tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7907752.post3926707827835549563..comments2024-03-27T07:18:39.229-05:00Comments on In Medias Res: If Any "Friendship Coach" Tries to Mess With my Daughters and Their Friends, I Swear I Will Kick Their AssUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger13125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7907752.post-22610833732497842822010-06-23T17:32:01.578-05:002010-06-23T17:32:01.578-05:00As more evidence on the BS of this article, Christ...As more evidence on the BS of this article, Christine Laycob has weighed in:<br /><br />I was quoted in an article on the cover of the Style Section of the New York Times on Thursday, June 17, 2010 entitled “A Best Friend? You Must be Kidding” by Hillary Stout. Ms. Stout used two unrelated quotes from my 30-minute discussion with her in February 2010 to come across as if I advocated against the concept of best friends in middle school and high school. The topic of best friends was not the focus of the interview; it was addressed as part of a general discussion about the different aspects of a middle school counselor’s duties. <br /><br />During my interview, I told Ms. Stout there is nothing wrong with middle and high school students having best friends. To the contrary, strong bonds between best friends can last a lifetime. I do not discourage or intrude upon best friend relationships – I recommend to parents that they work with their children on how to avoid “toxic” or “overly possessive” best friendships, where, for example, a friend might say “You’re my best friend so you cannot be friends with anyone else but me!” <br /><br />Parents often contact me when they are concerned their children lack a best friend. I reassure them that it is perfectly normal for students to have groups of friends and that the absence of a best friend is not a cause for concern. I do not think my role is to find best friends for students, nor is my role to break up such bonds amongst students. As a school counselor, I encourage students to engage in all such friendships that have a positive impact on their middle school years. <br /><br />This describes my brief discussion with Ms. Stout relating to “best friends”. Please understand only a small portion of my comments were actually used in the article, and they were used by Ms. Stout specifically to create the slant and argument Ms. Stout desired. <br /><br />Christine LaycobAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7907752.post-57763058999332095212010-06-22T21:33:07.800-05:002010-06-22T21:33:07.800-05:00Don't apologize. Your first instincts were cor...Don't apologize. Your first instincts were correct. 'Jolly Jay' Jacobs, whose first love according to the camps' website is 'camping' and from all appearances he has been involved with his 'love' full time his whole adult life -- When actually he somehow found time to get a law degree during those years, and oh by the way, he's State Chairman of the Democratic Party. Happy camper indeed.<br /><br />(The more obvious typos corrected version)SMSgt Machttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08126690689798203866noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7907752.post-87918285049067290892010-06-22T19:44:50.357-05:002010-06-22T19:44:50.357-05:00This comment has been removed by the author.SMSgt Machttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08126690689798203866noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7907752.post-714323742093734452010-06-21T19:49:30.544-05:002010-06-21T19:49:30.544-05:00Spanking, no matter what the circumstances, is chi...Spanking, no matter what the circumstances, is child abuse.<br /><br />Denying your child a best friend (breaking htem up if need be) is sound child-rearing.<br /><br />Got it.Milnenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7907752.post-18032621569858463462010-06-18T13:21:51.481-05:002010-06-18T13:21:51.481-05:00Oh, well then! If teachers are trained to do it as...Oh, well then! If teachers are trained to do it as a matter of course, it must be fine. What? Please don’t cop out now, just when we are establishing a connection with prevailing practice! “Group dynamics” really aren’t the sort of thing that can be managed (from above the subject in question, as it were) by a teacher armed only with a few clunky principles. That these kinds of principles—lecturing involves bad “passive learning,” break the class up into groups so everyone can be “active,” “keep mixing kids up [!]” to prevent ruts, and so on—are applied with little distinction from elementary school to ed school, not to mention in endless professional development workshops out in the real world and everywhere else education research has an influence, suggests that there is indeed something wrong here. It may seem that “it works,” but this is precisely because the real group dynamics that underlie these situations force people to play along as best they can, trying to say what they are supposed to say and either avoiding saying what they may really want to say or simply avoiding thinking altogether. If this is education, then, yes, these techniques work. But this is education designed to keep people on the surface of things. Almost invariably, in my considerable experience in these highly managed learning situations, a breakaway group discussion begins with people saying, either aloud or with their glances, “Okay, so what are we supposed to be discussing?” Then they try to quickly establish what they are supposed to be saying, and conversation gradually fizzles out from there. How the teachers/professors/facilitators running these classes can remain blind to the highly constricted group dynamics they are actually creating is a puzzle to me. No doubt, it has a lot to do with prevailing distortions in the understanding of what education is: namely, establishing learning objectives and then making sure that the students simply exhibit the right behaviors. But, at bottom for the individual teacher, these busy-busy breakaway-group techniques reflect an unwillingness to accept responsibility for truly guiding students through the intricacies of a subject that he or she is supposed to know well. To get to the point, if we can go along so easily agreeing that education and dialogue are things that can be managed by professional education and dialogue managers, then it is not such a stretch to start thinking that kids’ friendships need managing along similar principles, and it is not such an idle worry that teachers and parents could very well slip into this assumption, if they haven’t already. Precisely the issue is that it’s all become “simply a group dynamics thing.”Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7907752.post-1070509837905504362010-06-18T11:54:46.771-05:002010-06-18T11:54:46.771-05:00Russell,
Believe me, if this were a real trend ins...Russell,<br />Believe me, if this were a real trend instead of some made up bull, I would of heard of it by now, given that I work in the environment where this stuff is supposed to be completely pervasive - East Coast prep school. <br />Western DaveAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7907752.post-18966968399360685942010-06-17T23:15:46.729-05:002010-06-17T23:15:46.729-05:00Dave, thanks for sharing that perspective. After I...Dave, thanks for sharing that perspective. After I wrote this, I actually felt kind of embarrassed for having such an outraged reaction to the piece; as you note, what little the article actually mentions in terms of what these ill-named "friendship coaches" actually do is really "simply a group dynamics thing." And there are plenty of parallels to what teachers in the classroom do all the time. So why don't we just say that what I'm condemning is the ridiculous spin which the article puts on these efforts, suggesting that they amount to something that really <i>would</i> be truly atrocious: a concerted effort to disrupt, in the name of some boneheaded bit of pop psychology and liberal worry, the formation of best friends.Russell Arben Foxhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03366800726360134194noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7907752.post-40617586243953753902010-06-17T20:13:54.657-05:002010-06-17T20:13:54.657-05:00How the Times could confuse completely different t...How the Times could confuse completely different things is beyond me. I swear they are getting stupider by the day there. Working in reverse, the camp piece. I was a camp counselor in an outstanding outdoor ed program for 10 summers. One of the things we had to be careful about was kids who came from the same town or were friends at home. The wouldn't get the full experience if they were together too much, so different chore groups, different tents (2 person tents) for the first part of the summer. We were also careful to mix new and returning campers, kids who were there for the science with kids who were there to hike and kids who were there for the freedom/creativity of the program. Parts of our staff manual dated back to the forties and fifties and talked about setting these things up from the get go. It's simply a group dynamics thing. As a teacher, I'm careful to make sure I don't led friends work together too much because they tend to fall into ruts, always dividing up responsibility the same way. When you keep mixing kids up, they are forced to stretch themselves and present themselves in new ways. This is a legitimate goal and it works. The notion of a friendship counselor is a little nuts, but what that person does, from the articles' description is pretty standard stuff and has been for thirty or forty years if not longer.<br /><br />Western DaveAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7907752.post-5409581938932562342010-06-17T20:06:39.806-05:002010-06-17T20:06:39.806-05:00You know, that article sounds like something I'...You know, that article sounds like <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oneida_Community" rel="nofollow">something I've heard before...</a>Latter-day Guyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05445248333674006984noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7907752.post-38240995629013364902010-06-17T15:23:57.490-05:002010-06-17T15:23:57.490-05:00Thank you. I was hoping someone would give this t...Thank you. I was hoping someone would give this the smackdown that it deserves. Thank you.William Polleyhttp://www.williampolley.com/blognoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7907752.post-85621259302202268932010-06-17T14:47:01.992-05:002010-06-17T14:47:01.992-05:00This pushing towards everyone having big groups of...This pushing towards everyone having big groups of friends sounds like more of what Alan Jacobs called the war on introverts. I suppose it is best suited to the herd environment of school, but that's exactly what depresses me.Camassiahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09183087564923218343noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7907752.post-15971861471715384552010-06-17T14:40:55.813-05:002010-06-17T14:40:55.813-05:00That's messed up. Don't adults interfere ...That's messed up. Don't adults interfere with children's lives enough as it is? We really have to micromanage their social lives, too?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7907752.post-39764032167014539082010-06-17T09:36:09.855-05:002010-06-17T09:36:09.855-05:00Amen Brother Fox. Friendship consultants? What t...Amen Brother Fox. Friendship consultants? What the???<br /><br />bbellAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com