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[quote=Anonymous]From an earlier thread (2010) where the first name question was discussed:

My introduction to this practice was a GDS open house in which Kevin Barr talked about what it was like the first time he heard a kid respond to him by prefacing his remarks with "Well Kevin, I think you're wrong." He said he realized that his approach and answer took a different form than it might have had the sentence begun "Mr. Barr, I disagree." Basically, these are arguments (in this case over some text in an English class) that will and should be won based on persuasion rather than pulling rank. And that's the kind of teacher he wanted to be.

I understood where he was coming from and basically agreed. I found it really unnerving when I first started teaching college and kids just wrote down everything I said. You want them to think, to question, to argue. Not just to write it down, memorize it, and reproduce it on command. And as a teacher, I've always felt I got more respect when I had to earn it than when it was automatic. If kids don't challenge and probe, they're just deferring to institutional authority rather than understanding and respecting your position and the reasoning/work/knowledge that underlies it.

In that sense, I don't think teachers are like bosses. High school can be more complicated than college in that regard, but I grew up with parents who were certainly willing and able to explicitly distinguish between situations where best argument wins regardless of who makes it and those where rank could/should be pulled. And the fact that they would acknowledge this distinction made me respect them more -- not less. Mom's always right is obvious BS. Mom's in charge and this is a command decision is a much more reasonable position.[/quote]

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