Re: [xmca] Youth Saving Youth

[Nancy Mack <nancy.mack@wright.edu>]

My hope is that new interests in studying emotion can help.
 I have been rereading Vygotsky's extensive discussion about emotion. I like how he connects emotion to thought, imagination, and will. He also discusses higher and lower emotions and then states that it is not emotion that is bad but how we decide to direct it with intellect.

I would think that we need to move beyond labeling people as bullies and victims and get to talking about strategies to perceive, analyze, and respond to feelings. Adolescents have strong feelings. They need strategies for intellectualizing their responses. Sometimes words do not mean what they say. We say mean things before we think. It takes imagination to see another way to break through an angry communication pattern. In some cases, young people do not know how to say things in a nice way.
I remember teaching group process to middle schoolers, and we had to brainstorm a list of things to say to a group member who was off task, too quiet, or too talkative. The kids really did not have the social skills to say what they wanted in a nice way.

I guess I need that list for an upcoming PTR meeting.
Ha.

Nancy




Nancy Mack

Professor of English 
Wright State University

http://www.wright.edu/~nancy.mack





----- Original Message -----
From: Steve Gabosch <stevegabosch@me.com>
Date: Tuesday, October 12, 2010 2:21 am
Subject: Re: [xmca] Youth Saving Youth
To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>

> Beth, yes, the youth activism and solidarity aspect really 
> struck me,  
> too.  I found it inspiring.
> 
> Mike, your question is loaded! - about how are we, whoever we 
> may be,  
> supposed to behave once we "as a society" see the horrendous 
> effects  
> that harassment, bullying, violations of privacy rights, etc. 
> can have  
> on people, including being a direct cause of suicide.
> 
> Another recent NY Times article on bullying is attached below.
> 
> My first response to your question Mike is to think in terms 
> such  
> as:   the need for a new surge of understanding of the 
> fundamental  
> concept that "an injury to one is an injury to all" among 
> students and  
> working people - and a new willingness to act on this basic 
> concept of  
> human solidarity.  Perhaps the video clip Beth pointed us 
> to is a peek  
> at the beginnings of such a surge among youth.  I believe 
> this will  
> happen, sooner or later.  Hope springs eternal.
> 
> A less political line of inquiry, but possibly one that is more 
> within  
> what CHAT can offer, might be questions about **why** harassment 
> and  
> bullying occur.  Why does it occur at all?  Is it 
> increasing?  If it  
> is increasing - why?  Even if it is just a matter of people 
> becoming  
> more generally conscious of it - why is that happening?  
> Clearly, gay  
> students and other students that are "different" (itself a 
> very  
> peculiar concept) have been and continue to be on the front line 
> of  
> receiving this kind of awful treatment.  But why does this 
> bullying,  
> harassment violations of privacy rights, (not to mention 
> violence)  
> occur in the first place?  Why does bullying exist?
> 
> I'm attaching a Word file of a recent NY Times article on 
> bullying  
> among 5 to 8 year old girls.  The editors classified this 
> article  
> under "Cultural Studies."  The article explains that this 
> particular  
> phenomenon was not formally studied until the mid-1990's, so it 
> is not  
> empirically clear what is new in terms of bullying among young 
> girls  
> and whether it has actually been there all along.  The 
> article talks  
> about a Stop Bullying Now! campaign being organized by the 
> government,  
> and a Bullying Prevention Summit, which was sponsored by the 
> Dept of  
> Education in April 2010.  Bullying is clearly becoming a 
> major media  
> issue, and in some places, an openly discussed school 
> issue.  But is  
> anything really changing?
> 
> At the level of research on "why does bullying exist," my 
> intuitions  
> lead me toward an approach that starts with how broadly, deeply 
> and  
> pervasively the **competition between workers** for jobs and 
> places in  
> society has historically impacted social relations.  This 
> is not a new  
> idea, but it is often buried under many others.  (The 
> article I am  
> attaching on bullying among young girls, for example, 
> suggests  
> possible reasons such as: an increase in TV shows with 
> "socially  
> aggressive" females, reality TV, and other media; hormones 
> kicking in  
> at younger ages; mean girls coming from mean mothers; 
> bullying  
> reflecting the larger society; and maybe parents are just more 
> hyper- 
> aware of it these days.)  I would lean toward examining 
> the  
> competition between workers as a central cause, both as a 
> permanent  
> feature of modern society, and also as something that keeps 
> changing,  
> sometimes rapidly, such as in the current economy.  I am 
> including as  
> "workers" here all layers of the workforce, present and past - 
> that  
> is, the unemployed, the retired, those with fixed incomes, 
> the  
> unskilled, semiskilled, skilled, semiprofessional, professional, 
> self- 
> employed, farmers, owners of small businesses, etc. etc. - in 
> other  
> words, essentially, everyone but those in the upper 
> classes.  As is  
> now commonly acknowledged by most thinking people, especially 
> since  
> the Black civil rights movement and the women's movement, 
> this  
> competition (whatever its causes, which people disagree over - 
> is it  
> human nature, or education, or culture, or the social system? 
> etc.)  
> this competition historically manifests itself in many **overt** 
> ways  
> - discrimination, class frictions, racism, sexism, 
> heterosexism,  
> xenophobia, many, many forms of prejudice, etc.  Struggling 
> against  
> these overt forms has become an increasingly prominent theme in 
> US and  
> other cultures for nearly half a century now.  But 
> apparently it is  
> now beginning to more deeply dawn on people that this 
> competition also  
> manifests itself in more **covert** ways - not only in the 
> intricate  
> and hierarchical ways that **adults** can treat each other 
> in  
> workplaces, neighborhoods, markets, places of gathering, etc. 
> etc. -  
> (not to mention marriages and relationships) - but also 
> how  
> **children** and **teens** treat one another in schools, 
> playgrounds,  
> neighborhoods, malls, sports activities, and families.  In 
> other  
> words, following this line of reasoning, just as fierce 
> competition  
> exists between **current** workers and adults, it also exists 
> between  
> **future** workers.  And in some ways it may take even more 
> naked  
> forms.  We may learn much more about class society (which 
> in the US is  
> structurally racist, sexist, etc.) by the time we are 13  - 
> and even 6  
> - than we fully realize.  After all, isn't this 
> indoctrination the  
> number one purpose of schools?  But we don't seem to just 
> **learn**  
> about the social realities of this world - we also **react to** 
> and  
> **act upon** them, probably at least since the moment we begin 
> to  
> talk, and certainly beginning the day we start school.  We 
> **live**  
> these social relations and forms of competition from the 
> very  
> beginning.  As for this relatively new social question of 
> bullying  
> among 5-8 year old girls, now that US women are not only now 
> half the  
> workforce but also nearly half of the "breadwinners" - a 
> remarkable  
> historic change we have been witnessing accumulate for many 
> decades  
> now - it makes sense to me to look to these same pernicious 
> and  
> pervasive forms of competition among working people as 
> increasingly  
> impacting girls in similar kinds of ways that they have  
> "traditionally" (i.e., in modern capitalist society) impacted 
> boys.   
> According to this line of inquiry, bullying isn't essentially 
> about  
> human nature, or puberty, or gender, or even ignorance, per se, 
> it is  
> about the way working people are forced to compete with one 
> another in  
> a class system that is organized along racist, sexist, and 
> other  
> lines.  Children and teens are just creatively (and not 
> infrequently,  
> cruelly) playing out within their daily social relations how the 
> adult  
> world really works.  Following the logic of this line of 
> inquiry,  
> solutions would be sought in renewed and newly created mass 
> movements  
> for democratic social change, new kinds of working class 
> consciousness  
> that would unite working people, and a major restructuring of 
> class  
> relations.  The optimistic singing and solidarity of the 
> Pride Youth  
> chorus, which has been ringing in my ears the last couple days, 
> adds  
> to my sense of hope that such solutions are possible.
> 
> So that's one research approach - basing oneself on classical 
> Marxist  
> sociology and combining it with lessons learned from the 
> struggles  
> associated with the new waves of democratic and humanist 
> consciousness  
> that emerged in the second half of the 20th Century - which 
> spawned  
> and rediscovered so many powerful ideas associated with 
> antiracism,  
> feminism, gay rights, sex-positivity, opposition to prejudice, 
> the  
> rights of young people, the rights of the differently abled, 
> etc.  
> etc.  And then, for me, further combining these ideas with 
> working  
> class unionism, solidarity and socialism.  These are all 
> my  
> intuitions, anyway.  I realize I may be "different"!  LOL
> 
> It is good to ask, as you do, Mike - what can we do about 
> bullying and  
> its disastrous consequences?  Damned good question!
> 
> My question back to you - and to myself:  what can CHAT do 
> to help  
> explore and penetrate the reasons behind these kinds of 
> social  
> relations?  What specific tools and concepts can CHAT 
> offer, or  
> perhaps develop?
> 
> - Steve
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On Oct 10, 2010, at 1:54 PM, Beth Ferholt wrote:
> 
> > I think part of what I was saying in the original email was 
> a  
> > response to
> > this: what struck me about this particular video is that it 
> was a  
> > youth
> > conceived/organized/created response to save youth.  Dan 
> Savage (an  
> > adult)
> > started the series of IT GETS BETTER videos to tell 
> suicidal  
> > teenagers that
> > they need to stick around because being a gay adult is better 
> than  
> > being a
> > gay teenager (better than being in a school run by adults -- 
> ).   
> > THen this
> > group of young people created a performance for other young 
> people  
> > where
> > they talk about NOT waiting to either get out of school -- or 
> for  
> > the adults
> > to realize the obvious and figure out how to behave -- but 
> instead  
> > finding
> > queer friends NOW and then trying (as they are doing with 
> this  
> > video) to
> > improve the life of gay teens NOW.
> > I was thinking of Yrjo's use of Breaking Away as I wrote the email.
> > Beth
> >
> >
> > On Sun, Oct 10, 2010 at 2:25 PM, mike cole 
> <lchcmike@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >> Steve. You perfectly caught a core purpose of our 
> discussions. It  
> >> is indeed
> >> becoming obvious. To me it seems a long time in coming. And 
> it is not
> >> bearing a white flag. Its kind of slouching. You wrote:
> >>
> >> It is becoming more obvious to many that the question of cultural
> >> difference and how these differences are socially related to 
> can  
> >> become a
> >> life and death question.
> >>
> >> Correct. So what, as whoever(s) we are we supposed to behave 
> once  
> >> we, as a
> >> society, reach that state of "its obvious"?
> >>
> >> ??
> >> mike
> 
> 
> 
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