- You know, recently,
some people have had trouble
with the idea that I
have critique of school.
They often are speaking on
behalf of public schools
as though I somehow
am specifically attacking
public schools, which I'm not.
So, that's kind of an aside point.
I'm talking about the concept
of schools in general.
And I always am careful to say
that different schools
are different (chuckles).
Every school is different,
every teacher is different.
And we've gotta be discerning
and use our critical thinking
with regards to each school.
But what actually I wanna
address in today's episode
is the fact that they say,
if you don't have anything nice to say,
don't say anything at all,
or don't bring others
down to build yourself up,
or it's not kind, you're
bashing other people,
this is not okay type of thing.
And I wanna talk about the difference
between criticism and critique.
Well, welcome to the
Parenting Junkie Show.
Thank you so much for
joining me here today.
My name is Avital, if
you don't know who I am,
I'm a performance coach for parents.
My whole entire goal is to help you
to create family bliss.
I'm a big believer in mindset,
and that is what this podcast
is mostly dedicated to.
I also took talk a lot
about independent play,
about setting up our homes
for minimalism and for success
and about our partnership,
marriages and homeschooling.
Lots of different topics
that I like to cover,
but really we're gonna dive
deeply into mindset here today.
What I want you to know is that,
the point that I always am trying to make,
is to serve you,
is to champion you,
is to help you to build a
strong, resilient mindset
and to do that for your children as well.
One that really keeps
you happier and healthier
and more capable,
rather than feeling victimized,
and easily offendable and timid.
So, I believe having a
strong mindset is everything.
How we look at things,
our thoughts that is what
shapes our realities,
I really believe that with
every fiber of my being.
And that's why today, I
wanna talk about Criticism.
Now, little bit of background.
I have a degree in design,
it's called visual communications.
It's a fancy way of saying graphic design.
And I went to a design school.
It's called Bazalel
Academy of Art and Design,
in Jerusalem, Israel,
and it's a very prestigious
and old establishment
and they are very, very competitive there.
I had an amazing time, I loved it.
I loved the work.
One of the things I did
not love was the critiques.
What would happen was that the teacher,
the professor would give us
an assignment like design,
a book cover or whatever,
and we would do it and we
would hang it on the wall,
in a very perfect way,
with rulers and making sure
it all looks very pristine
before our next class.
And then the professor would
critique each person's work
in front of everyone.
Now, some of the professors
were very kind and helpful
with their critiques,
and others like to make
a big show of their power
and like to really dig in to
people on a personal level
and be frankly mean to them, right?
Lowering their self confidence
and esteem as designers.
And one professor even went so far
as to rip the paper off the wall,
because, in this kind of
like masochist show of power
and of course the student
ran out of the room crying
and it was a whole big drama.
And I used to find that so off-putting,
I still find that so off-putting
the need to tear people
down, to make it personal,
to be dramatic and
exaggerated about critiques
was so distasteful, in my opinion,
and it kind of feeds into that egocentric,
artists who only cares
about their own opinion
and who puts the work before people,
and I never respected that.
However, the other side of the critiques
and the vast majority of
the professors and teachers
were really respectful.
They were not making it
personal in the slightest.
They were really talking
about the merits of the work,
they were analyzing,
what does work and what doesn't work,
and they were teaching us to develop
our own critical thinking as well,
to look at a piece of
work and to decipher,
and with nuance and with
sensitivity and with delicacy,
what elements served the piece
and what elements didn't.
In fact, did this designer succeed
in getting their message
across through their artwork
or had they failed?
Because we didn't understand
what they were trying to evoke
or the message they were trying to send.
In design, in contrast to art,
you have to succeed in
getting your message across.
People have to know how to use a product,
how to read a poster,
what to buy from an advertisement.
They have to want to buy the thing.
They have to understand how to
use a building, where to go,
how to use a chart, right?
If they don't understand,
if they haven't got the
message through your design,
then it hasn't worked.
And if they have got the
message and it has worked,
and maybe it's nuanced, maybe
they get it in some ways,
but not in others,
maybe some people get it and others don't,
maybe it hits on some points
and doesn't hit on others.
What I learnt then through
four years of grueling,
grillings of critiques,
is to depersonalize criticism
in this kind of way.
It's not actually criticism
as I'm about to explain,
it to critique,
but to depersonalize it,
I learned that my work
has to speak for itself,
and that what I learned from my professors
and my fellow students
who are telling me that
honest opinion about my work
is to really be brutally honest,
to have integrity and to not get offended
or take it personally, if
something isn't working.
I learned that the critique was for me,
not to me a lot,
that it was there to
help me perform better,
to improve my work, to
get to hone my skill,
to really get better at what I was doing.
And I learned that it mattered very much
to use critical thinking,
and to really deliberate and debate
whether things were doing
what they were supposed to do, right?
Whether we like the way this
was functioning and working
in this particular design or not.
And that, that was actually
in fact how we improved it.
In our culture, there
seems to be this idea,
that we shouldn't say something
if we don't have something nice to say,
and I agree with that in many ways,
I just disagree with our definition
of something nice to say.
The people, the professors,
that were ripping papers off the wall,
they were giving criticism.
It was personal.
They were finding fault with the person
and with the piece, right?
They were judging that
person and that piece, okay?
They weren't actually reviewing it.
They weren't coming from an
energy of trying to help,
of giving commentary,
of discussing specific issues.
They were not giving a critique.
They were criticizing
the designer or the work.
Now, lets bring it back to us.
When I talk about school, for example,
and I'm talking about school
as a massive umbrella term,
as I've already said,
it's much more nuanced.
It depends on each
school and each context,
but let me be clear that I think
we have to be able to
talk about the merits
of school and the downsides.
We have to be able to talk about that.
We have to be to have honest conversations
about whether or not school,
or spanking,
or vaccinations,
or home birth,
or breastfeeding,
or cloth diapering,
or any practice,
any choice,
any lifestyle choice that
we make for our children,
we have to be able to
apply critical thinking,
to critique it,
and decide about its pros and cons.
And be honest about those.
There is a famous quote that says,
"Before you speak ask yourself,
"if what you are going to say is true,
"is it kind, is it necessary?
"Is it helpful?
"And if the answer is no,
"maybe what you were about to
say should be left unsaid."
or the memes that say,
"Is it kind, is it true?
"Is it necessary?
Is it helpful?
"And is it an improvement on silence?"
The thing with the difference
between criticism and critique
is the answers to those questions, okay?
Criticism looks to find fault, okay?
Critique is looking at the
structure of the thing.
And I'm actually taking this from,
Writing Alone, Writing
Together: A Guide for Writers
and Writing Groups by Judy Reeves.
And she outlines the difference
between criticism and critique.
And I think is incredibly helpful for us
in how we talk to
ourselves, to our partners,
to our children, and about, for example,
the school system or anything
else that we want to critique.
Criticism is looking for fault.
You're at fault, you're to
blame, this is wrong, right?
Critique is looking at
the structure of the thing
and deciphering,
what about it works and what doesn't.
Criticism is focused on what is lacking,
you're wrong, you're
bad, you're mean, right?
And critique is finding
what's working, right?
Here's, what's working.
Here's what I want you to say.
Here's what I love when you do, right?
It's great when you can.
In the case of school,
criticism would just be saying, okay,
here are all the awful things at school
that happens in school.
Critique would say,
here's what we can get from schools,
and here's what we want in schools.
And here's what works.
And if that's not happening in schools,
we can be honest about
it and kind about it,
and still say it, truthfully.
Criticism condemns what
it doesn't understand,
and critique asks for clarification.
So, that's another thing
that I definitely saw,
in critique and in design school,
is that people would say like,
oh, this is off because I didn't get it.
Whereas critique would say,
well, what were you trying to say here?
Can you explain what your thinking was?
Why did you choose this color?
Why did you choose this font?
Why is this this size?
Ah, okay, well, by the way,
that message didn't come across,
let's see how we can get it across better.
Criticism is spoken with a
cruel wit and sarcastic tongue
and critiques voice is
kind honest and objective.
And I think this is the
most important point
about the differences, the
energy from which it comes.
Criticism comes from an energy of anger.
It's coming from an energy of cruelty
of trying to tear someone down,
perhaps to build yourself up.
But critique is kind,
honest and objective.
It's really trying to look
at the subject at hand
and be honest about whether or not
it believes it's of service.
Criticism is negative,
critique is positive.
I don't know if that's always true.
I think critique can sometimes talk
about what's not working,
but I think it does so
in a positive way, right?
Or in a gentle way.
This is an important one.
Criticism is vague and general,
critique is concrete and specific.
I think that's incredibly important
'cause when you're giving your partner
or your child criticism,
and you're just saying,
you're always mean,
or you're so disrespectful
or you're always late,
or you're just not a nice brother
or you scream the whole time or whatever.
And it's vague and general,
that means that the energy
is just to bring the other person down.
It doesn't help them.
Critique is concrete and specific.
It says, when this and this happens,
you tend to do so and so,
and that doesn't work
because of whatever reason.
And we start to be really,
really specific, right?
Like instead of saying to
our partner, for example,
you could tell, this is an
example from my own life.
Instead of saying, you're
always on your phone,
we could say during dinner time,
would you mind please making sure
that your phone is away from table.
That would be so wonderful, right?
That's specific.
That's setting them up for success.
It's actually giving some
them something concrete
that they can hold on to rather
than just saying generally,
you're failing with your phone, right?
Criticism has no sense of humor,
and critique insists on laughter too,
Critique is amusing, critique is funny.
Critic says, you know what?
This didn't work, this was a total flop.
I totally get how we got here.
Let's figure out next steps.
Let's look at what is working.
And criticism for the flaws in the writer,
or the creator or the person,
as well as the writing,
critique addresses only
what is on the page
and I think that is
incredibly important too.
Criticism finds fault with the person,
you are disrespectful,
you are addicted,
you are always annoyed,
critique is specifically
about the behavior
is about the product, right?
Rather than saying you're violent,
it's saying hitting hurts,
please don't hit, right?
It's being specific
concrete and not personal,
not making the problem personal.
I think there's a big difference
between criticism and critique.
The Dalai Lama says, "Be
kind whenever possible.
"It is always possible."
And I guess what I want
to say with this episode
is that it is possible to point out
the things and aren't working,
the things that need to change,
the things that need to be improved,
without being unkind.
And I think that's the goal that I take
when I talk about things that
I don't think are working
in our mindsets,
in our behaviors, in our systems,
in our institutions,
I take the goal that it
comes from kind energy,
that it comes from the energy
of looking for ways to improve,
not energy of blame,
or finding fault with people,
and making it personal,
or thinking that someone
was with bad intent
or anything like that, but saying,
hey, I have a vision
for how we can make this
even more effective,
even more productive,
even better, even kinder.
And I think that we need
to live in a culture
where we're not so fragile,
that we can't handle critique.
I know many of us haven't
been through the experience,
I've been through of really
thickening your skin,
and learning to listen to
critique with curiosity.
But I wanna live in that kind of world.
I wanna live in the kind
of world where it's okay
to point out the things that
are great about something
and the things that
still need to be improved
without that meaning that
we're attacking someone.
Especially if we're not attacking someone,
especially if we're not
being mean about it,
but we're saying, look,
this is what happens.
Some of the things that I said is,
look, this is what happens in school,
there is age segregation,
in school there is learning to the test.
There is competition between students.
There's often a dumbing
down of the curriculum
to the lowest common denominator,
because that's what you have to do
when you're handling 30
kids at different levels
and different paces, right?
These really aren't facts that
that happens in many schools,
not all schools, but that's
what typically happens.
And then people will say to me, well,
you're bashing schools.
And don't you know that
schools are so important
for so many people.
Of course I know that.
Of course, I know that.
And of course both things can be true.
They can be merits,
they can be reasons that
we've got to where we've got.
There can be a situation
even imperfect things
or things that are
really, really imperfect
are still choices that we have to make.
But we owe much more complex than that.
And we owe much more nuanced than that.
I don't have to shut down conversations
just because there's critique involved.
I am a huge believer in critical thinking.
I believe it is not only our right,
but our obligation to think critically
about the things around us.
I think it's our obligation
not to operate on the defaults,
although we're allowed to,
everybody's allowed to do that.
But I think if we want
to make changes to things
that aren't particularly working,
we have to be able to
critique what's not working.
If something's not
working in our marriage,
in our parenting, in our fitness,
in a health, in the
way our home is set up,
in the way our children
are being parented,
or behaving or whatever,
we need to be able to critique.
And it's an incredible skill to have,
to be able to offer honest, impersonal,
just kind,
necessary,
true critique that is an
improvement on silence.
It's an improvement on silence
because it's working
towards the next thing.
It's working towards
iteration and innovation
and next level, leveling up,
and not staying stuck because,
oh, I don't wanna say, I
don't wanna offend anyone.
I don't wanna say anything wrong.
I think that's the kind of discourse
I wanna see on social media.
I wanna see them on blogs
on YouTube, on podcasts.
I wanna see a discourse between friends,
that says, hey, can you help me?
And one of the most incredible things
that I have with some of my close friends
is I can ask them in all honesty
and I've had genuine
conversations like this.
If I'm struggling with my eldest son
and his anger for example,
I can ask my friend,
what do you see that I don't see?
What am I doing or not doing,
that I could be doing,
that could be helping him with this.
And because I think they're phenomenal,
insightful, wise parents of human beings,
I am so open to their critique,
and I am so grateful for that honesty.
Now, granted I'm Israeli
and so many of my friends
and we have a bit of a
brutal honesty our culture,
which I happen to love.
I happen to love the idea
that people don't just tone things down
or say things behind your back
or hold back on what they wanted to say.
I really love it when
people speak their mind,
even if it's an uncomfortable truth.
I like it when people
write to me on social media
and say, hey, with
kindness and with respect,
but they wanna say,
hey, I think that this sounded a bit off.
I can disagree.
I can disagree with them.
I can take what I take,
I can leave what I leave,
if that's my critical thinking,
but I appreciate that someone cared enough
to try to improve me and my product
and my podcast or whatever
is that the critiquing,
I think critique is how we learn.
It's how we grow and being open to it,
and being curious about it,
is this is a sign of maturity.
It's a sign that we're not
taking things personally.
We're not, offendable,
we're talking about the actual
merits of the actual thing.
We're not making it about us.
When someone says to me,
your sound quality is off.
And sometimes it is.
I know that I know that,
I have some challenges with sound quality,
and I appreciate,
that someone took the
time to help me to improve
what I'm putting out in the world,
by saying the sound
doesn't sound so great.
And now guys, this isn't an invitation
for everyone to come
and send me criticisms,
a critique here and there,
a well versed,
well phrased critique is helpful.
I think it's from kind energy.
And I think we need to critique schools.
We need to critique culture.
We need to critique government.
We need to critique ourselves.
We need to do that.
We need to critique our children as well.
We need to tell them when we
feel that they've gone off.
And when I was 16,
I remember that I really messed up.
My dad was sick and I
just wasn't there for him
in the way I should have been.
I kinda went off with friends,
and my parents sat me down and said,
Avital what's going on?
Because the way that you just handled,
that isn't you,
and that's not what we expect of you,
what's happening?
And it was exactly the
signifiers of critique.
It wasn't, they weren't
making me at fault.
They weren't criticizing my character.
They were talking about
the behavior itself.
They were saying,
what usually works and
what wasn't working here.
And it was kind,
and it was true and it was very necessary,
and they were absolutely
right to say that to me.
And it was part of what
formed my character
oh to be held to that standard,
and to be expected to improve,
and to not be let go,
for someone not to turn a blind
eye when I'm underperforming
in ways that I really should
have performed better.
I think we do that too much
in the realm of academics,
but not enough in the realm of character,
and in the realm of ethics and morality
and that kind of thing.
And so I think it's crucially important.
So yeah, that's what
I wanted to say today,
is can you take the element of critiquing,
and say, you know what, we're
not gonna engage in criticism.
Criticism is incredibly insidious.
It's incredibly damaging.
It really just spikes defensiveness.
It doesn't help anyone.
But critique is something
that we all need to be open to hearing,
and open to giving.
And it's a skill that we can develop,
to learn that,
to be curious about it,
to not make it about us,
not make it personal,
and make it about the thing,
about the behavior, about the
choice, about the product,
about the art, about the party,
whatever it is that is
being critiqued about,
school,
and having a critical, open,
honest, and adult conversation,
about what is working and
what needs some improvement.
