I’ve always had bad grades, so for that one test my mom studied very hard with me. After grades were given back, my teacher came up to me and literally said that the performance was worthy of a 2 (B) but she’s given me a 4 (D) again, to motivate me.
Needless to say, motivation was not achieved.
Furthermore, it’s one of the core experiences that led me to mentally check out of the school system eventually and still fuels my distrust of authorities and institutions to this day, almost 20 years later. Well done Frau Bauer.
Well to be fair, if she and others hadn’t shown me how ridiculous this kind of hierarchical thinking is, I wouldn’t have been angry enough to quit all the jobs and relationships I didn’t feel appreciated at. So I kinda wouldn’t be who I am without it. But I still wish I didn’t have to be who I am to get by.
I don’t want to be too “we live in a society” but I noticed that - since I’m a man / was a boy - people in care giving roles usually assumed I want to prove myself. Because All Boys™ want to prove themselves all of the time. So it’s good to be as adversarial as possible, actually. To grow their character.
Regarding her generation and type of character, I wouldn’t be too surprised to learn that she thought she was actually doing me a favor. Also she co-taught our class with another teacher who quite openly disliked boys in general and me in particular. Which was probably also a factor.
It was grade 4, the night before I had committed to memory the spelling and order of 20 words the teacher told us would be in a test. When the test started I wrote it out perfectly. She accused me of cheating in front of the class. I rewrote the entire list in front of her to prove my innocence. Afterwards I became less motivated.
I’ve always had bad grades, so for that one test my mom studied very hard with me. After grades were given back, my teacher came up to me and literally said that the performance was worthy of a 2 (B) but she’s given me a 4 (D) again, to motivate me.
Needless to say, motivation was not achieved.
Furthermore, it’s one of the core experiences that led me to mentally check out of the school system eventually and still fuels my distrust of authorities and institutions to this day, almost 20 years later. Well done Frau Bauer.
Yeah…she didn’t tell you what she was motivating you for…
Well to be fair, if she and others hadn’t shown me how ridiculous this kind of hierarchical thinking is, I wouldn’t have been angry enough to quit all the jobs and relationships I didn’t feel appreciated at. So I kinda wouldn’t be who I am without it. But I still wish I didn’t have to be who I am to get by.
That’s insane! Why wouldn’t she have given you an A to motivate you / reward you for the hard work!?
I don’t want to be too “we live in a society” but I noticed that - since I’m a man / was a boy - people in care giving roles usually assumed I want to prove myself. Because All Boys™ want to prove themselves all of the time. So it’s good to be as adversarial as possible, actually. To grow their character.
Regarding her generation and type of character, I wouldn’t be too surprised to learn that she thought she was actually doing me a favor. Also she co-taught our class with another teacher who quite openly disliked boys in general and me in particular. Which was probably also a factor.
It was grade 4, the night before I had committed to memory the spelling and order of 20 words the teacher told us would be in a test. When the test started I wrote it out perfectly. She accused me of cheating in front of the class. I rewrote the entire list in front of her to prove my innocence. Afterwards I became less motivated.