I agree that rude and intrusive questions about one's personal life and history are best treated as fiction prompts. --I agree! Even for essay prompts, when I was volunteering in the jail, I would remind people that they didn't have to share an actual experience/describe their actual feelings.
And yet, something I've talked about with one of my daughters is how we both find it psychologically difficult *not* to answer with something true, or true-ish. It's as if we have some fear that someone is going to hold us to whatever story we come up with--or maybe it's that we're afraid they're going to assume whatever we say **is** true, and then form opinions about us. She's noticed similar problems among her elementary school students (she teaches English in the public schools in Japan): even if she tells students they don't have to answer with an actual interesting trip they took or an actual animal they like or whatever, they feel constrained. So she tells them, "You can tell me about an animal your friend likes, or a trip you'd like to make one day," etc., to take away some of the pressure to recount something from their actual lives.
And thank you for the three cheers! The stapler looks as gratified as a stapler can look ^_^
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momijizukamori
no subject
Date: 2023-12-02 01:24 pm (UTC)And yet, something I've talked about with one of my daughters is how we both find it psychologically difficult *not* to answer with something true, or true-ish. It's as if we have some fear that someone is going to hold us to whatever story we come up with--or maybe it's that we're afraid they're going to assume whatever we say **is** true, and then form opinions about us. She's noticed similar problems among her elementary school students (she teaches English in the public schools in Japan): even if she tells students they don't have to answer with an actual interesting trip they took or an actual animal they like or whatever, they feel constrained. So she tells them, "You can tell me about an animal your friend likes, or a trip you'd like to make one day," etc., to take away some of the pressure to recount something from their actual lives.
And thank you for the three cheers! The stapler looks as gratified as a stapler can look ^_^