Toxic positivity does more harm than good

Re:Toxic positivity does more harm than good by bitcharmer on Saturday January 16, 2021 @03:23PM (#25805169)

I couldn't agree more. I'm a slavic expat in UK. I recently raised an issue with how teachers at our kids' school are struggling with utilising technology in productive ways. I also offered taking a day off work to help them get better at things like google classroom and google docs. I was labelled rude solely by pointing out the deficiencies. It didn't really matter that I offered constructive way of resolving this. According to the brits, I was rude because I pointed out areas of improvement. WTF?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Toxic positivity does more harm than good by learnstats2 on Saturday January 16, 2021 @04:56PM (#25805881)

I guess that you haven't fully understood the complete problem space of everything that a teacher has to master in order to be effective, and everything that a school has to provide resources for (including other areas of training).

Classroom teaching is not highly dependent on technology and low-tech solutions are often better.

Your suggested solution asks teachers to give up a day of their time (unpaid?) for what you think is important, without listening to what teachers actually find difficult about their jobs.

Even if what you are saying is right and genuinely helpful, it won't immediately look like a good solution to the teachers or to the administration.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Toxic positivity does more harm than good by arp242 on Saturday January 16, 2021 @05:58PM (#25806331)

The British way of pointing these things out is something along the lines of "Oh this is great, have you considered X?" Translated to English as you or I would understand it, it's more akin to "meh, it kinda sucks, X is better".

Or something like that anyway; I never really figured out this whole thing in the time I lived there.

Here's a chart to help you get started: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DL8gbEoX0AAcwAq?format=jpg&name=...

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Toxic positivity does more harm than good by stjohnswarts on Saturday January 16, 2021 @03:44PM (#25805333)

It's probably in the way you presented it. I'm sure there were positive things you could say about what they're doing. Then offer more help with topics you're an "expert" on without being patronizing. Nobody likes to be shit on. Start from neutral ground and call it improvements, not say "I don't like your shitty methods, here mine are better". No one will respond to that.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Toxic positivity does more harm than good by danielscrubs on Saturday January 16, 2021 @06:01PM (#25806340)

Brits always say things by wrapping it with 100 layers of cotton, slavs are known to be more straightforward and therefore rude in that sense. It’s not what you said but how probably, you have to hint that it might be a problem.

Personally I love cutting through bullshit but it it can often land wrong.

[ Parent | on HN ]