mf

I've been watching videos about narcissistic abuse.

At first I just found them inexplicably soothing but then over time they became something like a resource? Like... I feel like I have a framework to think about some behaviours, when I didn't before. With a side of "oh you mean other people find that behaviour toxic?" It's been a bit of a relevation.

Not that I would ever dream of armchair diagnosing narcissism. It's more like - ok here's an example. So this morning, in a meeting at the music school where I teach, one person did the following things:

(1) asked about marginal/edge cases that weren't on the agenda
(2) wanted the school administration to establish and enforce boundaries in their place
(3) had poor listening skills; asked about things that had been discussed and decided minutes before
(4) did not thank other teachers for their help
(5) sat weirdly far away from everyone else
(6) literally said none of the students met expectations

Which are all common behaviours in narcissists. Now, I don't care whether this person is a narcissist or just having a bad day - that's not the point. The point is, it's safe to assume that this person's priority, in that moment, was not the students. The students may not be low of their list of priorities, and this person may be a perfectly good teacher. But in that moment, higher on the priorities list than the students, was their self-esteem, a self-esteem that is disproportionately weak.

So it's like: for me, what I get out of thinking of this situation this way, is that it allows me to approach it in a realistic way. For a start, I think of the entire thing as indicative of this person's self-esteem. I.e. if I'm thinking of the entire meeting as a problem to fix, then I identify the problem as this person's self-esteem (so: not their opinions, not their people skills, not their educational philosophy, etc). And then, with that lucidity, I'm able to think of it as: ok, can I do anything to fix this problem? And I'm sure you can anticipate the answer: no. I cannot, single-handedly, fix this person's self-esteem. Or even help it in that situation.

One of the reasons that this has been a bit of a revelation is that I've, in a way, realized that some things I learned to think of as normal, maybe aren't.

So, for example, when I said something in a meeting this morning, and one of my colleagues disagreed, historically I would have found that unsettling because I was taught that if you don't react to someone disagreeing with you, you're tacitly acknowledging that they are correct. But this morning it was like I realized, for maybe the first time? That the concept of "if you don't react to someone saying you're wrong, you are acknowledging that they are correct" is something that was taught to me by people either engaging in, or aping, narcissistic behaviour. It turns out, lots of people don't see "not reacting to being contradicted" as an acknowledgment.

That previous post showed up as a saved draft when I came here just now! So I finished it and posted it. But what I really want to talk about is this show, The Magicians.

Ok so I tried to start watching The Magicians twice before, mainly because of the gifs I kept seeing on tumblr, but it's only this week that I gave the show another shot and finally made it past the first episode. I love something about the aesthetic.

That being said, the show makes me very angry and I guess I'm here to make a list of reasons why it makes me angry.

(1) yet another story about a special boy being more special than all of the other special people
(2) classism
(3) toxic ideas about "talent," including but not limited to the idea that trauma leads to talent, and talent = merit
(4) toxic ideas about teaching and higher education: gatekeeping, arbitrariness, testing students without warning, shouting, or otherwise favouring students who thrive in anxiety-or-fear-based environments
(5) exclusion for no apparent reason

My teaching experience is that there is no correlation whatever between the scope of someone's abilities, and their initial capacity to perform under pressure. Also, students do much better if you just do what's best for their well-being, and literally never give a thought to how "talented" they might be.

I've spent so much of my fucking life force wishing more of the parents of my violin students knew that caring about how "talented" kids are - let alone ranking those kids [shudder] - is not the same as caring about those kids's well-being. Even worse, I sometimes have to worry about that kind of vibe coming from the school administration. It just makes me want to scream "STOP FETISHIZING TALENT" "THIS IS WHY WE CAN'T HAVE NICE THINGS" "THE PROBLEM IS YOU."

I've been seeing more and more teaching styles that are kind and supportive but also foster good, solid work ethics. Twenty years ago, the options were either "kind teachers who are laisser-faire about discipline" or "toxic shouty teachers who make sure you work diligently." (Like no one had figured out how to be kind while also making sure you put in regular hours?! Ugh.) But now I'm seeing examples of healthy teaching environments more often.

So. Well. The patriarchal classist gatekeeping I'm seeing on The Magicians makes me angry. It's regressive, imo. "Talented boy is more talented than all the other talented boys so this story is about him!" "Only the talented special people are special enough to be admitted to the specialest school that ever did special!" "THEY ARE SPECIAL BECAUSE OF THEIR TRAUMA." Like why would you promote that.

Ok that's probably all I had to say about that for now. Thank you for reading! Hope you are all well.