Niceness or enabling: a fine line

I had the chance today to give a talk I don't often do - one about changing teacher attitudes toward technology. One of the sections examines the importance of "niceness" on the part the tech staff. Well, on the part of anyone for that matter. It's based on a corny old column.

I even promote niceness in my Machines book.

2.    It’s always, always, always better to be a nice person than an ass.
You will make mistakes at home and on the job. So keep this in mind: People will forgive your mistakes if you are generally a nice person; they never forget them if you behave like an ass.
One of my technicians once warned a teacher: "I am beginning to think it is easier to make you mad than to make you happy. Remember, you are a lot more fun to watch when you are mad." The teacher got nicer.

But after the session, I found myself giving contrary advice: "Too rapid a response to tech requests simply enables those who do not wish to learn how to diagnose and repair their own problems. Make a polite excuse which gives the person making the request 30-40 minutes to see if he can't solve the problem himself."

Tough love?

Here's another tough question: How do you deal with the teacher who "punishes" students by denying them access to the library or computer lab? I had no good answer for this question...

Comments

[Margaret]

The other interesting side to that scenario is the teacher who sends their K-12 students to the library as "punishment" for acting up in class. Sadly, I've found too many young college students who have really negative attitudes about using the library based primarily on their perception of it being a place of punishment.