[SeeDave]

>2. We will not laugh at or make fun of a person's mistakes nor use sarcasm or putdowns.

I would have appreciated this as my public school experience was rife with negativity, sarcasm, snark, jeering, insulting, etc.

I'm not sure what causes such anti-social behavior but I dream of a day where all students can be kind, considerate, polite, and supportive of one another.

[oblio]

Having been brought up in a positive environment, yet full of sarcasm, I'm not sure I buy this argument.

Yes, there must be a balance. But sarcasm and negativity are part of our everyday life as adults and we should learn how to handle them.

[SeeDave]

The best way to handle sarcasm and negativity is, in my opinion, to reduce contact and/or interaction. To not reward such behavior and instead choose to associate with positive people.

The problem is that school-kids are forced into repeated, unsupervised interactions where they are often deliberately and persistently targeted by aggressors.

Out of curiosity, what purpose does sarcasm serve you? What do you get out of sarcastic interactions?

[jdietrich]

>Out of curiosity, what purpose does sarcasm serve you?

"Ha ha, only serious". Gentle mockery can be a non-threatening way of expressing grievances and telling people difficult truths. A joke can be a very useful way of letting someone know that they're annoying us, that their work isn't up to par or that their haircut is unflattering. It's why the British excel at it - we're not very good at blunt truths, so we tend to make a joke of things.

A classic example might be the British way of greeting someone who is late - a gently sarcastic "nice of you to join us". It gets the message across without being a direct admonishment. Most of us would be unwilling to directly criticise a colleague for slacking, but we'd find it far easier to sarcastically remark "you must be rushed off your feet".

Nobody wants to be surrounded by relentlessly negative people, but uncritical cheerleaders can be just as harmful. Sometimes we need to be told things that we don't want to hear, lest we turn into vainglorious prima donnas, drifting through life with a total obliviousness to our obvious shortcomings. Sarcasm, irony and gentle mockery can make that bitter pill a little easier to swallow.

[watwut]

Or you could directly tell them they are annoying or that they work is not sufficient instead of being passive aggressive and hide behind jokes. Bonus will be that even dudes and dudettes with asperger will know what hostility is all about.

Sarcasm turns factual debate about performance into personal attack - and people have full right to respond in kind.

[debatem1]

It's communication. If you communicate what you want and not what you don't, it's successful by definition.

The point made above is that sarcasm can be a way of communicating what you want (eg, "you're late") without what you don't want ("you should be ashamed/feel bad/apologize/etc"). This unwanted implicit communication is common in blunt statements of fact and is part of why that communication style is often described using words like blunt or harsh.

In this sense, sarcasm and similar serve the opposite role to the one you describe: a way of jokingly or obliquely raising criticism without demanding a direct response. Of course, those criticisms can be personal-- but that's a property of criticism, not of its style of delivery.

[barrkel]

It's stops people's egos getting too big, and keeps them grounded. Verbal play, attack and defence is also an education for more subtle interactions later in life. Like it or not, adult life is a sea of competition and words are weapons.

[bittercynic]

In some domains this is absolutely true. If you're lucky, you have options to explore outside of those domains.

[jacobolus]

If you handle other people’s sarcasm, cynicism, sardonicism, nihilism, ... by eliminating interaction with them, you’ll miss out on hanging out with some truly hilarious and insightful people throughout your life. YMMV.

[merpnderp]

My school wasn't rife with it. Maybe only half my teachers used sarcasm, mockery and negativity towards students.

[SeeDave]

Half of teachers being outright hostile to students is far too many, in my opinion.

How does this behavior positively impact the lives of their students? Do they not understand the psychological damage they can be inflicting? Do they simply not care?

[barrkel]

Adolescence is an exercise in accumulating scar tissue. What you call damage, I can argue is growing up. You need a thicker hide and a more independent source of self worth; reliable continual external validation inhibits, imo.

Teachers are just other people too. The sooner teenagers recognise it fully, the better placed they'll be to choose their own way rather than have it chosen for them.

[SeeDave]

If it's done in a respectful, consensual manner then sure... there's nothing wrong with friendly harmless teasing. The problem is that it often crosses a line into bulling with zero net benefit for the victims.

Saying something like "What you call damage, I can argue is growing up" is a dangerous phrase; the type of dismissiveness that gives me the impression that you may have difficulty with respecting the boundaries of others. Could you please provide a couple of examples of the type of conversations/comments you've made that helped people build a thicker hide? Have you ever been thanked for it?

That said, adolescence is absolutely not an exercise in accumulating scar tissue so much as learning through trial and error how to interact with others, gain an education, and learn life skills to become a functioning member of society.

[sjg007]

They don't recognize it.

[dTal]

I'm going to guess merpnderp was indulging in a little sarcasm of their own.

[Kenji]

In my early teens, I was the only one who used sarcasm in the classroom, and none of my peers understood it. There needs to be more sarcasm in schools.

[mythrwy]

I've always felt overuse of sarcasm to be indication of a juvenile mind that thinks it's more clever than it actually is. Occasional use is fine.

[SeeDave]

Why does there need to be more sarcasm in schools?

I'm willing to hear you out, but would appreciate it if you could clearly explain the benefits of increased sarcasm in schools.

[Kenji]

Sarcasm is a great rhetoric tool.

[sjg007]

The cause is competition.