Preacherman's thread about grade inflation, and (specifically) the part about kids being told to say "I am..." followed be some sweetness-and-light adjective, reminded me of a program that was inflicted upon my class, way back when I was in the third grade. That'd put it in 1982 or so.
The program was called "I Am Lovable and Capable", and it purported to teach us third-graders about how we affect each other's self esteem, and how (if only we knew that) we could make sure that no one ever hurt anyone's feelings ever again. Whereupon war would cease, disease would disappear, and all unpleasantness would be banished from the world forever, amen. Or something like that. I remember that the psychologist who visited the classroom to run the program had the bright eyes I generally associate with fanatics and rabid animals. She was a True Believer, there was no doubt of that.
The premise of the program was this: At the beginning of the day, each student in the class would be issued a half-sheet of white paper, upon which we were to write the letters "IALAC" (the initials of the program) no less than three inches tall. Then we were to pin the piece of paper to the front of our shirts. All day long, if anything hurt our feelings, or caused our self esteem to lessen in any way, we were to tear off a piece of the paper (size proportional to the depth of the hurt we'd suffered) and write upon it the cruel circumstance that occasioned the tearing, and keep the torn bits in our pockets.
At the end of the day, we were to gather together "in an environment of sharing", and each student would, in turn, stand up and read each of his or her torn bits, thus enlightening all present about how they might have avoided crushing the current student's fragile ego.
Bright Eyed Psychologist Lady was especially looking forward to hearing what I had to say, because better than half of my IALAC sign was gone by the time we gathered. When it was my turn, I stood up, and pulled out the largest of my torn bits, looked right at her, and said, "All day long, the rest of the school has been laughing at us for having paper pinned to our shirts, like we were a bunch of retards."[0] Then I sat down, as the rest of the class nodded agreement.
The saddest part of the whole thing is that the psychologist (who, theoretically, knew something about how people think) didn't figure out in advance that children (which are basically pack animals) would sieze upon and stigmatize a group that was doing something that didn't conform to the social norms of the general school populace. She was shocked (
shocked) to find out that other kids had laughed at us.
I formed my opinion of the psychological profession on that day. With age and experience, my opinion hasn't changed much.
Was anyone else ever used as a guinea pig for some do-gooder social experiment in school?
-BP
- I have learned a certain amount of diplomacy in my life, but I had precious little at the time.
