Learning to drive efficiently.

[skeptic]

This was posted by one of my long ago scouts, one who has just retired from the Army as a Lt. Col and that served in Bosnia and all the other challenging locations of the era.  He now has a boy in Cubs and a girl in GS.  He never went beyond First Class, but was one of the avid outdoor youth with some family challenges that stayed the course until junior college.  Anyway, this analogy of his seems to me to be on point.

Francis Moss

1 hr · 

 

How you step on the brakes. To slow a speeding car to a stop smoothly, a driver must apply greater and greater pressure to the hydronic brake pedal until the car’s speed slows to a particular point where continued heavy pressure would lock-up the brakes and either cause the car to skid (or activate the anti-lock braking system in newer cars) or stop with a lurch, compressing the front suspension as the car’s mass suddenly stops, then harshly rocking the car backward as the suspension rebounds. Instead, a driver must let up on the brake pedal as the car slows, but not so much to release the brakes entirely, thus stopping the car smoothly and not spilling the drink they are holding that really should instead by in the cup holder or scaring passengers, other drivers, or pedestrians with a screeching stop, or smash into something in front of them. It is the same problem with the accelerator pedal, which requires greater pressure when starting from zero and much less while at cruise. It takes a while for new drivers (and experienced drivers operating unfamiliar vehicles) to get the hang of this, but most seem to get the hang of it. The added advantage to this activity is if the car does not have to come to a complete stop, such as when a light changes from red to green just as the car is stopping, there is still some stored momentum available to help the car gain speed just as smoothly as it would have stopped. “Smooth is fast and fast is smooth,” is what they say in the car racing world. I think a similar technique applies with social change activities, where pressure must be lifted sometime as the change occurs to facilitate a smooth transition. Continue with too much pressure and other things get disrupted and energy is waisted, lift too soon and you miss the limit line. The problem is judging when to do so. With learning to drive, there’s the pesky problem with judging what the car is capable of, what environmental conditions will allow, what other drivers will do, and what you can get away with. Although most can handle the pedal work, few get really, really good at dealing with all the variables and certainly not all of the time. So I see continued pushes for lots of social change that I am not sure need so much added pressure anymore and that are actually pushing so hard, they may be creating problems of their own. Could be that I’m just a backseat driver, but one in particular is girls and education. For instance, the Girl Scouts of America has the “Raise Your Hand program,” encouraging girls to speak up in class, because statistics show that boys are more aggressive with raising their hands in school. Now, that may be the case, but girls out perform boys in school and the proof of that is the statistic showing more women getting college degrees than men these days. Maybe instead of “Raise Your Hand” for girls, the Girl Scouts could team up with the Boy Scouts of America to have a “Shut Up and Listen” campaign for boys. It seems to me that the boys may be raising their hands more and speaking up, but it isn’t paying off for them, so they should be a little more like the girls, be a bit more quiet and listen before they speak. That may not be the right solution, but the disparity has shifted from women to men as far as education, which makes me think we’re past the point where we should lift up on the pedal and we have ourselves a fender bender. If the point is equality... Unfortunately, there are lots and lots of organizations whose existence depends on continuing their advocacy, even when the tipping point for the need may be past, not necessarily the GSUSA, but I hope you can see my point. It is very hard to get an advocate to quit advocating, just as it is very hard to get a general to stop trying to kill the enemy when it might be the time for diplomacy. People who have built their lives smashing one pedal have a hard time lifting and an even harder time learning how to use the other pedal. And just like being in traffic, there isn’t much you can do to teach such people, but get out of their way, hope they don’t hit you, insure yourself for the likelihood that they one day will, and sue them when they do. If they only learned how to drive.

[walk in the woods]

"Shut up and Listen" is exactly what we've been doing to boys for 50 years.  It is the reason we have disparity.  Other than that, the analogy is good.

[qwazse]

I think you're trying to mansplain something to me, but being a dude, I missed the micro-aggression

[WisconsinMomma]

Oooh, mansplaining!   It exists.  I think it's fairly rare though.

https://www.bustle.com/articles/136319-6-subtle-forms-of-mansplaining-that-women-encounter-each-day

Here's the first Google hit for mansplaining in the news.  Short story -- man at dance club is creepy to women and they get him kicked out.   To me this is mostly a case of natural consequences  -- men who are socially inept don't get many dance partners.   I don't think this story is about mansplaining at all.   In old fashioned terms if a man is being too difficult, frisky, or rough with the dance club's female members, they have every right to kick him out.  

Now, they may end up with no male dance partners, but that's another story.

http://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/vancouver-swing-dancer-banned-from-club-after-mansplaining

[Back Pack]

There’s womansplaining too. It’s what happens every time my mom points out how my dad is doing something wrong. 

[WisconsinMomma]

I don't think I've met any mansplainers in Scouting that I remember.   I have met a couple big-talkers, who make themselves look very important by giving very detailed descriptions of the work they do and how important it is, and whose way of doing thing is of course, the only possible right way to do anything.  Two separate examples -- giving long talks at meetings repeatedly how they handle every detail of and every single moving part,  telling all the stories of every detail of their recent accomplishments,  and generally taking up most of the air during meetings.  In another case, a Troop adult making a very big deal out of announcing in a group email that he has made the meeting room reservations.  So impressive and special.  Many other volunteers get their tasks done without such fanfare   I occasionally run into self-aggrandizing adult volunteers  (though they are rare, most adults are great) -- another female leader noticed the same thing, and she gave the nickname  "Super Scout" for this kind of braggish behavior.   I am not sure whether Super Scouts give grander performances in front of female Scouters or not.  I have a developing theory that this personality/behavior type is closely associated with helicoptering. 

[WisconsinMomma]

12 minutes ago, Back Pack said:

There’s womansplaining too. It’s what happens every time my mom points out how my dad is doing something wrong. 

That's the truth!  

[Back Pack]

My old scoutmaster taught us in the plc to communicate using bullet points and declarative sentences. He said it helped make things clearer. I’ve never forgotten that advice. 

[SSScout]

More and more often, our committees are (by email) listing things that need to be done, folks pick out some task, email back taking charge of it, then emailing back when it was done.   I hope that is not what we're talking about here.  

Then too, I advise against "Death by Powerpoint" at RoundTable.... 

** "I hope you won't mind a short announcement" (from the back of the room, in unison "NO , WE DON"T MIND A SHORT announcement")  .We have a signal when the overly detailed announcement is overtime... Someone will start edging onto the stage and slllloooowwwwwly edge the speaker off the stage....