So when I went through school you’d have two types of struggling kids:
Kid A would struggle to pass tests, but work hard and get every assignment done so they can keep their average in check. Teachers like this kid. Not that there’s anything wrong with this kid, but teachers project virtue on them sometimes just to shame kid B when kid B asks for consideration.
Kid B is who I assume many people here were and who I was. Kid B struggled to get from start to finish of all of the assignments that kept popping up and per haps couldn’t do the same task for very long. Kid B, however, could get high grades on most tests. If Kid B asks for some consideration to pass the class as they’ve gotten the information but weren’t able to finish all of the assignments and are told no, because Kid A exists and “I can stand someone who struggles with the tests but does the work, but I’ll never tolerate someone who is lazy”.
I have cptsd from years spent as kid B, but I’m pretty sure that’s a generic thing that happened to others as well. I had that quote shoved down my throat by a double digit number of adults. And the too-radical thought is this: I believe the teaching approach that holds kid A as a paragon of virtue and kid B as a lazy snot is quite discriminatory and maybe those are just two differently struggling kids. And maybe some consideration should be given to both. And maybe PTSD causing trauma should be withheld from both groups
Sorry just to clarify, I wasn’t involved in education at that time, but given that the only solution that’s ever worked for my task management (asynchronous, self directed) was rushed through during a life or death emergency, then that example used to prove it can’t happen is pretty rough for potential future me like people out there.
I don’t really know what you’re saying. I used to think as a child that learning online would just fix all my problems… I was pissed when the pandemic started and all these children could just go to school at home… but then I thought about it… I have every ability in the world right now to start my own business and to work at my own self-directed pace to make my own kind of money on free will alone… nobody tells me what to do or how to do it… do you know what I do with all of my free time? Absolutely fucking nothing I lay in bed all day because I don’t have to do anything.
As much as I hated it, being forced to do things like go to school or brush my teeth or get out of my bed in the morning or clean my room or eat food everyday… being forced to do those things actually made me a small bit better as a fucking human being… now that it’s all self-directed and free, I do nothing… and I was kid B all day all the way.
I have learned over my years that sometimes what we want isn’t what’s good for us in the long run. And sometimes you just got to suck it the fuck up, join the class, stop playing with bugs or reading books or whatever the fuck we both were doing to distract ourselves from terrible classes and awful teachers and shitty kids and abusive parents… and just do the fucking assignment. Get something done for once in our lives.
I’m with gimp. I was “essential” but had a few “work from home” days during the pandemic.
Guess who didn’t get any work done.
It’s not like I don’t have ideas … I could be so many things right now… I could make a video game, I could paint like 500 paintings on photo paper with my posca markers or my gel pens or my colored pencils or my oil pastels or my acrylics or my oil paint… I could finish crocheting a blanket with the bag of yarn I bought, I could make jewelry with all of my jewelry making equipment, I could read the hundreds of books that I have access to, I could write at least four books with the ideas in my head, I could build a website, I could make more music albums, I could do some exercise, I could color in, or draw some coloring books, I could cook or do baking, I could deconstruct and organize this house I live in because I live with a hoarder and I could try fixing his life, I could do so many different things… but I don’t because nobody tells me what to do anymore haha it’s so fucking annoying.
People Like Us need to be forced to do things, I think. Being forced to do things makes us uncomfortable, and we will always find a way to be comfortable, so we do the uncomfortable thing to get back to comfortable. If we are never forced out of our comfort zones we stay there and rot.
Sorry to reply to two of your comments, but to specifically address “people like us need to be forced to do things”, but people trying to force me and belittling me when I just could not in the end, is what gave me cptsd. There definitely are other ways than force, and for me force just isn’t even a way. For me, seeking out that sort of force would be a form of self harm that would only serve to drive and reinforce my (now dissipating) self hatred. Maybe for others it is a form of self harm that also gets results, or maybe for others it just isn’t harmful, I can’t be sure, but we can’t be forcing it on every kid.
I get what you’re saying, because I also get resistant when I’m “forced” to do something.
I think the force that they are referring to above is a more gentle “You know you want to/need to do this, and it’s now or never, so get to it!”
It’s not a force against our will, (like putting a gun to someone and saying do this thing you would never do.) but more like, X needs done and the consequences of not doing it now will be worse than the act of doing it.
If my wife asks me to take out the trash (which I have been ignoring for three days) before she gets home, I will do it because I want to be a good husband and I don’t want her to be upset with me, but if she hadn’t asked, it would probably be there for another three days.
In most cases the more aggressive forms of force came from well meaning people that started out with the type you describe, with a very gradual escalation. The problem is that my burnout was compounding, not reducing, over time when I tried to comply which would lead to this increasing dread over time and eventually would lead to just a total failure. When I reach total failure, they just keep on pressing until it’s a more overt form of abuse. The more overt forms only came out initially a very small number of times. So I really was talking about the sort of force you’re describing, but on a sort of spectrum that leads to the sort you were inferring.
Nail on the head.
But don’t forget the part when you think about all the things that you could be doing, and get too disappointed in yourself to do any of it.
I am a 100% work from home worker and have gotten more work done that way than ever before. Of course, all in person management leads to me shutting down and eventually losing my ability to do anything once I’m done with my reserve of will to push through the burnout.
I will admit there was a learning curve. I had to learn how to arrange my tasks so that it works for me. I don’t “sit down” for a 9-5 work day any more than I have a dedicated session to do any personal task. I wake up and I’m kind of on a cooldown management system. From the moment I get out of bed, and I don’t get out of bed until I’m rested and have a plan, I just pick what the best priority task would be to do, cool down from the picking, do any amount of work on that task that moves the needle, only ever pushing into potential burnout territory if I’ve fallen short of moving the needle at all. If it’s a rough day I’ll go back into cooldown after any needle movement at all. If it’s a great day I’ll get it and the next thing done. I cool down and task pick all day until I’m pretty much out of gas for the day.
Sometimes I’m netting a loss of ground on tasks but never go into free fall. Over the broader course of my life id say I’m netting a gain, but time will tell, and this lifestyle is really only possible as a remote working software developer. The only real exception to that is setting alarms for meetings, which are my only “schedule” requirement, and my alarm happens just in time to grab my laptop and get on.