The Fora: A Higher Education Community

Quote from: Langue_doc on Today at 06:03:52 AMThe latest, from the NYT.

QuoteChaos and Oppression
The central question for universities responding to protests is whether to prioritize the preservation of order or the desire of students to denounce oppression.

It's fine for students to "denounce" oppression; what they need to be made to understand that history is a long game. Whatever they do right now is unlikely to have any visible impact, but the concerted actions of people with influence and authority, over time, will change things for the better.

Agree with ap168 about the awkwardness. A lot of this is learning to "perform" social conventions convincingly.

Also, with over-explaining, we also inadvertently raise the question of if we have to leave right away, why are we spending so much time explaining?

Quote from: smallcleanrat on Today at 07:02:47 AM

Quote from: spork on Today at 03:16:38 AM

Quote from: smallcleanrat on April 24, 2024, 06:47:32 PM[. . .]

Why is the short version rude?

[. . .]

Where do all these rules and protocols come from anyway?

[. . .]

Don't know how much science is in the book, but the answer to your questions: culture. The dominant norm in the USA and Canada is to utter a couple of short sentences in this situation, rather than only "I'm leaving now." Are there exceptions? Yes. But usually something like "I've got to get to class now. See you later" is sufficient.

It gets even more fun when interacting with people who have different cultural norms.

Does a longer explanation really sound fake?

It can be perceived as fake.  Mainly it just sounds awkward.  I sometimes catch myself trying to over-explain things, and realize afterward that I should have kept it simple.  I hear others do it too.  So it's not a disastrous thing to do.  Just something to be aware of and to try compensating for if you have a strong tendency in that direction.

I've always been, and to some extent still am, very socially awkward.  The main thing I've found that helps is simply to practice and pay attention until I get better over time.  Some of us--and I do mean that "us"--are not as fast to learn these things as others. 

Think of it as learning a language.  Social interactions are governed by a sort of "language" of commonly understood practices.  Reading up about it can be helpful, but the only way to really learn it is to do it. 

There is also a saying that "Anything worth doing is worth doing badly."  In other words, get over the fear of mistakes, make them, and learn from them as part of the process of eventually gaining competency.  This is a principle of things that really can't be learned well without real-world practices, such as language learning. 

Though I inherited much of my mother's aptitude for language learning, I was never able to overcome my inhibitions about making mistakes to put in the necessary practice of speaking other languages to develop real fluency in them.  I let these inhibitions stifle my own learning and potential in that area.  When it came to developing day-to-day social skills, I simply had no choice but to keep practicing until I got better.  It was a painful process at times, but it had to be done.  It was well worth doing.

Quote from: Hibush on April 23, 2024, 05:28:14 AMThat scholarship should have a lot of value, and deserves to be known.

That's very kind, thanks for your encouragement. I'll consider your suggestion regarding podcasters.

Quote from: apl68 on April 24, 2024, 10:35:36 AMYou mean...stuff actually happens in the first 10 minutes of class each day?  Who knew?

We've had staff members who were the same way about the first 10 minutes of the work day.  Or at least they tried to be that way....

Well, nothing really gets going at the office until mid-morning anyway. Why bother showing up before then?

/snarkoff

;)

Arguing with people who are sure they are correct is a worthless waste of time.

Quote from: spork on Today at 03:16:38 AM

Quote from: smallcleanrat on April 24, 2024, 06:47:32 PM[. . .]

Why is the short version rude?

[. . .]

Where do all these rules and protocols come from anyway?

[. . .]

Don't know how much science is in the book, but the answer to your questions: culture. The dominant norm in the USA and Canada is to utter a couple of short sentences in this situation, rather than only "I'm leaving now." Are there exceptions? Yes. But usually something like "I've got to get to class now. See you later" is sufficient.

It gets even more fun when interacting with people who have different cultural norms.

Does a longer explanation really sound fake?

Good morning!

A bit past genius with pangram so far.  Yesterday we needed bee buddy for partita.  Yikes!

No luck on LB.  Congrats, ciao_yall!

Happy solving!

Morning!

QBwATHICG for partita. LB was a quick zirconia-ambush.

Happy solving!

We have a mother robin on the nest she's built by our bedroom AC unit--right up against the plastic pull-out wing that fits the unit to the width of the window frame.  There was one egg earlier this week, when ALHS took a look while she was off the nest; I don't know if there are more by now.

I need to get our hummer feeders out this weekend. Also, the red wing blackbirds have been back for a couple of weeks already.