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Showing posts with the label Poisonous pedagogy

Proving Others Wrong Remains the Worst Decision I Have Made in Life

   It remains in a sense a mystery to me why some people believe that tearing someone down is a way to build them up. From my limited ability to see things from those individuals' perspectives, they believe that when they criticise someone, it will get through their defences, making them change as a means of retaliating. If that is an accurate and fair assessment - I think it is because some of them admit to having such an intention - doesn't the need for change they have, to their minds, successfully fostered stem from anger, rage and even vengeance? Won't those negative feelings they have cultivated damage one's sense of self? Why do they expect 'You are useless. I don't believe in you,' to be taken as motivational, supportive words, when they could have said the opposite, thereby being truthful?    My decision to prove my teachers wrong at primary school still haunted me, dragging me down at my lowest moments. Apparently in order to encourage me to do be