----- Original Message -----
From: "Marc Carter" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS)"
<tips@acsun.frostburg.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, November 20, 2007 11:21 AM
Subject: RE: [tips] Am I expecting too much?
Oh, my. Apparently I was wrong; some of us *are* blaming the students.
Well, I'm not. Social pressures are powerful. They just are. It's a
rare individual indeed who can consistently resist it, and I believe
that the reason that students *can* resist it -- when they can --
because of people like us who encourage it.
If social pressures are so powerful, and only rare individuals can
resist it, then people living in the same social group ought to be virtually
100% identical which they are not. If "we" are the saviors of these poor
blighted souls, battered about by forces beyond their control and which they
cannot resist, how the hell did "we" get so powerful as to resist the
"social pressures" against which our students are utterly helpless? How are
"we" different? Perhaps we read more and watch less TV?
But then, I'm a determinist. :) I'm much more rarely angry at students
as a result.
I am also a determinist. Everything has a cause. But what are the
causes? I am not angry at students. But they are responsible for their own
development and education. If I am angry, it is at ideas which have the
effect of robbing people of self-determination.
Paul Okami
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