Posted by williams
on 7/10/2009, 11:35 pm, in reply to "Re: We've Done it Again! Reviews in SJ-R..."
First, let me preface this by saying that I went back and re-read this, and I realize that this rant makes me sound 70 years old, but I don't care, I'm gonna say it anyway.
While I agree that this isn't the first time this argument has been raised about the paper, the thing that bothers me is the fact that someone at the sj-r is actually listening to it and proposing solutions to the problem. I can't, however, say that it surprises me.
Those of us in education, could have told you that this day would come. What you have to realize is that people who are young adults now were raised in a world where every kid made the team. Not only that, all kids played in the game for an equal number of minutes whether they sucked or not, because God forbid they should ever find out that they're not good at something. Nobody ever did anything bad or wrong, they all had reasons for their behavior. Criticism wasn't doled out, only encouragment. However, on a team where everybody plays the same number of minutes, what motivation does either the player with talent or the player without talent have to improve?
My kids get mad at me when I direct a show at school because whenever I give them notes, I have a list of things I want fixed, but I rarely give notes of things they did right. But if you did it right, why would I need to give that as a note? Weren't you supposed to do it right? I mean, isn't that what you're doing up there in the first place? If I don't tell you it's wrong, why don't you assume that it's right, because the fact of the matter is that you know that if it was wrong, I'd tell you. Right?
Well, the fact of the matter is that my kids put on great shows because they don't settle for average because I don't settle for average. Everybody doesn't have to win, everybody is not perfect, and the irony is that the reason that we must have failure is so that we can recognize excellence. Excellence does not exist in a world of average.
So, unless the criticism is wrong (although I usually tend agree with most of them), then it needs to stay objective, and definitely, they can't sugarcoat it because of complaints from moms, dads, performers, or the uninformed public; that's just ridiculous.
But maybe that's just me.
Responses: