How To Recognize Toxic Students In Your Dojo

[Marnetmar]

Thought you all might find this an insightful read.

How To Recognize Toxic Students In Your Dojo | Martial Arts Business Daily

 

[Steve]

that's a very poorly organized post that was difficult to read. The TL;DR version is that this guy is an idiot.

First, grammar. I don't know who taught him how to write, but you don't start a new paragraph with every sentence. I get that sometimes, it's helpful to offset a point by physically creating some space on the page. This isn't that. It's hard to read an essay where every statement stands alone.

Second, it's an article about identifying toxic students, but he starts by describing a poorly behaved teenage spectator who isn't a student at all. Is the 5 year old toxic because his sister allegedly misbehaved from the side line? This anecdote leads off with an elitist disclaimer that implies he's used to dealing with affluent people who never act unpredictably, as opposed to the way that some (LOL at how he is careful to mention that some poor people are not bad people) poor people act crazy!

Then back to students. in the second section, under the header "Recognizing Toxic Students" we still don't learn how to recognize a toxic student. Instead, we learn that "toxic student" = bad person. That's not helpful, but it does allow him to distinguish between people who are just rude and ignorant and people who are "bad." At the end of this section, we learn further that Toxic = Bad = Crazy.

At this point, we get a disclaimer. Essentially, he has no idea what he's talking about and tells us so at this point. He's read a book, though, so... watch out.

Now, I have to get going, so I won't go into the rest. But one piece of this seems really off base. He talks about the emotionally unstable person. He equates this to a drama queen and is very dismissive. It would seem to me that a victim of assault, or someone who is looking for self defense training, may have some degree of emotional instability. To describe someone who is emotionally unstable as being "toxic" which we know equates to "bad" and also "crazy" is not okay, IMO.

 

[hoshin1600]

that's a very poorly organized post that was difficult to read. The TL;DR version is that this guy is an idiot.

First, grammar. I don't know who taught him how to write, but you don't start a new paragraph with every sentence. I get that sometimes, it's helpful to offset a point by physically creating some space on the page. This isn't that. It's hard to read an essay where every statement stands alone.

Second, it's an article about identifying toxic students, but he starts by describing a poorly behaved teenage spectator who isn't a student at all. Is the 5 year old toxic because his sister allegedly misbehaved from the side line? This anecdote leads off with an elitist disclaimer that implies he's used to dealing with affluent people who never act unpredictably, as opposed to the way that some (LOL at how he is careful to mention that some poor people are not bad people) poor people act crazy!

Then back to students. in the second section, under the header "Recognizing Toxic Students" we still don't learn how to recognize a toxic student. Instead, we learn that "toxic student" = bad person. That's not helpful, but it does allow him to distinguish between people who are just rude and ignorant and people who are "bad." At the end of this section, we learn further that Toxic = Bad = Crazy.

At this point, we get a disclaimer. Essentially, he has no idea what he's talking about and tells us so at this point. He's read a book, though, so... watch out.

Now, I have to get going, so I won't go into the rest. But one piece of this seems really off base. He talks about the emotionally unstable person. He equates this to a drama queen and is very dismissive. It would seem to me that a victim of assault, or someone who is looking for self defense training, may have some degree of emotional instability. To describe someone who is emotionally unstable as being "toxic" which we know equates to "bad" and also "crazy" is not okay, IMO.

Thanks for the synopsis. I am not going to bother clicking on the link and wasting my time.

 

[MA_Student]

Stuff happens that's life if something bad happens you deal with it that's how life works. That article was just a bunch of rambling

 

[Balrog]

Interesting article. Thanks for the link.

 

[jobo]

that's a very poorly organized post that was difficult to read. The TL;DR version is that this guy is an idiot.

First, grammar. I don't know who taught him how to write, but you don't start a new paragraph with every sentence. I get that sometimes, it's helpful to offset a point by physically creating some space on the page. This isn't that. It's hard to read an essay where every statement stands alone.

Second, it's an article about identifying toxic students, but he starts by describing a poorly behaved teenage spectator who isn't a student at all. Is the 5 year old toxic because his sister allegedly misbehaved from the side line? This anecdote leads off with an elitist disclaimer that implies he's used to dealing with affluent people who never act unpredictably, as opposed to the way that some (LOL at how he is careful to mention that some poor people are not bad people) poor people act crazy!

Then back to students. in the second section, under the header "Recognizing Toxic Students" we still don't learn how to recognize a toxic student. Instead, we learn that "toxic student" = bad person. That's not helpful, but it does allow him to distinguish between people who are just rude and ignorant and people who are "bad." At the end of this section, we learn further that Toxic = Bad = Crazy.

At this point, we get a disclaimer. Essentially, he has no idea what he's talking about and tells us so at this point. He's read a book, though, so... watch out.

Now, I have to get going, so I won't go into the rest. But one piece of this seems really off base. He talks about the emotionally unstable person. He equates this to a drama queen and is very dismissive. It would seem to me that a victim of assault, or someone who is looking for self defense training, may have some degree of emotional instability. To describe someone who is emotionally unstable as being "toxic" which we know equates to "bad" and also "crazy" is not okay, IMO.

i agree, its just phycobabble, with no actual application, what is he suggesting you do, run an assessment on all new students and then decline any that fit a totally made up criteria, if someone is a pain you might want to have a word with them, but that hardly requires you read a book on how the,FBI do criminal profiling.

then of course its the old chestnut of needing to read it if you teach self defence, total nonsense from beginning. To end.

that without his assumption that poor people are crazy and bad