When we talk about criticism, it's easy for us to say "yes we can take it" and "lay it on us" because we want to improve, etc. But when it comes down to it, I think it's safe to say that the majority of the world doesn't enjoy criticism and would much prefer praise and the feeling of success. Jake's post contrasts two coaches, one who gives strong criticisms to the point of scaring his players, and the other who intersperses his criticisms within positive statements. In Jake's experience, the latter helped him to achieve All-League Honors and gave him a reason to play basketball again. We have talked about how it's important to consider the type of audience when giving criticism. I'm going to address this topic. But, at times, I switch the word from "criticism" to "coaching" because I think that addresses a broader area, and fits more to exactly what I'm talking about. The term "criticism" seems too negative. I wonder how we can draw the line between being too "soft" with positive comments when they are undeserved and too harsh with our overly critical comments that scare kids away from their sport. In some areas, I think harsh coaching is needed, and the risk of being too soft is greater than the risk of being too harsh.
I think one of these areas is sports. Sports are a tough/harsh environment to begin with--often infused with loud voices, contact, and strong competitive desire to beat the other team. Harsh criticisms would fit the environment, and perhaps the type of people playing the sport are filtered because of their desire to play that particular game. These could be the type of people that want to be yelled at to improve. I'm not exactly sure if in Jake's post he meant that the first coach wasn't constructive in his criticism (as in didn't even tell the players how to improve) or if he was just saying that he felt the coach was too harsh. I do feel that coaches need to be constructive--let their players know how to improve. I think this type of harsh-coaching works for sports, especially as the level increases. College sports may need harsher coaches than high school sports. Bruce Weber is often criticized for being too soft, and in the past couple years when our basketball wins have decreased, this is what the media has blamed it on. I'm sure there are other imposing factors, but in at least some areas, his softness does seem to be a factor.
Luther Head was a member of the runner-up 2004-2005 Illini basketball team. At the beginning of Luther's career at Illinois, he had a couple run-ins with the police for robbery. Bruce didn't punish Luther much more than a slap on the wrist. Bruce became known as a soft coach. Fast forward a few years, and Jamar Smith was suspended after driving under the influence and getting into a one-car accident that put his fellow team mate in the hospital. I won't get into the details, but there were many other questionable actions by Jamar such as leaving the teammate in the car before someone else called 911...
Jamar was suspended for the rest of the season but stayed on the basketball team. He stayed on the basketball team after almost killing a fellow team mate. He continued to play. He continued to drink. He continued to party more than he should have. He was seen around campus drinking and it led to him receiving a probation from drinking. Bruce Weber continued to be known as a soft coach. Why didn't he criticize Jamar more? Why didn't he make him red shirt the next season? Why was he not scaring Jamar so that Jamar would get into gear? Why was Bruce not the intimidating Category A coach that Jake described? It seems that the incident itself wasn't enough for Jamar to realize how much basketball meant to him. It seems he needed some harsher coaching. A year later...Jamar was arrested again for violating his probation on alcohol. After the arrest, Jamar was kicked off the basketball team, transferred schools, and the Illini were left without their shooting guard. Jamar contributed a lot to the basketball team in talent, and the season following his departure showed that we missed him.
Sometimes setting the tone as a "harsh" coach is necessary. Maybe if Luther would have been suspended more games, Jamar would have came into the team scared of any consequences for DUIs and then he wouldn't have gotten a DUI to begin with. Maybe if Jamar was punished more strongly after his DUI, he wouldn't have continued to drink and get arrested. The tone that the coach sets does matter, and having an intimidating tone as a coach can be helpful for the team in getting wins.
I wanted to throw my example out there because I feel like in America, we have this strong desire to keep "babying" people into success. Kids constantly get compliments even when they aren't doing well (especially from parents). One of the reasons our obesity rate is so high is because parents are unable to say "no" and feed their kids whatever they want.
This is not to say that it is unnecessary to be positive. I do think that one of the reasons the tough criticism didn't work for Jake is because the coach was doing this at a lower level. The players were just kids, and needed some push and compliments to keep going and have the desire to play. Even in my example, Bruce was able to mold Luther Head into one of the best college players and winning personalities in the nation. It's difficult to decide what the best coaching is and when---but I think that lies on the coach. Perhaps Jake's first coach used to be an upper level coach and was unable to mold his ways to fit a young team. This falls on the coach. I think the situation also completely changes when we go into how to motivate or criticize students in academia.
The academic environment is not the harsh, contact-filled one that I described for sports. Nonetheless, when instilling a mentoring program, it would be necessary to consider whether we think it is possible for peers to give the negative criticisms that may be necessary, or if there would be too much "babying" involved. Professor Arvan brought up in a post that we keep complimenting our classmates on their blogs, but that's not going to help them improve. How do we find the peer mentors that are willing to criticize their peers?
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I also thought of similar points as you did in a response I had to Greg's post from a previous week. It's easy to tell other people that their blog posts were good this week, but it's a lot harder to give out good criticism. One factor is that we don't know how the blog writer, though he or she is our own classmate, may react. Although we're more than half way through the semester, I think we're all still just getting to know each other. However, I don't know if knowing each other means that we will be willing to give criticism. A lot of friends have the hardest time confronting each other or being completely honest with each other. Through those moments, however, the friendship grows...I think it is the same with our mentoring program. I'm not sure how we will be able to bring about that kind of relationship of healthy criticism and improvement. I feel that sometimes that comes more naturally in an instructor type relationship like the one that Professor Arvan has with us. As his students, we know that he is in that role, so we expect him to give criticism. How do we translate those roles, however, to a relationship that is between peers? Would ensuring an age difference between the mentor and mentee help? Perhaps some of this just comes from how the mentee perceives the mentor.
ReplyDeleteIndeed, I think a lot of it comes from how the mentee perceives the mentor which makes much of the relationship seem to lie on the mentor's plate. Just like the coaching example, the precedent is set with the tone that the mentor sets.
ReplyDeleteIf on the first day, the professor promotes a laid back demeanor, it's going to be VERY DIFFICULT for that professor to get students to take his class seriously and attend lecture (unless it's required).
In a peer relationship, we want top tier upperclassmen who have proven that they are leaders. Students who have proven that they want the best for themselves, for their school, and thus want to mold the future of their school to be the best that it can be.
"The academic environment is not the harsh, contact-filled one that I described for sports."
ReplyDeleteIn the sense of overt yelling, that is probably true. In the sense of students becoming stigmatized by the criticism of their performance that they do receive, I'm much less sure it is true.
You read Angelica's post that discussed the organic chemistry class she took. How do you think the students in that class felt, given the low exam scores?
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ReplyDeleteAngelica mentioned that the students were just hoping to score above the curve, which makes it obvious that students are in competition with one another and know that if other students do worse, then by default we will get a better grade for ourselves. But in the organic chemistry class with the low exam score, the students aren't in direct competition with just one other student. It is the entire class. This goes to my description of a "harsh contact-filled" environment for sports. Yes I did mean in the sense of overt yelling. However, I think another difference is that you are directly and obviously competing against one other team. That is the team you want to beat. When looking at the conference as a whole, Illini Fans may cheer for a certain opponent to lose so that we may move up the rankings by default, but fans don't go as crazy as they would when the actual Illinois team were playing. We want to beat the other students so we get above the curve, but we don't specifically aim to "get a score above
ReplyDelete(insert name here)".
Students do become stigmatized by the criticism they receive from their performance, but because the environment is not so overt, then I think the academic environment would be one where the yelling should take a backseat. This would be the type of environment where other types of criticism could take place, enter in peer-mentoring...where students don't yell at others.