While at SVHS, I was able to do a little experiment with the other teachers that they have always wanted to try but couldn't because the students already knew them and knew that if they changed, it would be obvious. Once I came, they thought it the perfect opportunity to try it out and see if it really affects how kids work. outside enemy, or mutual enemy, is an idea that anyone will bond together in order to combat a mutual enemy. While the class is not a warzone, this can be done with teachers and students, preferably without them knowing. The goal is to have a teacher become a "mutual enemy" for students to bond and work together in their "hatred" of this mutual enemy. I use pretty strong words here, but it does not boil down to hate in the classroom. It boils down to differing opinions. Whatever stance the students take on a subject, the outside enemy must take the opposite stance. Taking the opposite stance will make the student then vocalize why they are right and why the teacher is wrong. Getting them to think and vocalize their thoughts and think deeper is the goal of this exercise. While the teacher plays the role of the outside enemy, this gives kids an oppertunity to work together with a common goal of being against the outside enemy. Also, the teacher does not necessarily have to disagree with everything, they just need to take an opposite stance. We don't want the kids to actually hate us, we just want them to think critically about subjects!
Here is an article that describes how mutual hatred can lead to banding together of people against a common cause.
Hating the Same Things
Why shared dislikes make faster friends.
By Paul Kix Published Mar 27, 2011 ShareThis
Alice Roosevelt Longworth, the firstborn daughter of Theodore Roosevelt, cheated on her husband, the speaker of the House, with a senator from Idaho, an affair that produced her only child. She supported Nixon in 1960 and the Kennedys and LBJ after that and then Nixon again in 1968. And she did it all without losing the approval of polite Washington society, presidents included; so many people paid visits to her house in Dupont Circle that she became known as “the other Washington Monument.” The secret to her long tenure as the capital’s grandest dame was her life’s motto, which she had embroidered on a sofa pillow: “If you can’t say something good about someone, sit right here by me.”
This epigram also sits atop a fascinating new study in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin that is part of a larger body of work by the University of South Florida’s Jennifer Bosson. What she’s found is that Mrs. L., as she was called, was onto something: Trashing the same person often helps people bond. “There’s something really powerful about the discovery of shared negative attitudes,” Bosson says.
Bosson’s first paper on the phenomenon, which she co-authored in 2006, argued that people readily connect when they have a third entity to jointly demean. This could be someone they both know or a random celebrity; even if the hatred isn’t strong, the kinship could be deep. But the inquiry was empirically squishy—some of Bosson’s experiments relied on friends recounting how they became chummy—so last year, she and a grad student, Jonathan Weaver, developed a more rigorous methodology. They had undergrads partake in a study for class credit, the true goal of which was not divulged. First, the students filled out forms and placed an X next to the name of the professor they liked or disliked the most, then completed a biographical questionnaire. After that, a mediator handed them the questionnaire of another student, casually mentioning that this other student liked or disliked the same faculty member. A pattern emerged: The students with negative impressions of the same professor felt as if they knew each other better.
The power of this initial spark of shared antipathy, it seems, comes from what negativity implies. Everyone, after all, can say kind things. And everyone does. This is how we supposedly make friends: by being nice. But by going negative—thereby breaking a general rule of first impressions—you signal that you instinctively trust this new person, because you suspect he or she might feel the same way.
Bosson, in her own life, offers unvarnished appraisals easily. (Note that she grew up just outside New York.) Her Florida friends find her occasional grumpiness refreshing. Decades ago, in a different setting, that may also have accounted for why Mrs. L.—herself a Manhattan native—got on so well in her new town.
My Experience with "Outside Enemy"
When I was first told about this idea, it made sense. It is something that naturally happens in job atmospheres, school, even the military. I have certainly been apart of a bigger group coming together so that we can hate on someone or something. Next, the teachers at SVHS said that I was going to be the outside enemy. I wasn't really sure what that meant. How could I, so friendly, be an enemy to the school. They explained how it worked, and that the goal wasn't about getting them to hate me. They also said that it takes someone who is already outgoing and willing to interject and disagree with preteens all day long. My job was to take different stances when I could on any subject just to get students to have to speak up about why they are right or why I am wrong. At first I saw it as disagreeing with everything the students said. It was kind of like that, but more of getting them to divulge more information about what they think.
The first time that I really noticed its effects were when I decided to read Modest Proposal with a class. I did not tell them that it was satire and they really thought it was a true story. I got into it and was an advocate for eating babies. I wouldn't budge at all, using quotes from the text to back myself up. I came into class one day with a toy baby leg covered in red marker, pretending i was eating it. It infuriated the students. They went out of their way to convince me it was wrong. The main idea was that this got the students to critically think about what they were reading rather than just saying a 2 word answer about if they liked it. The students most certainly banded against me because I was in the wrong for eating babies.
I think that this method is great and really does work, but needs to be in the right atmosphere. I do not see this working with large groups or kids that you do not have relationships with prior to doing it. This also would be impossible to keep up at all times. It just is not possible to disagree and challenge students in this way all the time. One might be able to, but they would certainly become really hated and kids may lose interest if they know that the teacher is just going to disagree with everything they say.
Applicability to Teachers
I feel that this could be a great strategy to use to simply get kids to open up about what they think. As with most people, when you disagree with them they feel compelled to voice their opinion. Kids are the same way if not worse. They always want to voice the opinion they have. This gives them a chance to do so. This could also be seen as student voice as the students are able to reflect on what they have learned. Teachers probably don't want kids to actually hate them and not talk. This will have to be done in such a way to not alienate students' ideas.
Applicability to Students
The idea of outside enemy is something that people deal with and experience their whole lives. This can be an excellent tool or one that just festers into hatred for the mutual enemy. Giving students the tools to practice banding together against a common enemy show them how to work together and provides a good reason for working together. Getting them to band together with fellow students/coworkers is a skill that they are going to need when they enter the work force and must be able to work with teams.
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