Heart Warming Tale
TEACHER: All right Suzy. What is 9 + 2?
SUZY: 12?
(TEACHER smacks SUZY across the cheek. SUZY screams.)
TEACHER: No. Tell me, Suzy, what is 9 + 3?
SUZY: 11?
(TEACHER smacks SUZY again. SUZY screams again and tears start streaming from her face. She decides that getting hit is not a good thing so she starts to move away from TEACHER. TEACHER holds her down. SUZY struggles, crying and screaming.)
TEACHER: I don't understand it, Suzy. You are such a smart girl (smack) I don't know why you can't get this. (Smack) Try again. What is 9 + 2?
(SUZY is crying so hard she can't answer the question.)
TEACHER: (Smack) 9 + 2! You aren't leaving this room until you (smack) give me the right answer! What is 9 + 2?
SUZY: (sobbing uncontrollably)...10?
(Smack)
SUZY: 14?
(TEACHER smacks her again. SUZY flails madly to get away from the TEACHER, screams and cries.)
TEACHER: I don't know why you never learn anything!
We all know this is no way to teach Suzy how to add. So why do we think it will teach her to put on her shoes, stop squirming in a restaurant or to stop hitting her little brother?
SUZY: 12?
(TEACHER smacks SUZY across the cheek. SUZY screams.)
TEACHER: No. Tell me, Suzy, what is 9 + 3?
SUZY: 11?
(TEACHER smacks SUZY again. SUZY screams again and tears start streaming from her face. She decides that getting hit is not a good thing so she starts to move away from TEACHER. TEACHER holds her down. SUZY struggles, crying and screaming.)
TEACHER: I don't understand it, Suzy. You are such a smart girl (smack) I don't know why you can't get this. (Smack) Try again. What is 9 + 2?
(SUZY is crying so hard she can't answer the question.)
TEACHER: (Smack) 9 + 2! You aren't leaving this room until you (smack) give me the right answer! What is 9 + 2?
SUZY: (sobbing uncontrollably)...10?
(Smack)
SUZY: 14?
(TEACHER smacks her again. SUZY flails madly to get away from the TEACHER, screams and cries.)
TEACHER: I don't know why you never learn anything!
We all know this is no way to teach Suzy how to add. So why do we think it will teach her to put on her shoes, stop squirming in a restaurant or to stop hitting her little brother?
posted by Bree O'Connor at 12:31 PM
2 Comments:
Because teaching someone to add is trying to encourage a behaviour. Making a kid stop squirming or stop hitting their sibling are behaviours we wish to discourage.
To keep cows out of the yard required an electric fence. To get them into the barn at milking time required the promise of feed.
And it is possibly to teach Suzy to add that way. I can see her as an adult with an extreme phobia of balancing her checkbook.
Suzy is not a cow.
It would be nice if we could teach children WHY certain behaviors are expected of them. It's called developing a conscience. That is a different and more complex process than conditioned response. I would hope that we would expect more from each other than knee jerk reactions and irrational fear.
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