I’ve been very judgmental lately. It seems like every day I’m rendering judgment on someone or something.
Of course, that’s part of many of my varied jobs. As a teacher, I have to place grades upon student work. In the wonderful world of English, there are often not right or wrong answers, so it is up to my subjective discretion to issue a grade. Students have been giving speeches, which means I have to look at each speech and decide if different elements were good or not. Eye contact, nonverbals, and use of voice are all subjective decisions.
I’ve also been reading essays. Some parts of essays can be objective (Did you complete your Works Cited correctly?) while others are subjective (Did you make your point clearly?). Even when marking grammatical errors, I face judgments all the time. A particular student may have more marks on his or her paper, but it’s largely the same type of mistake. The grade might be the same for grammar on that paper as for someone with fewer errors, based on my judgment.
In addition, I umpired my first baseball games of the year last week. You want judgment calls? Try officiating! Every pitch I call a ball or strike is a judgment. And just look at some of the close calls in the NCAA basketball tournament! If it weren’t for super-slow motion replays, we’d still be debating certain foul calls and double dribbles.
When the Bible talks about not judging others for fear of the ultimate judgment, I don’t think these situations were part of the equation. Not everyone agrees with officials’ calls all the time, and some students question the grades they receive on assignments. But I don’t think God is marking those on my tally sheet. (I hope not!)
We live in a very judgmental world, though, don’t we? I’ve thought about this quite a bit lately and not always found myself on the right side of the person I should be. It’s more and more difficult to not almost be forced to make decisions on everything in the news. Talking heads from both sides of any issue are doing much more than talking these days. The shouting that occurs on news programs and talk shows makes you feel like if you don’t agree with them, you’re a horrible person.
And don’t even look at social media without being inundated with opinions and judgments. Most of the time, I have to exert self-control to keep from responding to items that raise my ire. However, I couldn’t help myself recently when I saw a post disparaging teachers and how every single one of us is lazy and against Donald Trump.
Well. Anyone who knows me understands that I will defend my profession until I retire, and beyond. I asked this person to not group all of us together based on a (selective) video showing some teachers yelling at students to remove their “Make America Great Again” hats. I told him I had recently done that because our students should not be wearing hats in school. It had nothing to do with what was on the hat.
He and I engaged in a productive discussion. We talked about judging groups based on the actions of some. He understood my point about not all teachers being the same. He also railed against immigrants. I tried to show how we shouldn’t judge all people seeking a better life in our country based on the poor choices of some.
It was a wonderful dialogue. We both found that we opened our minds to new ideas. We agreed that if more of our politicians could have those sorts of talks, maybe something would actually get done in this country!
Oh wait, there I go judging again. See how easy it is to slip into that mode?
One thing my daughter pointed out to me is how our technology uses these algorithms, based on what we read and react to in our social media meanderings, to filter our news feeds. Because I look at many posts from and follow others who are teachers, I get many items regarding education. Becaues I follow some people on Twitter who rant against the President, I’m exposed to more of those people, even if I followed Mark Hamill because he played Luke Skywalker, not because of his political views!
So it seems as if our computers are trying to help us make judgments. And this is the scary part. We have a young generation that isn’t being forced to think about ideas. Their social media tells them how to think. When we talk about persuasive topics for papers, I ask kids where they get their ideas. The answer is usually from home or from the Internet. When I ask if they ever look at the other point of view, I usually get a blank stare.
This mob mentality has been around forever. As we approach Easter, we can look at the judgment of Jesus when he was brought before Pilate. Pilate believed Jesus was innocent of a crime, but everyone else was telling him otherwise. The crowd chanted that they wanted a mass murderer released but Jesus executed. Imagine how Facebook or Twitter would have blown up with hashtags and repostings!
As we remember the death and resurrection of Jesus, I hope we can all walk a path to less judgment. I need to get better at thinking things through before jumping to a conclusion.
But I still think that kid was out at first. And I’m standing by my judgment!
Word of the Week: This week’s word is resipiscence, which means recognizing one’s own error, as in, “The umpire realized the play was not interference, and in an act of resipiscence, changed his call.” Impress your friends and confuse your enemies!