What the heck

I see that this sort of thing has fallen out of favor with the folks I am familiar with, so that means it's a great time for me to get started.

Personal info? Yeah, not so much. Sorry. :-(

And, this one is not an upper as I am a little frustrated today.....

I'm writing today about character education - accountability.

In a post by a friend of mine, he mentions ethics and religion. One of those topics seems very volatile today and the other, non-existent except for study on college campuses. Why is that?

Where do people learn how to "be"? The obvious answer is at home and for some, that's a very sad answer. Others learn from media and what they see in society. Again, depending where you are looking, or what one is inferring, that can also be a sad answer.

Where I teach, they are super driven in character education ( teaching students to be characters...... just kidding) teaching students how to have character. I am fortunate that the school is comprised of mostly faith bearing people (but not all) both in the faculty and student population.(I am somewhere in the middle - but Harry Potter may have put my in the heathen catagory) I say that because, right or not, most of these students have instilled in them the fear of God and a level of respect for authority. (Where does true fear come from, unless there is a power to fear.) This is one of the reasons I love my students and say that without fear of misunderstanding.

At this school, I am one of the more lenient teachers, asking my students to rely more on their ability to make choices not just follow rules.

Last year, 4 of them got busted for playing cards in a study hall instead of being in the library ( as they had requested) during my class time - we were holding auditions and there was considerable down time. (such rabblerousers) I met them at the principal's office (my boss) and merely asked why they had chosen to lie to me. If they had wanted to play cards, I would have appropriated a place for them to do so with no unpleasant consequences. Instead they requested study time in the library. They hadn't thought about it that way and 2 ( highschool freshman and sophomore mind you) I was later told, cried to their parents about it. Card playing wasn't so terrible. They had hated the fact that they had lied... and were caught at it.

This year has been a year of whiners. People wanting prizes without doing the work to earn it. This semester, we are instructed to educate the kiddos on bullying. There's your backround.

A point - I told my students that all these flaws come down to one simple concept - accountability. The lie, it was harmless, "until" they were made accountable to it. Truth be told, "I" was in more of a place for reprimand than they were, but they had to become accountable to the action. Whiners don't want what they have earned, they want what they want with no accountability to how they receive it. Bullies are bullies because they choose NOT to make themselves accountable to those they are bullying.

It's a parent's job to teach their children to be accountable. They need to know the consequences of choice, whatever that choice may be. That is hard when a parent can't _ever_ make a school event because they are "too busy". Message - "my job is worth more than my child". Granted,as a working parent I know parents can't be present to everything, but to be accountable and make even an iota of time away from home tells a child they have value - that you can be held accountable to them. What about when parents tell their children they are going to do something and don't do it. Yes, that happens. Maybe more than parents would choose. But EXPLAIN to your child why and express honest sorrow or regret. Be accountable to THEIR FEELINGS!!! Yup, they have 'em and no one is better than the adult community to teach them how to shut them down. Teach children to be accountable to their friends. Yes, friends/non friends fight. It's normal. But if there is never a demonstration of apology or remorse or simply an opportunity to express the anger or frustration that lead them there, there is no reason for the fight and they are accountable to no one for choosing to. Lesson- express anger with violence - that'll fix it. You do not have to like someone to be accountable to them. If more of today's leaders got that, the world would be a better place. Adolescents want "not" to feel accountable. Too much pressure, they'd say. Welcome to life, is always my response, but it's hard to tell them they should be when they're surrounded by adults who are not.

Why is my generation the one for justification? _Everything_ can be rationalized. I say that as even I am damn good at it. But, having a little boy, things have changed some things for me. If I can justify being late for work, he can justify being late to school. If I can justify breaking a promise without a second thought, so can he. Why should he fess up and tell the truth about a bad choice when a president can't just say he got a blow job and that it was wrong to do so, either for the act or simply the location, "before" getting caught. And, if he felt, why couldn't he just say if given the choice, he'd do it all over again. And why can't America just accept that leadership does not always equate everyone knowing what is done behind closed doors? - thoughI'm sure we'd hope that there would not be duplicity between the two locations.

Boy, we can point fingers, but we can't fix ourselves, or have chosen to think that there is nothing to be fixed.

The stem of this rant has several locations, but sometimes the problem seems to be everpresent and I just wanted to share it.

A family incident and a visit to the local mall didn't help.

To borrow an idea from a popular religion, "don't attempt to remove a speck from another's eye when there is a plank in your own"

And, as a brief segue to the religious piece, religion can breed fanatics, but so can video/board games and tv shows. As for the former, even if only learned about and not subscribed to, there are some great lessons in all religions on how to treat others. Shame folks, even some of the religious one's, don't know 'em.

Character ed - great idea. But until people live it, it's no good talking about. It has to be more present at home and abroad before teaching it a school makes a huge difference. I'll keep trying though.

Groan.

- Don't worry. They all won't be this heavy.... if I even write anymore ;-)