More pet hates...

This is making me laugh - I don't feel particularly resentful and yet my past two posts have been along the same lines!

So the world according to me would have no cliques or cliquiness! (Yes, I coined a word and I've got a perfect right ;) )

I teach. And like the majority of the rest of the world, I have been in high school. And college. And other places where community is built from a grassroots level. And I detest it when one student (or two or ten) is left out of a spotlight-stealing group. I actually go one step further and feel my hackles rising even when no one is left out (particularly) but there is a preference for certain types of people... There is a difference but a difference which, to me, means very little in principle.

I think, somehow, I always hated it. I've been both 'popular' and 'not-popular' - I've actually never been unpopular. Funnily enough, when I was rather in the not-so-popular group that I actually won a school election (which was pretty big in the day!). But I hate it when people get labelled without seeking out the label. For example, in the school I teach, one student is considered of lesser ability. By the students, I mean. Another is considered unfriendly. But the reason behind both isn't because of anything they've done... it's more because of what they've not done.

I could easily shoot myself in the foot here - because leaving some things unsaid or undone is just as bad as an error of commission. But with people in social situations, you never know whether something is because they don't want to or because they don't know how/because they do it differently. GIVE them the benefit of the doubt.

If you don't know how, take a year off and teach English or any other foreign language in several far-off lands ... NOW, for goodness' sake!