabbing the rope to release teh glider from the winch.
Later elsewhere in the mountains.
Heights up to 1600 meters.
Nothing extreme but a difference from a few hundred meters at home.
Now I got more comfortable doing that sport.
Will these millennials eventually understand things the same way?
Just because they are anxious should no excuse them. In fact, the exact opposite. They need more to get over it.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I have no problem speaking to crowds now but if they were naked that might be a different problem than what you imagine.
Women with tattoos, body piercings, too much make up, or that pencil in their eyebrows creep me the hell out and makes my stomach a little queasy. There was an otherwise very hot woman that had a bunch of tattoos, too much makeup, and penciled in eyebrows who made all the guys at work trip over themselves. I'm guessing she noticed that I wasn't interested and somehow found that attractive because she would try to flirt with me constantly. My office mate found it hilarious and would encourage her.
So, we should consider changing the course of public education because a 15 year old's tweet got a lot of likes? It's social media. You can find something to support any crackpot argument you want. It doesn't make it right, or scientific in any way. Teachers, just because the new digital whining gets more attention, it doesn't mean you need to suddenly kowtow to it.
Forcing students to speak does put a burden on those who are shy and anxious. It is also true that taking tests and earning grades is a larger burden for those who are stupid. The public school system in the US long ago adopted social promotion policies so that the stupid students are not unduly handicapped by their affliction, so why not let the shy, anxious ones also get a pass on actually standing up and saying anything in class? The fact that it is good for them and that giving talks actually teaches them something seems to be unimportant to those in charge, or we would never be having this discussion at all.
For those with a genuine diagnosed anxiety disorder, sure. (To do otherwise would be as stupid as saying that those with non-functional legs have to still do track and field.)
Because an otherwise healthy kid just happens to feel some anxiety? No.
Make any kind of exception you'd like as long as it goes on the grade transcript and isn't directly subject matter related. I mean if someone had damaged their vocal cords and literally couldn't speak, should you flunk their math grade? No. But I also wouldn't complain if the transcript said "Exemption: No oral presentations" and "Exemption: Oral exam conducted in writing". Giving people the impression you've done what people who normally take your class do when you actually haven't will lead to lots of bad outcomes.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
It's already that people prefer to text rather than chat. Let's make *sure* that every single person, except some of us old farts, are TERRIFIED to interact with anyone else in the real world.
You do this in a classroom - where it's safe - to learn to deal with fears. That way, when you are prepared when you have to function in real life.
I thought that was the whole idea?
Can we PLEASE do away with group projects? Yes, you will have to work with groups of people in your normal working life. Group projects are just an unnecessary exercise in frustration. Nobody wants to work together, you try as best you can to separate out the tasks, someone slacks, someone else puts most of it together. Most of the time it's 3x the work for less outcome.
Given that Wikipedia states:
Millennials [...] the early 1980s as starting birth years and the mid 1990s to early 2000s as ending birth years."
and
Generation Z [...] mid-1990s to mid-2000s as starting birth years.
Since the article mentions a 15yo, who would have been born in either 2002 or 2003 (depending on the birthday), you can clearly make the case that the person could fit either generation since there is clearly overlap.
I am reluctant to say that the GenZ kids will be be worse than the Millennials, but I am a slightly optimistic. Some of my grand-nieces and grand-nephews already seem to be much more motivated and realistic when compared to my nephews at the same ages. Only time will tell.
They should teach kids how to do this at a very early age, like in the first grade. Everyone does it all the way through school.
I'll increase society in general. Don't do your work, you get made fun of the next day.
So... my baby girl and I went to the store to buy her a new bed for her room. When the sales woman came up to us and started asking questions, my 14 year old daughter stiffened and froze. She panicked and started speaking sign language which she'd been learning from YouTube because a dainty little bubbly sales girl scared her so badly that she couldn't speak. When I explained to her "Sweety, you know I don't speak sign language" she started crying and couldn't move from her spot. I quickly explained to the sales clerk that she has a condition that makes it almost impossible for her to speak around strangers and asked her to bare with me for a minute. So my little girl ended up getting what I bought her instead of what she would have chosen... so... I'd call it a success since I probably saved close to $500 because of it :)
My daughter is in middle school and she IS SMART. She really is smart. She and I sit together factoring polynomials at Starbucks just for fun. She's really interested in science and physics specifically.
But she can't communicate.
We have now altered her entire school schedule to make sure she doesn't have any classes with anyone who she considers scary. No more Spanish class, no more gym class, no more music class. She has an iPhone she listens to death core and death metal on, she has a membership to a climbing place and she already speaks 2 languages and understands 4. So we're not concerned. Next year, she'll begin taking Mandarin.
So... why this long story... I always write books and also, it's necessary to understand this next part.
Now that she's in a class with people she's not particularly scared of, she can present a little better in front of class. She's still terrified of it, but she's able to communicate clearly... but with lots of bad jokes very few kids understand. She's getting better at it. In a few years, I'm hoping she can manage a lot better.
I am also Asperger's though that's a self-diagnosis. I actually speak publicly for weeks at a time... and I'm terrified by it... though no one would ever know it by looking. I have learned over time how to say just the right thing to make people choke on coffee or cookies. This week alone, I've made this happen three times. Kids really need to learn to speak... even if it's only around people who they are comfortable with. The only way to overcome the anxiety is to force it... and to be fair, the only way to force it is to make it more embarrassing not to speak than it would be to just suck it up and go with it.
That's all I'm saying here,
I think we are in violent agreement here. Good teachers know how to do their job and help those that are trying.
and I'm being excoriated for it.
What, on /. people take exception and respond without understanding what is said? I am shocked, shocked...
Not at the higher-ed level. You see it in K-12, but not so much above that.
A lot of those A students are surprised when they discover they really are B and C students and don't understand why. Anecdotally, I've spoken with several college professors who have had kid's parents call and complain about grades. Sooner or later they'll get hit over the head with a clue by four...
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.