Yesterday as I was looking at the traffic sources that are linked to the website I noticed that a portion of the traffic was coming from a new source, but one from which I am very aware of and was surprised that they would pick up the website.

The source of traffic was coming from a website called Dave’s ESL Cafe, which has been a website and large forum that has served people who decide to become expats or english teachers teaching in traditional east asian countries like China and Korea. As an American who has applied to teach English in Korea before multiple times and who now currently live there, I have known about the Dave’s ESL Cafe resource for a long time and have used it to find useful places while I currently live in Seoul.

The source was coming from a forum thread an American English teacher started which showed that he had started to argue with his students, who are only elementary school kids about the issue of height. The source is HERE.

AbbeFariaJoined: 17 May 2005 Location: Gangnam

Posted: Tue Jan 08, 2013 10:30 pm    Post subject: Jumping rope to be taller I got in to a pretty heated discussion with some of my elementary students that of course believe jumping rope will make them taller. Or that basketball will make them tall. One boy just entering puberty said ‘No, teacher, I started playing basketball and I’m getting taller!’ Another smarter student insisted that I bring in evidence that proves that jumping rope doesn’t work. The problem is I’m not finding any scientific papers that specifically deal with this. Lots on how the body grows taller but nothing refuting or debunking bogus ‘get tall quick’ scams. Does anyone have any resources for this?

This website was listed as a source when people tried to do research on whether it is possible to grow taller from doing jumping rope as well as a few other website sources. The post that was listed was entitled “Grow Taller By Playing Basketball, Or Not“. The original poster would claim that the science that was available on this website is bad science or no science, which is understandable since there is nothing really proved so far. Some people felt that a grown man argueing with little elementary school kids was in bad taste. I personally agree with them, since I would assume that the kids’ parents told them this white lie to get them to be more active in sports for fitness reasons. one of the repliers did note that the jumping could cause a boost in the rate of hGH release, and that is possible too.

In reply, the poster names AbbeFaria showed that even among kids who have been mostly very quiet got extremely angry over his own beliefs and opinions on this subject. It just goes to show that when it comes to the topic of growth and height that it is a very sensitive topic, which everyone having differing viewpoints and beliefs. From what I can tell, there are some subjects that are just very sensitive and if you talk about them, it causes controversy and have many, many people wanting to express their own thoughts. The most common subjects which I noticed that generate the most talk, at least on internet discussion boards are…

• Islam and is high tendency to turn its believers violent and riot.
• Interracial dating and relationships
• Race issues
• Gender issues and how the role of women in developed, modern, western countries have shifted.
• Higher education and the belief that people should not go to college.
• Sex, and anything related to it.
• The difficulty in forming healthy romantic relationships.
• How technology affects our society
• The subject of beauty and attractiveness
• Personal insecurities and frustrations.

His 3rd post is below…

AbbeFariaJoined: 17 May 2005 Location: Gangnam

Posted: Wed Jan 09, 2013 2:53 am    Post subject: highstreet wrote: Why are you getting in to a heated discussion with elementary school students. When I say heated, I don’t mean to imply that we were shouting at each other, just that when the topic came up it was something the whole class jumped in on and expressed their opinion. It was the quietest girl in the class that demanded evidence and even told me not to make it up. And when I grinned at them and told them that jumping rope and basketball would not make them taller, they all got upset with me. Albeit in that slightly pouty way that 12 year old girls have. It was a good-natured discussion but they were very insistent that all the time they spent with their jump ropes would make them taller.