- I'm now in my 15th year as a teacher
and I love my job now as much as I did my first year
and I'm as passionate as I've ever been,
however I'm starting to think my students
no longer see me as that young teacher
and they're definitely not getting my 90s references.
So this got me thinking, does age
or the appearance of youth affect how we view others?
Is ageism a real thing?
I'd like to find out.
These students are under the impression
that they're beloved teacher is taking a leave of absence
and they have to choose between two long term substitutes.
One is younger and definitely more cool,
while the other is older, more experienced,
and a much better teacher.
Will student's pick the younger teacher because he's younger
or will they go with the older teacher,
who's obviously more experienced
and his lesson is much better?
Mr. Paul, I'll just give you a quick little background.
Most of these are Mr. Surget's students from sociology.
- Okay.
- Some of them are my students who are gonna be
kind of a neutral party.
If you want to give 'em a little background
as far as your background?
- Yeah, I'd love to.
Actually I started out a long time ago
as a elementary school teacher
and then after 25 years in the classroom,
most of them in kindergarten,
then I became a elementary school counselor
for 13 and a half years, and then I retired,
but I thought it would be interesting
to continue on to go for my doctorate in sociology.
So that's-
- So you are actually going for your doctorate in sociology.
- [Mr. Paul] I am, Yes.
- Okay, 'cause this is obviously a sociology class.
- Yes, so we're going to be talking about psychopaths
and sociopaths today.
So-
- Why'd everybody look at me when he said sociopath?
You don't even know what it means.
- So you're just gonna look at this.
You're gonna read all of these
characteristics of a sociopath.
I also sent along some videos
and I thought it would be interesting
for you to look at these videos,
to see if you could determine whether or not,
the person in the video is a psychopath, or a sociopath.
That's my prepared lesson.
- Alright, alright, round of applause for Mr. Paul.
- Thank you very much, thank you very much.
- Alright, so you met Mr. Paul, this is Mr. B.
He'll tell you a little bit of background
about himself and what brings him here too.
- Am I okay over here?
- Did you send me anything to pull up?
- No, no, no, I just scribbled some notes.
- [Mr. Surget] All right so you
don't need the projector or anything?
- [Mr. B] That and I got some notes on my phone and stuff.
- [Mr. Surget] So no Power Point
projector or anything.
- No, no, well thank you for giving me this opportunity.
I graduated from Union high school.
I actually went into the performing arts
and actor, singer, also a house painter.
So what I wanted to do today for my little mini lesson
is I want you guys within your tables
just to kind of create a list of some film, TV characters
that may be psychopaths and some that may be sociopaths,
and just within you guys I want you to kind of talk it out.
- A nice chair.
- [Mr. B] All right, so let's start
with the center group here,
give me one person on your list and why.
- Sheldon from the Big Bang Theory.
- Okay, what about this table over here,
what do you guys got?
- We had Megan from Drake and Josh.
- All right, well thank you very much, Mr. B.
Would you mind wait in the hallway for two minutes.
- Sure.
- Just so I can give them the follow up instructions.
Thank you very much.
- Yes, thank you guys.
- All right, so again, pick who you think would be
who you would like most, or most like to have as a teacher.
We have our results.
Let me read some of them.
"I prefer Mr. B."
"Mr. Paul is more professional,
but I feel like I'd get bored."
"Mr B.'s young and more understanding."
"I prefer Mr. B because Mr. Paul
looks like he may die at any moment."
- You wrote that.
- No, I'm only kidding, I'm only kidding,
it doesn't say that all right.
- [All Students] Oh.
- For a vote of 21 to 6, Mr. Surget's class
will be taken over by Mr. B, all right.
- Congratulations.
- Mr. Paul, you actually,
and Mr. B know each other very well?
- Yes.
- And how is that so?
- Mr. B is my son.
- [Student] What?
- Ooh.
- So here's what we wanted to see.
We wanted to do a little experiment with Mr. Surget's class
as well as others to see if ageism is a real thing,
where you tend to focus and see people
and judge them based on their age
because you feel more of a connection with them
and you guys kind of proved it right.
- Well I learned more from Mr. Paul to be honest,
but Mr. B was the one that I connected with,
only because, you know, he was young and energetic.
- I chose Mr. B. I mean, I don't know why.
I kind of liked Mr. P more.
He taught us more than Mr. B.
I think subconsciously I just chose Mr. B though.
- You know older teachers we don't really tend to relate
'cause the age difference, so yeah,
I did choose the younger teacher 'cause the age mostly,
even though he was not even really prepared or anything,
I still chose him.
- They all picked the younger guy.
I guess they felt like they could interact better with him
than the older guy.
I feel like you should get more comfortable
being uncomfortable.
You should be able to interact with any type of person
no matter how old or young they are.
You should still be able to interact with anybody.
- Wow, older teacher, amazing lesson.
Younger teacher, doesn't even care,
and the younger teacher gets picked.
This taught me that I'm gonna continue
to moisturize my skin so my students take me seriously,
because apparently youth matters more than knowledge.
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