> Hi Tipsters,
> I was asking about vivid teaching moments last week (thanks to those who
> sent them in--I didn't ask permission to post them to the group, so don't
> know what to do at this point), and I thought I'd pass on a vivid
> teaching/learning moment that I don't really know what to do with now that
> I've got it...
> I was trying to explain paranoid schizophrenia to my intro class
> last semester, and was casting about for a different way to look at it.
> As I sometimes do, I tried to consider what the *opposite* of paranoid sz
> would look like, as a way of clarifying the concept both to myself and to
> the class. What popped into my head was the idea of belief in a
> benevolent force that arranged your life to be positive, took care of you,
> and loved you no matter what. Yikes, I thought, that sounds like a belief
> in God to me! In line with the research that indicates that we often
> distort the world in positive ways in order to feel better about ourselves
> (Taylor & Fiske), can we see a belief in good as an example of benevolent
> schizophrenia, that is, a positive mental illness?
> I offered the idea to the class; I couldn't tell what they thought,
> but I'm still thinking about this months later...
>
> Joe Hatcher
> Ripon College
> Ripon, WI 54971
> USA
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
I don't have a relevant comment, but it made me think of the latest quote in
my signature block.
"Why is it when we talk to God we're praying,
but when he talks to us we're schizophrenic?"
-Lily Tomlin
