Teachable Moments
It's the first Saturday of Spring Break here. The great thing about Spring Break is that it comes with two weekends. I'm pretty much fork-tender this morning, so there is an urge to just post the links and be done with it, but what with the site being dominated by Coulter and Libby this past week, education diaries were few and mostly disappeared pretty fast.
There is a teaching-related item that has arisen, however. And I guess it is up to me to address it a bit more than as I have tried to do the last couple of days in the obscure corners of the comments to some diaries, corners so obscure that they are likely hidden from the majority of the DailyKos populace.
Some people have credited me with teaching them something about tolerance, fairness, and respect. If I have done so through my efforts since I have been here, I am pleased. That was my purpose when I changed from being a passive reader of to a participant in the community here at DailyKos. I was completely aboveboard about that in my first diary. Seven Recs and 9 comments. I guess most people didn't read it.
I'm sure that I have annoyed the crap out of a lot of people, especially the diarists in whose comments the teaching I was trying to accomplish took place. Sorry about that. I do not control when and where the teachable moment is going to occur. Discussions of gender-related topics was probably not on your mind when you posted the diary involved. For the most part, the Coulter "jokes" were irrelevant as well. They could have been ignored, but again, that's not why I came here.
I tried to teach in those teachable moments. That takes patience. It takes repetition. It takes multiple approaches sometimes. Tolerance, fairness, and respect are not easy to teach. If it were easy, we'd be seeing more of it. But the harder something is to teach, the more important it is to teacj it. I've always believed that, especially when it comes to social interaction and cultural appreciation.
I didn't teach people by using the rod. I wasn't out yelling at people and troll-rating their comments, not unless they became purposely abusive (yes, I am a Trusted User. I have a never-ending supply of mojo that is generated by my poems). Some people may have thought they were being yelled at, but I was always willing to be quite patient with people, to try and try again. Often I was not successful. Ask boilerman10 about our long, protracted discussions. Sometimes I convinced someone to stop the behavior. It's a long hard road to change society by changing people one at a time. But what else is a life for?
I've expressed my personal opinion about the current discussion of community standards that is now surrounding my efforts a few times in the past couple of days:
I would prefer that a poster...
...who is not someone who chronically engages in the behavior first be asked why they are doing so, then have it explained to them why it is hurtful. If they continue (usually the defensive behavior illuminates worse issues the commenter has), that's maybe when TRing should be considered.
My personal viewpoint is that words should come first, unless what is said is just beyond acceptability.
It would actually be better if the commenter...
...were willing to discuss the comment. Maybe some learning could take place.
I think what concerns me is that some of the people who get troll-rated are a little, shall we say, high-strung. They view the TR as a personal affront rather than a statement about the comment. It can sometimes take the better part of several hours to "talk them down" to a place where they can be reasoned with. Not everyone has the time or patience to do that.
What I fear is that some will just harden in their feelings toward us. I've seen some evidence of that in the past couple of days. Comments like (paraphrased), "People will TR people for a Coulter joke but won't TR anti-Israel..." hint at this feeling.
I understand the desire to remove that which offends, to excise it from our midst. I especially understand people who don't want gender discussions popping up which are irrelevant to their diary, wishing instead that people to focus on what they have written. And I do not even wish to control anyone else's actions.
I understand the desire to protect newly-found friends. I'm especially pleased to see so many other transgender people speak-up recently. Many's the time I have been told that I was totally self-interested since I was the only one of us here. People now know differently.
I understand the anger people feel when they they see disrespect directed towards people time after time. But the way to eliminate the disrespect is to teach, not spank.
At least that's my opinion.
Oh, my God (or lack thereof), I've struck meta! But then, all teaching is meta.
--Robyn Elaine Serven --Bloomfield College, NJ |