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My Name Is Daniel: He Could Have Been My Son. He Was Killed at 29
21–30 of 32 posts
Re: My Name Is Daniel: He Could Have Been My Son. He Was Killed at 29
#22I am not sure how we solve the peer validation issue. We can clearly see the impact of some surrogate parental validation here from the teacher to Daniel and it had a big impact. The peer validation issue though remained larger while he was in school really to Daniel's detriment. It really impacted his learning and it is very hard to separate out from the social setting. It takes a lot of delayed gratification in a place that feels much more permanent. This sets him up for difficulty later in life with no academic skills. I wonder if we can afford to do one on one intensive teaching for a while or maybe even small group classes (say 3 kids). This is a kid who clearly wanted a way out but didn't know how or believe he could. One on one therapy with a transition to small group classes works very well for kids with behavioral issues and autism. Also some psychological and CBT would have helped. That or we focus on military type boarding school but even those are hit and miss. I think our government really needs to step in and fund some alternatives so that we can end this epidemic.
Re: My Name Is Daniel: He Could Have Been My Son. He Was Killed at 29
#23"You’re gonna teach me about the Holocaust, which never happened?" "Join your ancestors and die in an oven." Ok so, if the Holocaust didn't happen, how exactly did the teacher's ancestors "die in an oven"?
Brings to mind the Sarte quoted about the knowing absurdity of anti-semite's statements.
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/7870768-never-believe-that-...
Hence why every Holocaust denier seems obvious about wishing it happened completely.
Simple denial of the horror has been broken by accounts and ample documentation - for all of the flaws of the leadership of allied powers in that generation one thing the got right was gathering ample evidence of the extensive crimes.
Re: My Name Is Daniel: He Could Have Been My Son. He Was Killed at 29
#24A postscript was published a few days ago: https://medium.com/@joeleisenberg/his-name-was-daniel-postsc...
Re: My Name Is Daniel: He Could Have Been My Son. He Was Killed at 29
#25A fuck-up will always be a fuck-up. And if they get their life straight for a short while, it's just a matter of time until their next relapse. Sad but true. And from their perspective it's never their own fault, it's always you or someone else's fault. Save yourself from a lot of headache by reducing your interactions with these kind of people, because they will just drain you of your energy.
You are incorrect. There are plenty of people who get their lives together after long periods of “fucking up.”
Save yourself a lot of headache by abandoning your delusion that “a fuck-up will always be a fuck-up.”
Re: My Name Is Daniel: He Could Have Been My Son. He Was Killed at 29
#26I am not sure how we solve the peer validation issue. We can clearly see the impact of some surrogate parental validation here from the teacher to Daniel and it had a big impact. The peer validation issue though remained larger while he was in school really to Daniel's detriment. It really impacted his learning and it is very hard to separate out from the social setting. It takes a lot of delayed gratification in a p…
We can solve the peer validation issue by ceasing to create it in the first place.
In the model of human development I and my peers were taught in public school in America, humans start out life as “parent-oriented” people. Then when we go to school we become “peer-oriented.” I was taught that the transition from “parent orientation” to “peer orientation” is natural, inevitable, and healthy — but it’s none of those things. In fact, transitioning to a peer orientation has ill effects on many people, including this dude Daniel.
Being peer-oriented rather than parent-oriented is obviously unhealthy: just look at Daniel’s plight for proof of this obvious fact. But we teach that peer orientation is THE ONE AND ONLY healthy path to adulthood. We need to change what we teach. Daniel clearly yearned to connect with surrogate parent figures like this dude Joel, but the system was set up to keep him oriented towards his peers rather than parents or surrogate parent figures.
No wonder Daniel suffered the consequences of peer-orientation when the entire school system is set up to make him oriented towards his peers.
Daniel is a casualty of the system. His “faults” were created and managed by the system itself. Daniel is the victim here and blaming the victim is not a good look.
Re: My Name Is Daniel: He Could Have Been My Son. He Was Killed at 29
#27I am not sure how we solve the peer validation issue. We can clearly see the impact of some surrogate parental validation here from the teacher to Daniel and it had a big impact. The peer validation issue though remained larger while he was in school really to Daniel's detriment. It really impacted his learning and it is very hard to separate out from the social setting. It takes a lot of delayed gratification in a p…
We can solve the peer validation issue by ceasing to create it in the first place. In the model of human development I and my peers were taught in public school in America, humans start out life as “parent-oriented” people. Then when we go to school we become “peer-oriented.” I was taught that the transition from “parent orientation” to “peer orientation” is natural, inevitable, and healthy — but it’s none of those t…
This is a great post.
I feel much the same about life in state school in the UK.
You're chucked into a cage, essentially, with a bunch of unformed humans, when what is really needed is a solid set of role models. Teachers can't provide that wholly, because not everyone wants to be a teacher.
Re: My Name Is Daniel: He Could Have Been My Son. He Was Killed at 29
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
We can solve the peer validation issue by ceasing to create it in the first place. In the model of human development I and my peers were taught in public school in America, humans start out life as “parent-oriented” people. Then when we go to school we become “peer-oriented.” I was taught that the transition from “parent orientation” to “peer orientation” is natural, inevitable, and healthy — but it’s none of those t…
This is a great post. I feel much the same about life in state school in the UK. You're chucked into a cage, essentially, with a bunch of unformed humans, when what is really needed is a solid set of role models. Teachers can't provide that wholly, because not everyone wants to be a teacher.
Aptly captured in Lord of the Flies.
Re: My Name Is Daniel: He Could Have Been My Son. He Was Killed at 29
#29Mensa brilliant? Dont believe so.
Why not? My understanding is Mensa is kind of a lightweight scam based on collecting money off of people who are proud of achieving a certain score on an IQ test. This teacher said the school administration told him the kid's IQ was tested near 150 which I think is at or above the Mensa cutoff (don't care enough to look it up).
I think that there are a lot of validity and bias issues with the whole concept of IQ testing but I'm curious where your stated lack of belief comes from.
Do you not believe the teacher was told that specific tested IQ value, and that he made it up?
Do you not believe that school districts test IQ or that their scales don't reach that high?
Do you just not believe that somebody of that intelligence could behave in that manner?
(It's the third option that I'd find interesting.)