Week 2 dq post teacher Jessica Holmes

took me a couple days to think about a sufficient response, in my life I have found all kinds of problems trying to convey what I was actually trying to say. Communication if you do not shore a common dictionary, communication fails very quickly. If you say x and yoru audience hears y, that failure in communication can and sometimes does lead to rather intense problems.

In a previous gradschool, one of the teachers I was assigned we butted heads. That teacher absolutely hated my “attitude problem”, and I spent 16 weeks struggling to understand what the teachers dictionary was. Two classes back to back 8 weeks a piece. Struggled the entire 16 weeks. Dozens of emails and two separate 45 plus minute phone calls to compare dictionaries. All efforts on my side were for not. The rage from the teacher became so intense the end result was an intolerable classroom situation. Which lead to an intolerable school situation. All because from the teacher “how dare anyone suggest that the way I do things is not the way everyone does things”. During the first call, the teacher informed me (now this was a 45 minute conversation) about 8 times how much when this person was a student they grew from upset to angry to enraged, to beside themsevles with disgust about “veering off topic”. This teacher was so dead set on “staying on topic” that for some subjects one word out of place was enough to get a private comment “stay on topic”. The teachers perspective was so intense regarding “this classroom discussion” will stay on topic to a point of not being academic. All of my fellow students were the same, at the start of the class nice chats were heard, by the end everyone was writing word limits and the same sentences in different word sequences. In effect “just write word for word exactly what is expected”, and not a single sentence more.

It is interesting how comparing dictionaries comes with an emotional component.

A second part of said emotional component is how angry those who think their dictionary is entirely open and easy to understand react horrifically when your dictionary and theirs not only dod not match that close but has huge gaps in it. The “I am easy” what they actually mean is “I am a petite tyrant, follow me ‘unwritten rules’ letter for letter and I am your best friend”. However if you point out how much of a rules lawyer tyrant they are, even if that pointing out is the most innocent mistake. Those emotional types of people react quickly and usually very unpleasantly.

For children, trying to learn a second culture and its associated language this type of interaction could lead to very bad future interactions.