Job Discussion Forums

[flamethrower]

[rupert shellgame]

I really hope you guys get this issue worked out, cuz it's, ya know, really important.

Maybe it would help you to check out Godwin's Law, which states that "as a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one." I'm sure that can apply to forums too.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law

I've learned my lesson about forums.

[flamethrower]

Greetings, earthlings! It has been a while since I last posted here. I hope you are all doing fine.

You know, I've been thinking about this thread for a while and come to the conclusion that you guys are geniuses! What do I mean? Well, for a while I've been interested in the North America Indian experience with residential schools and recently in the news, there were articles about "killing fields" and mass graves found at some of them. If it weren't for your discussion, I'd have never come up with a great idea for further study.

My research question will be something like this: I suspect that wherever aboriginal populations are found, there will be, or has historically been, residential schools incarcerating their children. Furthermore, I suspect that these residential schools amount(ed) to little more than concentratin camps in miniature. How can I prove or disprove these suspicions?

As for Godwin's Law, I don't think it applies to this thread. After all, somebody made the dreadful historically myopic comment: "Erm, good photos - your point is very obtuse; hitting children leads to mass warcrimes? Very good. Amazing we don't have thousands of killing fields throughout Europe..." I mean, if you're going to lay something like that lying around, somebody is bound to pick it up!

[rupert shellgame]

It applies majorly. To understand why, look back at the the beginning of the thread, not the middle or end.

[yamahuh]

[mandalayroad]

[yamahuh]

Are they in oil or water?

[lumber Jack]

Getting rid of corporal punishment is good as long as it is done in the knowledge that a very well-run system and attitude needs to be in place to maintain order once it is gone.

If society blindly gets rid of corporal punishment with the general attitude that all the teachers who used it were unspeakable sadisitic animals and that touching children in any way is an abuse of rights, and thus make adults afraid to confront the worst children (who are sometimes prone to use violence themselves) under any circumstances, you get social breakdown.

Social breakdown is ugly, frightening, violent and cruel. Who knows, you may end up on the sharp end of it yourself. So if you think you are a kindly hero for going overboard criticizing somebody making reasonably measured comments like BJ, think again. He didn't advocate "canning" after all. The point he is making, I hope, is that most children in most countries down the ages, including those middle-aged and above alive now, have experienced very harsh physical discipline, and yet now a great fuss may be made even about the tiniest things. It is hard to control kids in that atmosphere.

[yamahuh]

Agreed; that is why they should all be canned and whiped.
Although for hygienic reasons perhaps they should be whiped before they are canned ... it just makes more sense.


I think BJ's user name was supposed to be DJ but he spelt it wrong.

[englishmaster]

What an amazingly amusing thread! The sad aspect of it is that it illustrates the lack of resolve of many TEFLers to take classroom discipline seriously--no doubt because many TEFLers didn't have any themselves when they were in school. The breakdown in school discipline traces to a wider breakdown in decent, responsible attitudes in general society, especially responsible parenting. Contemporary pop culture has a lot to do with it.

However, I believe that with self-control and determination, it is possible to eventually make classroom discipline triumph without violence, unless the little tykes are violent themselves. Their parents and Taiwanese teachers don't help, of course.

When I taught at a Taiwanese "university" for older brats with juvenile mental ages at best, I once lost my temper and kicked a "student's" desk, so I know it's easy to make this mistake. Nevertheless, I think many TEFLers need to revise their work ethic, assuming they have one, and promote normal classroom behavior.

[lumber Jack]

I don't see anything amusing at all in whipping children, or in some people being so naive about human nature that they think that children are easily controlled, or do not need to be. I'm think your post is merely designed to tell us how superior you are. EFL teachers have a culture-clash/authority problem on top of a discipline problem - it is a delicate matter.