Tuesday, March 18, 2008

how to make changes...

... one of the things I'm learning from the Generation ME book (Jean Twenge) is that Generation ME has been taught that self-esteem is all important and when that is somehow violated they become very angry.

Sadly, sometimes in debate people lose rounds -- in fact, at every tournament, in every round there is a winner and a loser. Sometimes people even give constructive (or not so constructive --oops, I just remembered another non-person) criticism to the losers.

I've noticed that over the last 10 years, the likelihood of debaters taking such information well has decreased. Recently, the incidents of debaters taking their anger out in on-line forums has increased.

This can't really be good for the event.... if trends continue, who will be willing to be honest?

1 comment:

HockeyNerd said...

Things are going very well, Patty! Thanks for asking!

I am sorry to have been one of those noisy kids when I was a senior. I still have a lot of maturing to do, but even in the span of a year, I can look back at the whining I did and say "Gosh, that was idiotic. Who cares about one silly debate round?"

So I wouldn't despair too much. I think it's mostly the immaturity of kids that don't have any perspective.