Cainntear wrote: Exactly. As a teacher, I'll say that what gets me most annoyed and frustrated is knowing that it's my fault; knowing that I've missed an important step; knowing that I've failed my students and not knowing how I've done it or how to fix it. And yes, when I don't control my expression, it does look to my students like I'm angry with them, and it's something I'm always trying not to do.
I do think that even teachers who openly blame students recognise on some level that it's their fault, and the blaming of the students is just a mechanism to protect their own self-image.
I 100% agree with this and can relate to it personally.
Cainntear wrote:Does every user subscribe to his newsletter or watch all of his videos? No.
True, mate. I don't disagree, I do think it is a mistake Mihali has made; but remember that I was replying to an accusation that this was a "strike" against his integrity when I think it is clear that he is not deliberately hiding anything. That's all I was arguing.
Cainntear wrote: And yet Mihalis's defence of his weaknesses is that he's actively chosen not to be a professional.
Gosh, I didn't really want to criticise Mihali, because I believe that on this thread he has been getting far, far more criticism than he deserves and I would also say that I think he's psychologically more together than I am. But since you insist on this point, I will explain that I think that when he is socially isolated (which until recently was much of the time due to the financial constraints caused by his seriously undervaluing his time), he does have a tendency to play "poor me". He had a fabulously professional approach and moaned about how amateur he was; he didn't (until last month) open it up to people helping him and then moaned about having to do it all himself, he seriously undervalued his time and then moaned about not having any money- he's a very good teacher and could easily make a comfortable living in the big European cities he loves with private classes. God knows that's what I would be doing if I had his talent.
I love Mihali and I certainly don't feel as ungrateful as that above sounds. I think he is a wonderful person.
There are things he can legitimately be criticised for (and you, Cavesa and others have had some nice little debates on these points in the past); but they are mostly not the things he has been getting criticised for on this thread recently. The last month or so the criticism on here has been very unfair.
romeo.alpha wrote: As Random Review says, that's actually the core of what MT did.
Lavengro concurs. I've been mulling this over, because I've been quite surprised by some of the criticism of Thomas and Mihali this past month or so, and I think when you do something very different, I guess you just attract a lot of criticism from people who don't understand what you are trying to do. I've said it before, but I think the analogy is a good one: I think a lot of people on here are looking at a cat and thinking "what a terrible dog".