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I teared up during Obama's speech. We (agnostics that we are) thank the God/the universe for Obama during blessing at our dinner (when we have sit-down dinners). I love the guy. This has nothing to do with him.
But the point the otherwise moron brought up from Texas is actually one that ought to be made more and is supported by work in the area of "the rhetoric of therapeutic discourse" and is a research interest of mine.
I CAN'T STAND HOW SCHOOLS FORCE CHILDREN TO REVEAL PERSONAL INFORMATION ABOUT THEMSELVES AND THEN GRADE AND/OR PUNISH THEM FOR IT.
Obama's "lesson plan" wasn't out of the ordinary. That's the problem. My girls have been constantly asked to describe all sorts of personal feelings by teachers in utterly inappropriate settings. God forbid you express a feeling like anger or rage or feeling violent or you'll be sent to the counselor or suspended, esp if you're male. My 8-year-old was told she couldn't draw blood dripping from a picture of a dragon being killed that she was illustrating related to a book she was reading, because it was too "violent." Even the "prompts" for the 4th grade end of year writing test are to write something personal about your life, and YOU'RE GRADED ON THE CONTENT, not just the grammar.
Teachers are not trained therapists. A lot of school counselors aren't even trained that well. This is a problem in college writing instruction too. I wrote my master's thesis on it, from a feminist/Foucauldian perspective. Foucault wrote 20? years ago that we've "become a singularly confessing society." Sometimes people think they're helping kids by getting them to express, express, express, but what they're doing is violating their personal boundaries and sometimes, when asking someone to recall a trauma, one is _re_ traumatizing them by forcing them to engage in public disclosure.
There's a misunderstanding that there's some core truth way deep inside that's screaming to get out, but when people--especially children--are forced to disclose something, anything, that seems personal, in order to fulfill some social expectation, that act of expressing becomes an act of disciplining discourse, of guiding in advance what's acceptable to say under the guise of providing freedom. It's like disgusting corporate retreats where you're forced to disclose something, but everyone knows if you speak the real truth you'll get hammered back in the workplace, if not outright fired.
Kids learn that they have to fake these disclosing activities, and I encourage my children too, now. I say, figure out how you personally feel, but either frame it with more distance or else make something up. Setting school and career goals is one thing, but a kid's weight, and eating, and feelings, and insecurities, are none of the school's business, unless a parent goes to the school to ask for help or children are so clearly abused that they need social services.
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