Palsy-walsy

I'm with you.

I don't need to have schoolteachers be standoffish and mean. But this whole buddy thing grates like the D.A.R.E Kopp pretending to be the pal of the kids whose lives he will be taking some ten years down the road, or the "just call me 'Debby'" step-mum.

What's grating is the pretense that there is no power imbalance there, and that the "woke" teacher will not be handing our less than stellar grades to her little buddies regardless of what they think their grades should be. This is not a voluntary relationship between equals: the socializing is enforced by truancy laws, and the school-board ensures that the majority of parties in the classroom will have little to no say.

I am sure that her charges had a near infinite list of things they would rather be elsewhere doing than be stuck hearing her spout about her vacay.

Even if she chooses not to lord her position as their jailer and taskmaster over them, she need not add insult to injury by using her position of privilege to force them to play along with the sham that they're all just equals.

I had a few teachers that I liked ( despite not liking school. ) All of them found a way of making me feel respected while still retaining an air of professionalism about the different roles we were stuck with.

Dante