Real Social Skills

On clear assignments

June 3, 2014June 11, 2021 Real Social Skills

So, this happens a lot:

A teacher assigns a paper in very vague terms
And then when students ask for clarification, they refuse to give it
And think of this as providing students with freedom
But actually have something in mind and are upset when students don’t do it

For instance:

Student: How long should the paper be?
Teacher: As long as it needs to be.
This isn’t a helpful answer, because length is an important parameter.
A better answer would be something like “On the order of 3-5 pages, but it’s ok if it’s a bit longer or shorter”.

Or:

Student: What should I write about?
Teacher: Something that interests you about the topic
This is an unhelpful answer because a student who says something like that is asking for help.
You probably have a range in mind of what is and is not on topic, and it might not be as obvious to your students as it is to you
A better answer would be: It’s a fairly open assignment. I’m always surprised by the ideas students come up with that I hadn’t thought of, so I don’t like to be too prescriptive about topics. Would you like help figuring out a topic that will work for you?

Or:

Teacher (in response to students asking for clarification): There are no right or wrong answers
This is unhelpful, because there probably *is* a range of what you will consider correct.
Even if it doesn’t involve taking a particular position, there are attributes a correct answer will have, and it’s helpful to be explicit about them
If you’ve not given this kind of exam before, it might be hard for you to know in advance what a correct answer will look like
But it’s something you should be paying attention to as you get more experience at grading
If you want students to explicitly reference assigned material, say so. If you want them to bring in more outside material, say so. If you want them to consider specific positions, say say.
This may be obvious to you, but it’s not obvious to all of your students (including students who are entirely capable of doing the assignment the way you want if you tell them what it is)

Short version: When students ask for clarification of an assignment, help them to understand what it is you’re assigning. Scroll up for some specific examples.

The last word isn’t valuable

May 28, 2014June 11, 2021 Real Social Skills

So, I’ve seen this play out in a lot of blogs:

Someone says something controversial
Someone gets angry, and trashes their post
This goes back and forth for a long time
Neither side actually wants to talk to the other
(And they may both repeatedly tell one another to stop replying)
But both sides keep replying, because they want to get the last word
And they feel like if they let something go without a response, they’ve lost somehow

Thing is, the last word isn’t actually valuable. It doesn’t matter who replies last. It matters what’s true. If you’re right, you’re right whether or not you respond to what people say to you. If you’re wrong, replying one more time won’t make you any less wrong.

Chasing the last word just fills up your blog with views you don’t want on it, and fills up your attention with people you don’t actually want to talk to.

You can have much better conversations on your blog if you focus on talking to people you want to talk to. When you talk to people you respect who respect you, and when you listen to one another seriously, you can have amazing conversations.

This doesn’t mean form an echo chamber. This doesn’t mean only reblog people who think exactly like you. You can have very worthwhile interactions with people who disagree with you, even on really important things. That’s only possible if you’re both listening to one another and considering the points seriously, though.

Instead of chasing the last word, chase content.

Trauma aftermaths when you’re not sure what to think about the people who hurt you

May 25, 2014June 21, 2021 Real Social Skills

A reader asked:

Is it still considered abuse if the person doesn’t mean for it to be, or doesn’t think it is? My parents have always been really harmful for me (manipulative, intimidating, not taking my health concerns/disabilities seriously, screaming at me, etc.), but they won’t even say that the stuff they said/did caused harm.

Or they will say they didn’t know/couldn’t have known. And now that I’m an “adult” they’re a lot better, but it just makes them deny them ever being harmful to me. like, some of it I can kinda get.

They didn’t know I had fibro, so me sleeping too much they thought was just me being lazy. And like they didn’t know how them yelling made me shut down because Id just sit quietly.

They didn’t know I was queer and that the shit they’d say was hurtful to me.

But at the same time I’m just like, it all messed me up so bad. But was it “bad enough” to be considered abuse? Does it even matter now?

realsocialskills said:

It sounds like, whether or not it was their fault, you’ve been hurt very badly by people who had the responsibility for caring for you.

It also sounds like they haven’t acknowledged that.

I think that “is this bad enough to be considered abuse?” is probably a counterproductive question (because no matter how bad something was, you can *always* find a way to convince yourself that it was Not Real Abuse if you try hard enough). I think a better way of framing it is:

Was I hurt?
Were the people who hurt me culpable?
Are they still hurting me?
Where do I stand with them?

It seems like getting clear in your own head that you were hurt will help you. And that, regardless of the conclusions you come to about the extent to which your parents were at fault, your suffering is real and your hurt is real and things happened to you that shouldn’t have.

Even if all their mistakes were innocent, even if they had no culpability, that doesn’t erase your trauma. What happened to you matters. Finding a way to erase their culpability would not erase your hurt.

Further, denying that they hurt you in the past is something they’re doing to you *now*, in the present. Keep that in mind, too. It might have a lot of bearing on how you relate to them.

I don’t know them or you, and I don’t know how you should relate to them now. That’s a very personal choice.

Some people find that it’s better to drop the subject (either by not bringing it up or by refusing to discuss it). It might be that you can’t get them to understand, but that you can avoid the subject in the way that makes a relationship possible. If you go that route, it doesn’t mean that you have to forgive them or concede that anything that happened was ok. It just means that you’re not discussing it with them.

There are other approaches, but I’m not quite sure how to describe them.

Once the relief wears off

May 24, 2014June 11, 2021 Real Social Skills

In Frozen, the main character accidentally injures her sister with her magic ice powers as a young child. In reaction, her parents teach her that she has to suppress and hide her powers at all costs in order to protect others. In a dramatic moment, she accidentally releases her powers in front of everyone. She gives up on concealing her powers, and makes dramatic and demonstrative use of of them. And, since it is a Disney movie, there is a song.

There’s a particular part of the song that I think is an important description of what it’s like to come to terms with difference:

It’s funny how some distance makes everything seem small
And the fears that once controlled me can’t get to me at all.
Up here in the cold thin air I finally can breathe.
I know I left a life behind but I’m too relieved to grieve. (quote ends here)

When you first start coming to terms with a stigmatized difference and talking about it in public and accepting yourself, as first it’s mostly a relief.

At first, you’re too relieved to grieve or to notice the price you’re paying for living in the world as an openly disabled (or whatever else) person. The price for trying to be normal was so, so high, and when you give up on that, the relief of not paying that price anymore is huge.

But the relief wears off. Gradually, you start to notice the price you pay for standing your ground. You’ve realize that you’ve left a life behind in order to stand your ground and be who you are unapologetically. And that some aspects of that life were good, and that you can’t get them back.

You’ve lost a lot, and that can be hard to take once it sets in and the relief wears off. Some of the losses are direct, concrete things, like people who won’t trust you around children, hire you, or talk to you anymore. Others are more ephemeral – like, giving up the hope that you’d ever have the kind of respect that those who live without stigma enjoy. There are a lot of things, and what they are exactly differs for everyone. But there are a lot of them, and coming to terms with that kind of loss hurts.

It is ok to grieve the things you left behind in order to accept yourself, hold ground, and be who you are openly. Grieving over this loss doesn’t mean that you’re backsliding in self acceptance. It just the price you pay for holding your ground often sucks, and sometimes that can loom very large. This is not your fault.

Honor your grief. You shouldn’t have had to lose the things you’ve lost. It should have been yours by right. You should have been able to be who you are openly without losing all of that. It’s horrible that you have to make this choice. You don’t have to have a sunny attitude all the time; you can have grief and regret and sadness and still be ok and on the right path.

The price is high, and you never really stop paying it, but it’s worth it. You’re worth it. We’re worth it. We can stand together and hold ground and support one another. Know that others have been through the stage where the relief wears off and the grief sets in, and found that the pain is bearable and that we can support one another through it.

Laura Hershey’s book of ADAPT poetry “In The Way” helps.

You can only speak for yourself

May 21, 2014June 11, 2021 Real Social Skills

You are not your child’s voice. You are not the voice of the voiceless. You are not anyone’s voice, except your own.

You can advocate for others, but you can only speak for yourself.

You can translate. You can guess. You can do lots of things. You can advocate.

But you are you. You are not your child. Or your student. Or your sister. No matter how well you understand them. No matter how much you love them. You are not them. You are you.

They have a perspective of their own, and it is not the same as yours. Whether or not they can articulate it, whether or not anyone knows what it is, they have a perspective that is wholly their own.

When you speak, you are speaking from your own perspective; that is the only perspective you *can* speak from. You can never get inside another person’s head; you can never share their perspective; you can never be their voice.

Make sure that you keep in mind that the person you care about exists as a person separate from you, and that they disagree with you about some things; probably even some really important things. (No one 100% agrees with another person about everything.). Do not speak as though you and they are essentially the same person, or as though they automatically agree with everything you think. They are real, and their perspective matters.

A post for men about creepy men

May 19, 2014June 21, 2021 Real Social Skills

I wrote a post a while back about how some people are very good at getting away with doing intentionally creepy things by passing themselves off as just ~awkward~.

Recently, I noticed a particular pattern that plays out. While creeps can be any gender, there’s a gendered pattern by which creepy men get other men to help them be creepy:

A guy runs over the boundaries of women constantly
He makes them very uncomfortable and creeped out
But he doesn’t do that to guys, and
He doesn’t talk to guys about it in an unambiguous way, and
When he does it in front of guys, he finds a way to make it look deniable
And then some women complain to a man, maybe even a man in charge who is supposed to be responsible for preventing abuse in a space
and he has no idea what they are talking about, since he’s never the target or witness
And he’s had a lot of pleasant interactions with that guy
So he sympathizes with him, and thinks he must mean well but be have trouble with social skills
And then takes no action to get him to stop or to protect women
And so the group stays a place that is safe for predatory men, but not for the women they target

For example:

Mary, Jill, and Susan: Bill, Bob’s been making all of us really uncomfortable. He’s been sitting way too close, making innuendo after everything we say, and making excuses to touch us.
Bill: Wow, I’m surprised to hear that. Bob’s a nice guy, but he’s a little awkward. I’m sure he doesn’t mean anything by it. I’m not comfortable accusing him of something so serious from my position of authority.

What went wrong here?

Bill assumed that, if Bob was actually doing something wrong, he would have noticed.
Bill didn’t think he needed to listen to the women who were telling him about Bob’s creepy actions. He didn’t take seriously the possibility that they were right.
Bill assumed that women who were uncomfortable with Bob must be at fault; that they must be judging him too harshly or not understanding his awkwardness
Bill told women that he didn’t think that several women complaining about a guy was sufficient reason to think something was wrong
Bill assumed that innocently awkward men should not be confronted about inadvertantly creepy things they do, but rather women should shut up and let them be creepy

A rule of thumb for men:

If several women come to you saying that a man is being creepy towards them, assume that they are seeing something you aren’t
Listen to them about what they tell you
If you like the guy and have no idea what they’re talking about, that means that what he is doing is *not* innocent awkwardness.
If it was innocent awkwardness, he wouldn’t know how to hide it from other men
Men who are actually just awkward and bad at understanding boundaries also make *other men* uncomfortable
If a man is only making women uncomfortable but not men, that probably means he’s doing it on purpose
Take that possibility seriously, and listen to what women tell you about men

Short version: If you are a man, other men in your circle who are nice to you are creepy towards women. Don’t assume that if something was wrong that you would have noticed; creepy men are good at finding the lines of what other men will tolerate. Listen to women. They know better than you do whether a man is being creepy and threatening towards women; if they think something is wrong, listen and find out why. Don’t give predatory dudes who are nice to you cover to keep hurting women.

About apologies

May 18, 2014June 21, 2021 Real Social Skills

There are three situations in which apologizing is a good idea:

When you’ve been inadvertently rude:

Eg: If you carelessly bump into or trip someone
Or if you take away a chair away that a scooter/wheelchair user wants to sit on
It’s good to say “excuse me” or “sorry” in that situation
That kind of apology says implicitly “What I did was inadvertently rude. I don’t mean it as an insult, and I don’t think it’s ok to be rude to you.”
(It’s better not to say that explicitly, because saying it explicitly sounds like you’re pressuring them to reassure you that you’re a good person)

For the sake of someone you’ve hurt:

Sometimes when you hurt someone, apologizing is a way to undo some of the hurt.
Because it can be a way of saying “That wasn’t your fault, it was my fault, you deserved better and I’m sorry”
(That can be powerful, because people often think that it is their own fault when someone hurts them, and they are in fact often pressured into thinking that it’s their fault or that it didn’t happen by their entire social circle. If you apologize without offering any defense, that can go a long way towards fixing that, particularly if you are also honest with third parties)
If you hurt someone without apologizing, it can be an implied threat that you will do the same thing again in the future.
If you realize that what you did was wrong and apologize for doing it, the person you hurt might feel safer and be spared the stress of living under the implied threat of harm you’ve created
(but this is something you do for their sake, not yours. The point is to stop threatening them, not to get them to feel better about you, forgive you, or trust you. You don’t have any right to any of that and shouldn’t put pressure on them to give it. They’re allowed to be afraid of you, whether or not you feel you deserve it)

For your own sake:

Sometimes, you offend someone with power over you (eg: a boss, a teacher, a nurse, a social worker) without actually being in the wrong
Or a group with power over you (eg: an activist group)
And, in that case, it is often a good idea to apologize even if you have done nothing wrong
The point of apologizing in this case is to appease powerful people enough that they will stop hurting you
Everyone does this at some point; there’s no shame in it even though it can be humiliating
Sometimes it’s also good to draw a line and refuse to apologize and take the consequences of taking a stand. But you’re not going to be able to refuse every time you offend someone with power over you

It’s very important to be clear about which type of apology you are making:

If you’ve hurt someone, it’s important that the apology be for their sake and not yours
Sometimes if you hurt someone, they will be angry at you. They might also tell other people what you did. They might be afraid of you. They might avoid you. They probably think of you as a person who does the kind of thing you did to them (because you are: if you did the thing, you are the kind of person who does that thing). They might be afraid of you.
None of those things are wronging you; they have the right to do all of those things and you don’t have the right to stop them
Since all of those things hurt, it can feel tempting to use the scripts you use when you’re apologizing to a person who is wronging *you* to get them to stop.
It is not ok to do that when you’re the one who is in the wrong.
The point of your apology is to give them something, not to get something from them or make them stop doing something

If you’re really sorry, you have to be willing to admit what you did to third parties without defending yourself:

Eg: “Yes, they’re telling the truth. I wish I hadn’t done that, but I did, and they have every right to be angry with me”.
This will mean that some people *other than the person you’ve hurt directly* won’t trust you either
It means that some people whose respect you value will have a low opinion of you
You have to be willing to accept this without trying to gloss over what you have done; anything less is continuing the harm done to the person you hurt
Even if you have sincerely changed, you still did what you did, and no one has to trust you. Everyone gets to decide for themself

Sometimes it’s important not to apologize:

If you have reason to think that someone would find contact with you terrifying or otherwise unwelcome, leave them alone
In particularly, if someone you have hurt has told you not to contact them, do not contact them with an apology
When they said “don’t contact me”, they meant it. They did not mean “don’t contact me unless you’re sorry” or “don’t contact me unless you feel like you have a good reason”
It is not ok to violate that boundary, no matter how much you regret the circumstances leading up to it. Your victim does not owe you help in your healing.
If you’re considering contacting your victim to apologize even though you know they don’t want you to, you probably haven’t improved nearly enough to be capable of offering a sincere apology anyway. Go work on understanding boundaries and your actions some more before you think you’re all better.