I wrote several posts with notes on Mel Levine’s Myth of Laziness. I’m going to list them here now:
When I wrote about Laziness once before, I tried to come up with some of the reasons that kids might be thought of as lazy besides simple idleness. The reasons I thought of were that people (inc children) might be:
1) Alienated. That is, people who aren’t very commited to whatever they’re engaged in, or who are resistant (passively or actively).
2) Debilitated. That is, people who have some underlying health condition or inability because of physical, mental, emotional difficulties. Either temporary or chronic.
3) Misplaced.Maybe this is a bit of both #1 and #2. Sometimes a person gets in a job or lifestyle which has demands that aren’t suited to their temperament or ability. Or don’t LOOK suited to their temperament or ability. I read an example recently — a shy college student who needed to earn money and got a job as a door to door vacuum salesperson.
Levine is focusing mostly on #2 — debilitations of one sort or other. He does mention #3 too — noting that children in school are expected to perform well on an extraordinarily wide field — more wide than most adults. He also mentions the importance of making sure that children transition into an adult vocation that suits their abilities as well as their inclinations.
He seems to mention my #1, Alienation, mostly implicitly, in his descriptions of the older students who have developed defense mechanisms in response to their output failure in the earlier years. So I think he would say that alienation is a common response to the pain people feel when they are unable to succeed at the work that they are expected to do.
