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PaperclipPerfector  11mo ago (text post)   27236 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 11, 2023

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All else being equal, a teacher who is seen by students as an individual human being, rather than as a bureaucrat, will likely be more effective on many dimensions.

This is a popular narrative that people in education, especially teachers, like to push (at least from my experience as a student), and as a result, plenty of former-students (i.e. almost everyone in the West) also seem to believe it, but I'm skeptical. Have we ever done any studies measuring stuff like "how much does a teacher bringing their hobbies into the classroom affects how much students see them as an individual versus a bureaucrat?" or "how does the students' perception of the teacher as an individual versus a bureaucrat affect the effectiveness of the teacher in [important dimensions], whether it be positive or negative, and how much?" or "if a teacher bringing their hobbies into the classroom and that does increase how much students see them as individuals, then does that particular method of increasing how they see the teachers as individuals cause an increase in effectiveness of the teacher in [important dimensions]?"

Given how convenient this narrative is for the teachers who tend to push it - how nice it is that bringing things I like into my workplace also makes me better at my work! - I think there should be a pretty high bar of evidence for this, to rise above the default presumption that it's a narrative that's just too convenient not to believe.

I think there should be a pretty high bar of evidence for this,

Why, if it does no harm? If a teacher has a pennant of his favorite sports team, or a picture of his family, etc. etc, what possible harm could that do? Shouldn't the burden of proof be on those who seek to bar such displays?

Why, if it does no harm?

The harm is the complexity of creating a policy that allows innocuous things but does not permit obnoxious or offensive things. The bureaucratic burden of having to decide that, say, posting pictures of a ski trip is fine, but posting pictures of a religious retreat is not, pictures of political protesting, or posting pictures of a gay wedding reception - it's all just so tiresome. It's a given that there are people who constantly push the limits of any policy in an obnoxious way, so it's entirely reasonable to set a simple bright-line rule that veers widely on the side of inoffensiveness.

And yet somehow thousands of schools manage to negotiate that ostensible labyrinth with little trouble.

Presumably those schools have fewer people trying to push the limits of the policy.

You can't assume that teachers are going to follow these policies in good faith, which is why we can't have nice things.

Fewer than what? When I said "thousands of schools manage to negotiate that ostensible labyrinth with little trouble," I meant virtually every school allows teachers to decorate their rooms as they see fit, as long as they don't violate controversial issues policies or include decorations that are inappropriate for children somehow. You are making a claim based on zero evidence of what constitutes the norm.

To rephrase: Thousands of schools manage to do it because the teachers in them are acting in good faith and aren't trying to push the limits. That doesn't prevent problems in other schools where the teachers are trying to push the limits.

No one claims there are no problems. I have seen such problems myself. But the claim that a blanket ban on all displays is necessary to address those problems is a claim that is not supported by any evidence.

How do you know the schools are successfully navigating it, rather than the controversial nature of said decorations just being hidden from parents, or schools just ignoring complaints?

Experience.

More importantly, the burden of proof is on schools to justify limitations on the personal liberty of their employees. So the burden lies on OP to show that the problem exists, not on me or anyone else to show that the problem does not exist.

Wait, how'd we get to civil liberties? We're talking about decorations on public property. As far as I know there is no such liberty and demanding the walls be painted blank white would violate no actual rights.

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How do you propose he do that? From what I heard American schools are notorious for blocking public scrutiny, so barring some teacher proudly uploading his controversial material to TikTok, how is the public supposed to know it's even happening?

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I'm not talking about policy. Merely believing whether or not that the narrative is true. I agree, it's one of those things, like food that FDA categorizes as Generally Recognized As Safe, that we have enough anecdotal evidence that they're not harmful that we don't have to prove it more rigorously. But the narrative isn't about harm.

I'm not talking about policy.

But OP was.

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