Connection: Incerementalism

The idea of slowly undermining someone else’s authority can be found in family and in schools. We learned this concept through Lear, who is growing old, loosing rule over his kingdom, and is being mistreated by his daughters. All of these factors gradually become more effective. He must be taken care of by his servants (Fool) and his greedy daughters who often beguile him.

As people get old, we discussed that their children have to strip away their freedom and power for their safety. I have seen that happening through my family. My great grandmother is still alive. She’s 96 and still vivacious, but she has a horrible memory. So I’ve seen my grandparents as well as great aunts and uncles move her out of her house in Florida. However, now my grandparents and all others listed go to Arizona for half the year so my mom and her brothers are forced to take care of her. I make it sound awful, but grandma-ma is a really funny great person to be with, but she’s a bit of a handful. My family jokes around that once my grandparents get old enough where they need constant looking after, I will have to take care of them instead of my parents. As we learned in class, this sort of incrementalism can affect marriages, but I understand that it can also affect parent child relationships as well, much like Lear and his three daughters.

My other example of incrementalism can be found within our school. Most everyone has had some experiences with student teachers. Some of my peers have even said that they don't learn very much from their student teacher. So, I've known students who try to make class as difficult as possible for the student teacher. They are disruptive and overall, not courteous to the teacher. I think that the reason these kids act up is because they are intimidated and they feel that, because the age difference can be so small, that the student teacher has no right to demand attention or make disciplinary judgments. My cousin is actually a student teacher at an elementary school, and she said that her job is very difficult, but she is making progress with the students. Her hardships helped me understand the pressure being put on student teachers as well as Lear (taking away his authority), and it forced me to rethink my mistreatment of teachers. Age difference doesn't matter, the taking away of someones power can be stressful to the victim and the perpetrator(s).