The Wonderful Blog Which You ve Never Seen

In a previous article, I mentioned the interesting confession of an educator friend who has years of experience in teaching, and only at the best schools.

“Usually,” my friend had lamented with a big sigh, “a small child arrives for his first day of school with an excellent self-image.”

“Great - so what’s the problem, then?” I asked.

“Well, very often, that’s the end of the story!”

The following incident, which I read of recently, may be an extreme example, but it surely represents the type of thing my friend had in mind.

A certain teacher asked her pupils to open the homework they were supposed to have prepared the previous evening. She noticed that little Suzie failed to open her book, and asked her why.

Suzie turned red and managed to stammer: “I…didn’t …do the homework. I…I…forgot about it.”

Thereupon, the teacher took a small coin out of her pocket, glared at the object of her anger and snickered: “Suzie, do you see this penny? Well, Suzie, I can tell you, you’re worth less than this little coin!”

I don’t know what our teacher had hoped to achieve, except perhaps to imbue in the poor girl a hatred of learning for the rest of her school career. The only thing we can be certain of, is that it’s past time that this lady looked for a new profession.

If what she had intended was to instill in her pupil a sense of shame, that’s a kind of shame that’s clearly very, very destructive. But it must be said, and said very clearly, there’s another kind of shame that’s very, very constructive.

And it’s nothing less than a tragedy that in today’s so-called civilized society, we’ve all but lost that sense of constructive shame. And as a society, we’re destined to pay very heavily for it.

I was inspired to write these words by an article by Dr. Joyce Brothers in Parade Magazine of Feb. 27, entitled “Shame May Not Be So Bad After All.” Indeed!

A world in which a woman boasts openly on a TV talk show about seducing her sister’s husband, in which a man on a reality show brazenly describes his plan to humiliate an unsuspecting teammate - “knife him in the back” - a world in which songs about the joys of beating up women are openly aired and new computer games where the mission is to kill John F. Kennedy are openly sold on the market - is this a healthy world or a very, very sick one?

Carrying around the “baggage” of shame only makes people bad about themselves, say some pseudo-psychologists. Dr. Brother correctly points out that rather than increasing our self-esteem, the suppression of shame can do just the opposite.

“Positive shame,” she asserts, “occurs when we see ourselves as we really are - perhaps too involved to notice that our spouse needs our help, perhaps too scared of what others think to stand up for someone in trouble, perhaps too resentful of the past to allow a wound to heal…”

Negative, destructive shame is something we can all do without.

But bringing back the positive shame of years and generations gone by is a prerequisite if we are to save this world.

Azriel Winnett is creator of Hodu.com - Your Communication Skills Portal. This popular free website helps you improve your communication and relationship skills in your business or professional life, in the family unit and on the social scene. New articles added almost daily. Visit Azriel’s blog at: http://hodu.com/blog.

Tags: child development, education, emotions, ethics, moral values, Psychology, self esteem, societychild development, education, emotions, ethics, moral values, Psychology, self esteem, society

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The third millennium has brought with it a new paradigm in society morals, one which, quite frankly, I can live without. Is it just me that sees the steady decay in society morals, particularly with our youth? My principal concern is where we are heading as a nation, as a country, as a people. As a former teacher of high school mathematics, I got an inside peek into the world of adolescence and the attitudes carried by such breed. It pained me on a daily basis to see what motivated and drove students.

Maybe I am different in that I was born with a propensity for philosophy (the word which, from its two Greek roots, means “love of knowledge”) and the good which comes from its pursuit. However, it cannot be that I am wired so radically different from these adolescents. After all, we are all from the same species. Do the current norms of society affect our predispositions so much that we as a race of people can actually seem as though we are different species?

What ever happened to the day of the Good Samaritan? Today, he is practically ostracized as a leper. Moreover, what is fueling this steady decay in morals that is bringing our nation’s potential forward progress to a screeching halt? Well, I remember hearing a very memorable sermon many years ago and the import of the message stuck with me forever. One does not have to meditate too long to find the root cause of such decay. I propose that selfishness is the root cause, the root of all sin, the root of all evil; and whether you are a believer or not, you can hardly argue with this point. Never was a sin deliberately committed via an action of unselfish motives. Take a quick example.

I witnessed a scene the other night when I was filling my car with gas. A heated quarrel broke out between a twenty-something irate customer and the gas attendant. As I came on the scene after the quarrel had already erupted, I could only conjecture as to the cause of such brouhaha. The language that was being spewed at the attendant was vulgar and offensiveof course, nothing unusual for the deviant societal norms of today. Fisticuffs were imminent and I was deciding whether I would intervene and try to bring peace to the situation. Fortunately, after much ado, the aggressor left. As the attendant was handing me back my credit card, I asked what the cause of such ruckus was. He replied that in filling the customer’s tank a few drops of gasoline got on the car. After both he and his associate apologized for the mishap, the customer erupted into all kinds of offensive and hostile language.

Let us now examine this situation a little more carefully and see whether we can determine the root cause of such pandemonium. The customer took umbrage at the spillage of gasoline on his car. An honest mistake. What could the gas attendant do in such a situation but apologize. However, the customer’s selfishness in not getting the preconceived level of service that he was worthy of, caused him to fly into an unbridled rage and begin denouncing, in the strongest words possible, the attendant and his comrades. It should be added that, since the attendants were not American, quite a few racial epithets were thrown out as well. Had the customer taken the unselfish position that 1) this attendant is working hard on this cold night and accidentally got a few drops of gasoline on my car; and 2) such a mistake has not injured me or my car in any way; then this scene could have, and by all means, should have been avoided. What a waste of useless energy!

Yes sir, no sir, thank you ma’am, are a dying breed of interpersonal communications. The “me first” generation is wreaking havoc with our societal structure, undermining the very essence of survival. We need to have a louder voice in speaking out against these vices if we are to survive as a species. Boy scouts, girl scouts, cub scouts, where is this breed? The Good Samaritan needs to return and I will be the first to promulgate this issue. I am sick and tired of watching morals decay to the point of no return.

Stay tuned for more on this most important issue.

Joe is a prolific writer of self-help and educational material and an award-winning former teacher of both college and high school mathematics. Under the penname, JC Page, Joe authored Arithmetic Magic, the little classic on the ABC’s of arithmetic. Joe is also author of the charming self-help ebook, Making a Good Impression Every Time: The Secret to Instant Popularity, the original collection of poetry, Poems for the Mathematically Insecure, and the short but highly effective fraction troubleshooter Fractions for the Faint of Heart. The diverse genre of his writings (novel, short story, essay, script, and poetry)?particularly in regard to its educcational flavor? continues to captivate readers and to earn him recognition.&

Joe propagates his teaching philosophy through his articles and books and is dedicated to helping educate children living in impoverished countries. Toward this end, he donates a portion of the proceeds from the sale of every ebook. For more information go to www.mathbyjoe.com.

Tags: boy scouts, Good Samaritan, interpersonal relationships, moral decay, moral values, morals, societyboy scouts, Good Samaritan, interpersonal relationships, moral decay, moral values, morals, society

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