http://www.csmonitor.com/The-Culture...-special-video
An interesting high school graduation speech that is apparently catching heat because the speaker, an English teacher at the school, told his kids they were "not special".
It is 12 minutes long, but if you have time it is worth the listen. A very good speech that will probably be taken out of context by the media.
"You're", got dammit.
Demerits for not closing with, "and get off my lawn."
Originally Posted by Brian Rubin
dang.
well, my education was not special.
*whacks with cane*
You may not be special, you might be interesting though.
you are unique, just like every other person in the world.
I guess if anyone knows a lot about living a life of quiet desperation, it's a high school english teacher.
Except maybe Pink Floyd.
My not special what?
McCullough, the son of the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian David McCullough
I wondered about that possibility.
A timely message, and valuable.
In teaching our children that they are all special, we may have taken the important message of self-empowerment too far. An increasingly litigious culture and the increasing significance of college education have encouraged and facilitated helicopter parenting of the worst sort, debilitating teachers and reducing childrens' sense of personal responsibility. It was also promoted the pursuit of accomplishment for its own sake, as well as a reduction in emphasis on rigorous competition and evaluation -- until college, until the workplace, until "real life," where people learn hash lessons too late to be able to adapt very easily. The celebration of everybody's opinion as equally valid, equally good, risks leaving children with the sense that right and wrong are matters of perspective; that their own perspective is somehow beyond question or criticism; and that they needn't respect authority figures because there will always be a parent to deflect consequences. In a world where your opinion always matters, how can you ever be wrong?
"Special" appeals to people who want to be noticed. It appeals to people who want to be the center of God's plan. It appeals to people who want to feel less alone, less undervalued, less overwhelmed. In other words, the desire to stand out is quintessentially human. But when we add entitlement and infallibility to a media environment in which you can essentially choose your own facts; an education system no longer teaching the fundamentals of rhetoric, research, and analysis; and a socio-economic environment in which our problems as a nation are so complex, and the proposed solutions so difficult to judge, that we are reduced to talking in abstracts, it's a recipe for disaster. It produces aggressively self-righteous voters who select their leaders by comparing only visions, not results, with egos too fragile to withstand compromise, let alone more direct criticism. Find a middle way? No! That implies that there were valid solutions other than those I selected myself. How can that be?!
In love with ourselves, we are increasingly living in denial.
Are you paid by the word?
You guessed it! A prize for this guy.
I happen to think that was fairly on the money.
I was highly offended not too far back when my (at the time) 5th grade girl was in a softball tournament and at the end they gave all the kids ribbons just for showing up.
I get that we don't precisely need cutthroat competition for 10yr olds, but at the same time I sure as hell don't believe rewarding everyone the same regardless of performance in a sport is sending any sort of appropriate message.
Yes, lets teach our children that they can show up and suck and in some cases not even try and still get rewarded because mommy says they're awesome. We wouldn't want to hurt their feelings by teaching them actual useful life lessons.
I nice antidote to the Job's commencement speech.
We're all fucked up in our own special ways.
You know what, if, as the responsible adults, we make sure that people growing up today has a) accessible and affordable education, b) a vibrant job market that welcomes young people, and c) a reasonable expectation having a family, getting sick or growing old will not automatically put them in dire straits, I think people can say whatever the fuck they want at commencement speeches, since that and the naming of generations is a complete sideshow anyway.
Thanks god!
Being special has ben a lot of trouble in my life. I want to be like everyone else as posible, and still be me (being me is awesome sometimes).
Why people want to be special? being normal is like a invisibility cape plus other superpowers, plus being special make really hard to find a partner in life
I wonder if his fat and psychopathic wife is going to thrash him Within inches of his life.
I don't think there's anything wrong with teaching kids that everyone is special in their own way, a unique ray of God, or whatever. Everyone is best at being who they are. "Everything that lives is holy" (Blake).
However, this can easily turn into something icky when it negates the validity of concepts like striving and competition, winning and losing, being-better-at and being-worse-at.
"Everyone's intrinsic specialness" and "winning/losing" are on different levels - one is spiritual and metaphysical, the other practical and pragmatic. A background sense of the universal aspect of one's nature and the everything's-ultimately-perfect-as-it-is-ness of existence, in fact gives one the ability to bounce back from defeat more easily, and the heart to carry on - but as a practical matter (in terms of voluntary action undertaken) one is still engaged, precisely, in trying to win the game.
If you bleed the spiritual into the practical you get "political correctness" (I mean this as a general syndrome, not just the Left-wing kind - "magical thinking" might be less contentious :) ), if you bleed the practical into the spiritual you get ... religion.
I've been told I'm special a lot. Usually right when they're putting my mittens on my sleeves in the summer.
In hiring high level employees, I tell my recruiting manager that the most important quality I look for is someone who can use critical thinking and problem solving skills. It amazes me how few people actually possess this.
I agree that I don't think kids are learning this by having everything handed to them and telling them that it's always someone else's fault.
The most pernicious problem that I see arising from this almost aggressive celebration of the individual is it primes people to take offense when their opinions are challenged. Whether it's about basic life choices or a discreet opinion about, say, how to manage interest rates, we can no longer have civil discussions in this country without somebody becoming frantically upset.
Don't agree with me? Why, you're judging me! Who are you to judge?!
Voters are beginning to reward ideologies who explicitly promise to put a wrench in the gears of government. This owes in large part to the fact that people who take a different view of things are understood to be making implied criticisms of those on the other side of the political fence.
Holy shit. He was one of my high school English teachers. Mr. McCullough was one of my favorite teachers. Had a very sarcastic sense of humor. Forgot he'd moved to Massachusetts.
You may be right, I may be crazy.
When I'm looking for replacements for relatively entry-level jobs (5-10 years of experience), I use more simple language. "critical thinking and problem solving skills" seems boilerplate these days, it's on every job description and everyone says they've got it
My words are (basically the same I suppose): "I want someone who can figure things out on their own", and "once they figure it out, I want them to be able to tell me something I don't already know".
My major interview question is me asking for a few examples of when they've figured out what they needed and then mastered it on their own. I'd say 90% of candidates die right there.
I became tired of new hires waiting to be provided a flow-diagram of every single thought and task they have. Of course, my job is to guide them to, and/or provide them with the appropriate resources for their jobs. Basic training is also part of my role. But I'm not a professor; after a few times of correcting their work that's enough.
Last edited by DTG; 06-10-2012 at 10:06 AM.
This is not new. 19th century politics makes today look polite.
But you just might be the lunatic he's looking for?
And he's trading in his Chevy for a Cadillacacacacacac...
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