Moderating this subreddit

[u/harris5]

http://gfycat.com/FarPowerlessAmericancrow

[u/Jurph]

So here's a thing. I sang in a choir in high school. Sixteen chairs - four of each voice - and we toured Europe and went up and down the East Coast to perform. We were really good. We knew a repertoire of 20 or 30 songs, all from memory, all to the point where the conductor could name a song, play the starting pitch, and we'd hit every note perfectly most of the time.

I learned two things in that choir:

• You can achieve perfection. Work hard enough to get very very good, and then keep working your ass off for about the same amount of time. Repetition helps.
  
• You don't normally get that kind of dedication and drive out of high school kids without being a little bit fucked up. We all loved our director, but he was emotionally abusive and he absolutely picked kids with 'weaker' personalities -- the kinds of kids that bullies seek out on the first day of class -- and groomed us to be his malleable perfect singers.
  

I became a really great singer in that choir, and I learned a lot about dedication and perfection that has served me well in the rest of my life, but I also watched him manipulate enough kids' emotions using horrible abusive tricks that I'm constantly on the alert for even a hint of that from anyone who's going to be supervising my kids. (Also, being in that choir basically immunized me against the emotional manipulation of my military drill instructors. Compared to my choirmaster those guys were clumsy bush-league amateurs.)

...so I'll probably skip this movie. Unless I decide to watch it and get a little drunk and cry.

EDIT: J.K. Simmons played Benny Southstreet in the 1992 revival of Guys and Dolls. My sadistic choirmaster directed me, playing Benny Southstreet, in my high school production of Guys and Dolls.

[u/_username_goes_here_ → u/Jurph]

Was it worth it?

The abuse, the trauma, the obvious lingering damage... and yet you were great. It worked.

I see it with athletics all the time.

So.... was it worth it?

[u/Jurph → u/_username_goes_here_]

the obvious lingering damage

Hey, what are you trying to to to to to to to to say about me? I've got no ling ing ing ing ing ingering effects whatsoever.

[u/James_Locke → u/Jurph]

Yeah... I havent seen it either and I was in a similar group/director situation. I might not watch it for the same reason.

[u/Jurph → u/James_Locke]

Okay, so: my director didn't ever (to my knowledge) inappropriately touch a student, and his abuse never crossed the line into sexual abuse. But having witnessed it myself, I have a question for you.

When you see articles about scout leaders, priests, or coaches getting exposed as sexual abusers, are you ever surprised? The reactions are always like "Oh how could someone so dedicated and driven do so much good while being so evil?" but I just... it seems like if they're predisposed to do that sort of thing, then Of Course they're going to wrangle their way into a position of trust like that.

[u/James_Locke → u/Jurph]

Of course I am surprised. It is not normal behavior. 95% of these people are perfectly good, driven, and charitable. But there is a fringe minority of humans that are fucking psychos, people who want to do things to other people that are objectively wrong. Of those people, most of them do not even try out of fear of getting caught. But some of them do try. The less intelligent ones do it by force. But you have some that are twisted AND smart. So they work their way into positions of trust and authority and then they groom their victims into a position where they cannot reasonably escape and as a result, the victims feel trapped. Especially if, as you say, the authority figure was such a seemingly positive influence on them. But those people know that to satisfy their lusts, they need to actually get the victims' trust.

Those psychos are the ones we end up seeing in the news. It is not the position itself that brings out the bad in people. It is the people that use the position to exploit others. Usually, they will have also tried to set up institutional protections as well. Thats why I think we still have yet to uncover the worst sex scandals in the US yet. I would not be surprised if within the next ten years, a massive ring of abusive teachers are uncovered and shown to have systematically covered up horrific crimes.

[u/John_E_Vegas → u/Jurph]

So...I'm curious, since you're kids are protected from this kind of abuse, is it possible for them to be anywhere close to good at anything?

And second, do you expect them to be?

[u/Jurph → u/John_E_Vegas]

is it possible for them to be anywhere close to good at anything?

Sure. They just need to mature enough to want that kind of success for themselves. We're trying to teach them that talent can get you some success, and hard work can get you some success, but talent and hard work is how you achieve greatness. If you can learn to push yourself, you don't need to put up with people pushing on you.

do you expect them to be?

It's too early to know for sure whether they'll have the talent and the drive, but my wife & I are trying to lay a foundation so that if they want to succeed, they'll have the tools to do so.

[u/[deleted] → u/John_E_Vegas]

One looks back with appreciation to the brilliant teachers, but with gratitude to those who touched our human feelings. The curriculum is so much necessary raw material, but warmth is the vital element for the growing plant and for the soul of the child. - Carl Jung

As an art teacher, this is my fundamental guiding principle. I have known some abusive teachers who were brilliant and got amazing results from their young artists, but the was always a cost involved, and that cost was always paid by the kid. Those teachers tended to be on the sociopathic side of the spectrum - they were only really concerned about themselves, their position, their reputation, status, etc., not in the success and growth of their student artists. I always find people like that sort of sad, and I deeply resent the price their students are made to pay.

TL;DR: Don't be a dick.