So when I went through school you’d have two types of struggling kids:
Kid A would struggle to pass tests, but work hard and get every assignment done so they can keep their average in check. Teachers like this kid. Not that there’s anything wrong with this kid, but teachers project virtue on them sometimes just to shame kid B when kid B asks for consideration.
Kid B is who I assume many people here were and who I was. Kid B struggled to get from start to finish of all of the assignments that kept popping up and per haps couldn’t do the same task for very long. Kid B, however, could get high grades on most tests. If Kid B asks for some consideration to pass the class as they’ve gotten the information but weren’t able to finish all of the assignments and are told no, because Kid A exists and “I can stand someone who struggles with the tests but does the work, but I’ll never tolerate someone who is lazy”.
I have cptsd from years spent as kid B, but I’m pretty sure that’s a generic thing that happened to others as well. I had that quote shoved down my throat by a double digit number of adults. And the too-radical thought is this: I believe the teaching approach that holds kid A as a paragon of virtue and kid B as a lazy snot is quite discriminatory and maybe those are just two differently struggling kids. And maybe some consideration should be given to both. And maybe PTSD causing trauma should be withheld from both groups
I get what you’re saying, because I also get resistant when I’m “forced” to do something.
I think the force that they are referring to above is a more gentle “You know you want to/need to do this, and it’s now or never, so get to it!”
It’s not a force against our will, (like putting a gun to someone and saying do this thing you would never do.) but more like, X needs done and the consequences of not doing it now will be worse than the act of doing it.
If my wife asks me to take out the trash (which I have been ignoring for three days) before she gets home, I will do it because I want to be a good husband and I don’t want her to be upset with me, but if she hadn’t asked, it would probably be there for another three days.
In most cases the more aggressive forms of force came from well meaning people that started out with the type you describe, with a very gradual escalation. The problem is that my burnout was compounding, not reducing, over time when I tried to comply which would lead to this increasing dread over time and eventually would lead to just a total failure. When I reach total failure, they just keep on pressing until it’s a more overt form of abuse. The more overt forms only came out initially a very small number of times. So I really was talking about the sort of force you’re describing, but on a sort of spectrum that leads to the sort you were inferring.