This video, or ones like it, are used in psychology class. They really help students understand how real “learned helplessness” is and how powerful it can be on us.
i was talking to an old teacher a few weeks ago and he was telling me how they arent allowed to do stuff like this anymore, after i brought up the "test" where you had to read the directions that just told you to write your name them only do questions 1, 5, 10, and 15 instead of every single one, to teach kids how to read directions.
parent claimed it was mean to expect your students to fail if they didnt follow directions
Ironically I think the danger is that for fear of learned helplessness, the pendulum has swung to trying to make sure kids ALWAYS succeed, even if you suck, you get a trophy and pats on the back. The end result is degredation in trying hard, I mean why try to do better if the outcome is the same? And there's also a heavily reduced ability to tolerate failure and criticism, because they've never experienced it, but in the real world, you WILL have to deal with those things.
IMO there is a balance were too much failure can lead to learned helplessness but letting them have zero failure ever is not a better option. In fact we've probably all experienced learned helpless and frustrated feelings of wanting to just give up because 'it's hopeless,' and part of growth and becoming stronger is to learn how to recover and battle back instead of rolling over and giving up.
This video induced learned helplessness in 5 minutes but it was also a learning experience, especially by the 'losing' side as they learned how much attitude alone can make you fail and how important a good attitude is in success. So by inducing learned helplessness, she was actually also teaching them how to not so easily succumb to future learned helplessness.
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u/FLVoiceOfReason 23h ago
This video, or ones like it, are used in psychology class. They really help students understand how real “learned helplessness” is and how powerful it can be on us.