Four Rules

We had longtime friends visit this weekend from Washington state. It was great having them over. And educational! They told us the four rules they taught their son, questions to ask before he does anything questionable:

1) Is it safe? (or, is it dangerous?)
2) Is it legal? (or, is it illegal?)
3) Is it moral?
4) Does it make sense?

It's nice having a set of guidelines like that. I wish I'd had them when I was a child. Then I'd have known how many I was breaking.

They also said that a friend of theirs, a family counselor I think, said that children turned out best when they had firm, enforced boundaries and knew they were loved. (I guess it doesn't matter as much that a child is loved if they don't know it.)

If a child isn't both loved and disciplined, the second best case is when a child knows they are loved, even if they aren't disciplined.

The third best case, surprisingly, is to be both unloved and undisciplined.

If a child is disciplined without love, that is the worst of the four cases.

Today in the car we we listened to Alice Cooper's "School's Out" which has this line:
No more pencils, no more books,
No more teacher's dirty looks.

I can't count the number of times I got dirty looks from teachers. Why, you ask? Let's just say I was not the best of students. Some teachers liked me, some just rolled their eyes, and some, I'm sure, went home at night and drove needles into a little doll that looked like me.

I always did better in classes where the teacher liked me, or at least didn't dislike me. If you want to improve education, I think the first step should be to remove those teachers so burnt out that they hate all students. It would make life better for everyone.


Posted by Dave    Blog Tag: Opinion