Canoerebel
Posts: 21100
Joined: 12/14/2002 From: Northwestern Georgia, USA Status: offline
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Wiggle wiggle. Squirm squirm. Two weeks ago, you said in here, "As you know, I haven't been an optimist about this." Not one person in here (not one, not once) has admitted to being a pessimist. Apparently nobody wants to be called a pessimist. Folks who are pessimists view themselves as realists. But they admit they aren't optimists. quote:
ORIGINAL: obvert quote:
ORIGINAL: Canoerebel It's essential to be cautious when facing something like this. We need to err on the side of safety, and it's better to come in under rather than over. Every person I've interacted with in this forum is smart. We all well-intentioned, at least as much as we can be. We all wish this to end better than we feared. It seems that the majority of our community is by nature inclined towards pessimism and a minority towards optimism (will we end parsing this un-endingly to pursue shades of "realism"?). Pessimism is a needed trait in dealing with this. Perhaps the most important, as long as rational (and there's little doubt about that here). Hey, cut us optimists some slack, especially when we qualify our comments and take a moment to celebrate news that ought to be celebrated. Virtually everyone who knows me gets annoyed at my optimistic take on virtually all day to day experiences. I am not pessimistic, but realistic, objective, and interested in learning, not predicting or defending approaches during this thread. You consistently bristle when someone challenges your ideas, predictions, attitudes or the approach the US (including various local governments) have taken. In education criticism is not a dirty word, it's our day to day job. We offer critique to improve our students and ourselves. This is a moment in which I want to learn and attempt to prepare for how to best serve my family, friends, students and community in relation to this crisis. This thread has accumulated a lot of resources and unique contributions to help me and others do that. Lets just stick to the topic and stop worrying if others aren't having the reaction to our posts we would hope or expect.
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