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Jon Santiago's avatar

This was something that’s hit me at just the right time. Thanks for writing.

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Oshyan's avatar

I wholeheartedly agree, learning coping strategies and resilience is very important for growing up to be happy and capable! But I don't think the way you've framed it here is all that healthy, and frankly I think it borders a little on toxic. Perhaps I misread you or its overly simplified and doesn't reflect your more full, nuanced view, but it comes across to me essentially as "Don't coddle people, you gotta toughen them up by letting people be a-holes to each other".

Certainly the merit awards should not be suppressed and all that. But the way to fix that is not the complete opposite, letting school be the battleground of comparison and othering, etc. that it often comes to. I would have really liked to see some more overt appeal to adding coping *skill* curriculum, mental health tools and services (not pathological but supportive), etc. The solution to over-correcting towards "safe space" is not "go back to how it was", it's a third way, a well-considered, measured, and evidence-based approach to raising better humans. We already know the way we've "always" done things is highly problematic.

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