Nice
It's now been several weeks since starting my teaching career officially. While the experience has had just about a million and one stories and personal growth factors, far too many to be named in this meager medium with the right amount of description, one thing that is certainly different since my day is this aspect of Character Building. With the kindergarteners it's easy, since there is a great amount of Social Vocabulary and Life Skills which are to be built with kids that young. Upon chatting with the kindergarten teachers about exactly what they do in the first few weeks or days, their primary concern with kids that young is to teach them social skills. Here we watch cartoon videos who are performing basic interactions of greetings, handshakes and saying "Nice to meet you. My name is Bob." From there, I always assumed that the basic interactions would be said and done with. Not true. From first until eleventh grade (as the place where I am does not include the twelfth grade as of now but will next year), it seems that kids are now subjected to this aspect of character building. After having sat in on a few classes here and there, I see that they are primarily concerned with kids being nice and interacting with others as peaceably as possible.
This blows me away, truly. We live in such a horrible world full of cruel and self centered individuals who think that it's all about them. Kids are very self centered, no question. I know I was, not so much anymore but I certainly was. This is actually the ideal time to put this thinking into them, while their brains are still plastic enough. Perhaps we have to examine the pathology of those who are the attackers in order to fully understand it. We've been lead to believe that those who are cruel to others do it because they are insecure or not happy with themselves. To an extent that is true, but those who are unhappy with themselves or insecure can also withdraw into themselves and not be social with others. Those who lash out at others in such cruel physical, verbal and emotional ways do it because they enjoy the power it brings them. You can see the joy on their faces when they are being emotionally, verbally or even physically abusive towards another. Indeed, I have met some sociopathic people in my day, and all of them have very high opinions of themselves and get their joy in life from making others feel inferior to them. If anything, we need to be hurt in order to learn things about ourselves and make adjustments as to how to behave and conduct ourselves with others in the best possible way.
As we get older, as we always do, we compare what things were like in our day verses what things are like today. I ask myself why these programs are put into action to begin with and are they going to produce positive results. In general, I think people feel more entitled to things than they did, modesty doesn't seem to be much of a consideration. There are two catagories of people in the world: followers and the willfully ignorant, as well as those who can do and say anything they want and get away with it and those who can't. I think the one who is the bully is the willfully ignorant and the one who can do and say anything and get away with it. Those who are followers and in the can't category are the most likely victims. I'm sure there are those out there who can be an otherwise combination (followers who do and say anything and get away with it, etc.) but I have not encountered them. At least, not that I know of. I would hope that these programs are telling kids now that they cannot do and say whatever they want, but they seem to do it anyway because kids have a certain amount of drama within them that is caused by growing processes. It's really a contradiction when put into action, it all seems rather useless. And just today there was another school shooting, that one kid who was pushed too far and decided to end it all for himself and those who caused his pain.
Answers? I don't know, it's something that will never go away. All you can really say is that it's something we all go through to some extent. And it will damage you, but we are all damaged in some way or another. We just keep on going, and it's ok. Perhaps the best message to give others is that life goes on after high school and you don't have to see any of those assholes ever again. And then you go back to your twentieth high school reunion with your handsome fake trophy husband and say to them "You see THIS?! You all are old and fat and divorced and I'm hitting THIS sweet piece of ass TEN YEARS MY JUNIOR ISN'T HE GORGEOUS?!?!??" Ha ha ha ... All you can do is lead an exciting and fulfilling life and don't let anything hold you back from having a good time, even if what is holding you back is something within you. Don't be afraid.
This blows me away, truly. We live in such a horrible world full of cruel and self centered individuals who think that it's all about them. Kids are very self centered, no question. I know I was, not so much anymore but I certainly was. This is actually the ideal time to put this thinking into them, while their brains are still plastic enough. Perhaps we have to examine the pathology of those who are the attackers in order to fully understand it. We've been lead to believe that those who are cruel to others do it because they are insecure or not happy with themselves. To an extent that is true, but those who are unhappy with themselves or insecure can also withdraw into themselves and not be social with others. Those who lash out at others in such cruel physical, verbal and emotional ways do it because they enjoy the power it brings them. You can see the joy on their faces when they are being emotionally, verbally or even physically abusive towards another. Indeed, I have met some sociopathic people in my day, and all of them have very high opinions of themselves and get their joy in life from making others feel inferior to them. If anything, we need to be hurt in order to learn things about ourselves and make adjustments as to how to behave and conduct ourselves with others in the best possible way.
As we get older, as we always do, we compare what things were like in our day verses what things are like today. I ask myself why these programs are put into action to begin with and are they going to produce positive results. In general, I think people feel more entitled to things than they did, modesty doesn't seem to be much of a consideration. There are two catagories of people in the world: followers and the willfully ignorant, as well as those who can do and say anything they want and get away with it and those who can't. I think the one who is the bully is the willfully ignorant and the one who can do and say anything and get away with it. Those who are followers and in the can't category are the most likely victims. I'm sure there are those out there who can be an otherwise combination (followers who do and say anything and get away with it, etc.) but I have not encountered them. At least, not that I know of. I would hope that these programs are telling kids now that they cannot do and say whatever they want, but they seem to do it anyway because kids have a certain amount of drama within them that is caused by growing processes. It's really a contradiction when put into action, it all seems rather useless. And just today there was another school shooting, that one kid who was pushed too far and decided to end it all for himself and those who caused his pain.
Answers? I don't know, it's something that will never go away. All you can really say is that it's something we all go through to some extent. And it will damage you, but we are all damaged in some way or another. We just keep on going, and it's ok. Perhaps the best message to give others is that life goes on after high school and you don't have to see any of those assholes ever again. And then you go back to your twentieth high school reunion with your handsome fake trophy husband and say to them "You see THIS?! You all are old and fat and divorced and I'm hitting THIS sweet piece of ass TEN YEARS MY JUNIOR ISN'T HE GORGEOUS?!?!??" Ha ha ha ... All you can do is lead an exciting and fulfilling life and don't let anything hold you back from having a good time, even if what is holding you back is something within you. Don't be afraid.
Comments
Post a Comment