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  1. #1
    bricelythgoe is offline Membership Revoked for repeated rule violations.
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    Cool Math Teacher in Reading Wears Kilt to Motivate Students

    Found this article that the many teachers we have here might be interested in.

    Math Teacher in Reading Wears Kilt to Motivate Students

    http://wfmz.com/view/?id=656389


    I could not watch the video, but I think I found this article a little disturbing. Tell me if all of you see this differently. I don't see the students WANTING to see their teacher in a kilt. To the students, I think they see this as a type of humiliation (maybe to strong a word) for the teacher. Sure, it motivated them to do better, but what were their intentions with the kilt? Did they really want to see the kilt or did they want to see their Math teacher dressed in a 'skirt'. Maybe I am reading this wrong. It is just that from my experience as a teacher, most of my students. don't see the kilt as something positive.

    I hope I am seeing this wrong.

    Brice

  2. #2
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    I didn't get that from the video or article.

    I think it's more that the students wouldn't expect their teacher to wear something like that to school. Not so much berating, but unexpected. A good friend of mine is a youth minister, and he set a goal for them, and he'd wear a kilt if they made it. It was mostly just because they didn't expect he'd do it.

  3. #3
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    My students chastise me if I don't wear my kilt regularly enough. I don't think it has anything to do with seeing their teacher humiliated, it has to do with there technical theatre teacher being just a little out of the ordinary. My students really like my kilts, and a couple of them have bought their own, and I think a few others are saving up.


    -Chris
    I wish I had something funny or profound to put in a signature.

  4. #4
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    I don't get a negative from the report or the video. I don't know much about 7th graders, but doubt they saw it as humiliation.
    Past President, St. Andrew's Society of the Inland Northwest
    Member, Royal Scottish Country Dance Society
    Founding Member, Celtic Music Spokane
    Member, Royal Photographic Society

  5. #5
    bricelythgoe is offline Membership Revoked for repeated rule violations.
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    I guess you might be right. Although it is hard to tell from the video. I think I just based my ideas on my past experiences with my 7th, 8th, and 9th graders. Out of the 200 I teach, I have had about 3 or 4 say they don't mind me wearing the kilt. Oh, well.

  6. #6
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    Sorry, I must disagree. Does the teacher do push ups everyday in class, has he sported a blue Mohawk for the last year? If the answer to these questions is yes than the wearing of the kilt (which is on a par with these two) is reasonable . If on the other hand he has not done these things, then the wearing of the kilt is unreasonable. From the tone of the article, his kilt wearing was the first of three 'trials' he had to perform.

    We have all heard the expression 'Drop and give me twenty!'. Is it said to people who have earned praise or is it said as a punishment.

    This is an humiliation - self imposed - but still done as an humiliation. It reduces the kilt to a mere piece of costume - a tutu, a bussle, fishnet stockings, a kimono, swim flippers and a thong - all would be humiliating in the classroom environment.

    If the teacher wore a kilt on a daily basis, then it would be standard, normal, ordinary, not newsworthy.

    This is not a good advertisement for kilt wearing.

    Regards

    Chas

  7. #7
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    It's not humiliation if you're playing along and suggested it in the first place. Best case it is nothing more than motivation, and I'm willing to bet most teachers will look for all kinds of creative ways to do that. Worst case, it's trickery--a way of sneaking the kilt into the workplace when that was his objective all along. Not a punishment at all, but the reward for getting the students to meet the goals set out for them.

    Regards,
    Rex.
    At any moment you must be prepared to give up who you are today for who you could become tomorrow.

  8. #8
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    All kids are brain dead. Who knows whats going on in their flat-brainwave heads.

    I used to wear my kilt occassionally when I was teaching, and the kids actually came to like it--mostly. They had a respect for my ability to break with the norm and demonstrate my brand of individualism. Most had never seen a man in a kilt.

    But I have to say, in the current day's environment when things like math and history are not thought of as important subjects for study, if this gets the kids to learn . . .well, OK.
    Jim Killman
    Writer, Philosopher, Teacher of English and Math, Soldier of Fortune, Bon Vivant, Heart Transplant Recipient, Knight of St. Andrew (among other knighthoods)
    Freedom is not free, but the US Marine Corps will pay most of your share.

  9. #9
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    I understand the OP's reservations about using the kilt as a motivational tool. It degrades the kilt, putting it on par with a purple mohawk. I like the fact that he's challenging students, a lot. I just wish that he wasn't using the national dress of Scotland as a "purple mohawk" to rally his students.

    Just my $.02
    The Barry

    "Confutatis maledictis, flammis acribus addictis;
    voca me cum benedictis." -"Dies Irae" (Day of Wrath)

  10. #10
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    If was meant as a gag or humiliation, he sure didn't look humiliated wearing it. The kilt fit him well and he wore it with the ease of someone who's been wearing kilts for a long time. He's also a big guy and my guess is that he's tossed a caber or two in his day.

    I think the gag is that he managed to slip in a kilt-day for himself.

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