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Culture War Roundup for the week of July 10, 2023

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If you're talking about further/continuing education for adults, I'd agree. (Even 20 year olds might or might not be capable of sitting down, shutting up and learning).

But if we mean "average bunch of 12-15 year old kids, particularly boys" then nope. You can't use "your job depends on you not openly sassing your boss, which is me" against them to get them to sit down, shut up, and learn.

But I have a secret superweapon -- I was a 12-15 y.o. boy, and know what kind of thing they are interested in. This allows me to manipulate them into learning stuff without making the mistake of trying to be bossy. (which was pretty common with the teacher-teachers at my high school anyways, as I recall)

I do think that 'actual deep knowledge of the material' is a pretty significant advantage here -- kids can tell when you are just regurgitating the textbook at them and don't actually know what you are talking about -- which I would think would be quite common in someone who has a four-year teaching degree with a couple of STEM electives in the mix teaching grade 11/12 physics/math/CS/Chemistry/etc.