I seem to have gained a reputation for having strong opinions. Because of this, people rarely ask me what I think of a person, place, thing or situation. But, I have decided to give my opinions anyway.
First, I think we must rethink education. We need to start with kindergarten. Children can be taught to be polite to one another and be taught to read at the same time. These two things are not mutually exclusive.
Teachers have to be allowed to discipline the unruly child. I don’t mean corporal punishment, only because I think it is useless. In my uneducated opinion, most children act up because they have some deep hurt inside. They bully others to feel stong. I read an article which claimed in some places when a person does wrong, read that as antisocial behavior, the entire village surrounds the person. As the miscreant stands in the middle of a circle, the villagers begin to tell that person how much they love him, how valuable he is, how much a part of the village he is, how good they believe him to be, and so on and so forth.
Instead of yelling at the offender, they pour love on him. I like this idea so much I have decided to start using it when people offend me. That happens all the time if you must know. People have stupid ideas about politics, love, children, sex, oh the list is endless. So instead of arguing with the dumbass who offends me, for now on I will tell them I love them and how I value them as a human.
It may not change the way the other person who offends me thinks or acts. But I think it will be good for my blood pressure.
Okay, I swerved a bit. Back to the kids. I think if teachers used this method, starting in kindergarten, we might see some improvement in how people treated each other.
I also think that if we worked on building self-esteem in the kindergartener, we might see improved humans who liked themselves and didn’t hate everyone else. I know that is a crazy idea, and believe me, I am mildly conversant with crazy. But think about it for a minute. Children are moldable, and if we teach them to be kind, to love themselves, and convince them they have value, wouldn’t that create a better world? Maybe not, but it can’t hurt.
Oh I know, so many children grow up in horrible circumstances; drugs, guns, gangs, rape, alcohol and the beat goes on. But if you could help those childen in just the tinest way, shouldn’t you? It might be like trying to hold back the ocean with a teacup for some of these kids. But shouldn’t you. We owe the children of this world the best life we can give them.
You may say I’m a dreamer, and that may be true. Just try it in your own life. I think I am going to go to my Facebook page where there is a debate raging over a post I made about racism. One woman, who is not even on my friends list, made some very ugly and racist comments. Several people, who are my friends list, expressed shock and incredulity at her comments.
No one, including me, engaged her to ask why she had so much hate in her heart. But I am going to do that. Wish me luck. I will let you know the outcome.
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