Hello friends. So, it’s time for our next call for subscriber writing. Please see here for details and make sure to email me at fredrik.deboer@gmail.com if you do submit to make my life easier. Deadline for this month is July 25th! Also, please use the following format in your submission if you can remember to:
Possibly dumb question about the Education Doesn't Work 2.0 article: how do we square the results showing smaller classrooms don't have an impact with the results showing small-group tutoring has a pretty large impact? Or to put it even more bluntly, why not make the whole school out of the small group tutoring?
Freddie--I did listen to the podcast with Bari Weiss and you are onto something with your hypothesis about why people are embracing mental illness (am I allowed to say that?) diagnoses as somehow a badge of identity. It reminds me of the deaf movement where deaf parents refused cochlear implants for their kids because they embraced "deaf" as an identity rather than a disability.
I think you are onto something really important when you talked about otherwise unremarkable people grasping for something that would make them remarkable. You also said that nobody likes hearing the atheist message which is summed up so well by the joke about the atheist hymn, "Cold, Cold, Empty Ground--Grandma's Food for Worms Now."
May I suggest that what is driving both the embracing of various spectrums, DSM diagnoses and other psychological distress is not so much a need to be "Special" but rather for a desperate need to be cared for. To be loved--not for what you do or what you are, but because you are you and you are part of the beloved community. As fucked up as it is, our society does at least make irritable gestures of care toward the disabled and the marginalized.
Churches performed a vital function in that they provided a beloved community. All you need to do is show up. When you can't show up, the community prays for you. Unconditional positive regard, when you grow up with it, is amazing. Having had that grace extended to you during childhood, it provides security when things are rough--being mortified by puberty, hating your body, being picked on, being lonely because you're out of step with your friends. All of that self doubt and self loathing is blunted on Sunday when you get dragged to church and you get affirmed and loved not for what you do or who you are, but for the fact that you are a child of the community and a child of God, who the community has vowed to love and support. It is unconditional (well it should be) and it models what Christianity teaches is divine love---completely unconditional.
Whether or not God is real, can you see the value in adolescents routinely showing up once or twice a week in a spiritual "Cheers bar" where everybody knows your name, where a few old people go out of their way to talk to you and hear what you have to say, and where they are just so tickled to see you show up?
Lacking that, can you see why kids are looking for ways to be cared for on a more macro level?
People see the public professions of care and support for those with disabilities and mental illnesses and mistake that for the unconditional positive regard I described--or hell, even see that their peers with psychological issues get more care and support from teachers, counselors, etc.
I started writing a novel that's been turning around in my head for the last several years. It's a "low fantasy" book set in an analogue of 18th century colonial America. Lets me write a coming-of-age story about a slave (and their path to freedom/eventual understanding that systems of power are the real enemy) without actually having to try and write from the black experience in particular (since I don't know that...though frankly no one in the U.S. really knows the lived experience of a slave today).
Anyway, I'm not sure I have a link unless it's to a publicly shared Google Doc, but I'd be willing to chip in if people are interested. I'm one of those people hyper interested in feedback.
Is July 1st the deadline for the written work from subscribers?
Possibly dumb question about the Education Doesn't Work 2.0 article: how do we square the results showing smaller classrooms don't have an impact with the results showing small-group tutoring has a pretty large impact? Or to put it even more bluntly, why not make the whole school out of the small group tutoring?
Thanks, Freddie. Do you have a link for the reader work you published the last time?
Freddie's interview with Bari Weiss on her podcast is really special. Hope everyone listens to it
Lately I’ve indulged in the schadenfreude of true crime documentaries/series. Any recommendations?
I’m not a fan of salacious stuff or overly gory things.
Does anyone know about stocks? I recently made ten dollars on Robinhood, and I’d like to reinvest it while prices are low.
I’m half hour in to Freddie with Bari. Had to take a break. This is too close to me. My siblings were same. Freddie!!
I will listen in entirety. But tough memories.
I’ve attracted 2 snark comments in a row. Maybe it’s me ….
Freddie--I did listen to the podcast with Bari Weiss and you are onto something with your hypothesis about why people are embracing mental illness (am I allowed to say that?) diagnoses as somehow a badge of identity. It reminds me of the deaf movement where deaf parents refused cochlear implants for their kids because they embraced "deaf" as an identity rather than a disability.
I think you are onto something really important when you talked about otherwise unremarkable people grasping for something that would make them remarkable. You also said that nobody likes hearing the atheist message which is summed up so well by the joke about the atheist hymn, "Cold, Cold, Empty Ground--Grandma's Food for Worms Now."
May I suggest that what is driving both the embracing of various spectrums, DSM diagnoses and other psychological distress is not so much a need to be "Special" but rather for a desperate need to be cared for. To be loved--not for what you do or what you are, but because you are you and you are part of the beloved community. As fucked up as it is, our society does at least make irritable gestures of care toward the disabled and the marginalized.
Churches performed a vital function in that they provided a beloved community. All you need to do is show up. When you can't show up, the community prays for you. Unconditional positive regard, when you grow up with it, is amazing. Having had that grace extended to you during childhood, it provides security when things are rough--being mortified by puberty, hating your body, being picked on, being lonely because you're out of step with your friends. All of that self doubt and self loathing is blunted on Sunday when you get dragged to church and you get affirmed and loved not for what you do or who you are, but for the fact that you are a child of the community and a child of God, who the community has vowed to love and support. It is unconditional (well it should be) and it models what Christianity teaches is divine love---completely unconditional.
Whether or not God is real, can you see the value in adolescents routinely showing up once or twice a week in a spiritual "Cheers bar" where everybody knows your name, where a few old people go out of their way to talk to you and hear what you have to say, and where they are just so tickled to see you show up?
Lacking that, can you see why kids are looking for ways to be cared for on a more macro level?
People see the public professions of care and support for those with disabilities and mental illnesses and mistake that for the unconditional positive regard I described--or hell, even see that their peers with psychological issues get more care and support from teachers, counselors, etc.
I started writing a novel that's been turning around in my head for the last several years. It's a "low fantasy" book set in an analogue of 18th century colonial America. Lets me write a coming-of-age story about a slave (and their path to freedom/eventual understanding that systems of power are the real enemy) without actually having to try and write from the black experience in particular (since I don't know that...though frankly no one in the U.S. really knows the lived experience of a slave today).
Anyway, I'm not sure I have a link unless it's to a publicly shared Google Doc, but I'd be willing to chip in if people are interested. I'm one of those people hyper interested in feedback.
You're pretty straight up on Honestly. Worth a sub.