Facebook, kids and public schools

[Wayne Maybury]

Originally Posted by Tommy

Wayne,

I too was very frustrated by the slow pace at which my son learned to consider consequences, until I read the results of research into development of the human brain. It seems that the ability to weigh consequences is one of the last skills developed by most humans, and many of them do not reach that level until their mid 20s. Of course we've all seen examples of people who never developed that ability.

Tommy, I hear you but I guess what I wanted to say was that children today tend to be very sheltered from any sort of responsibility. If something goes wrong it is always the fault of someone else. The kid does poorly in his/her exams, it is the teacher's fault. The fact that the kid spent hours in front of the TV or computer instead of studying is forgotten. We were not angels but if we got caught doing something wrong at school, the last thing we wanted was for our parents to find out because that was worse than whatever disipline we got at school. We learned about consequences very quickly.

The wife of a friend of mine was a high school teacher in upstate New York. She enjoyed her teaching career until about 10 years ago when she just couldn't wait until she could take early retirement. Many of the kids were verbally abusive and some bordered on being physically abusive. If a teacher did anything that the kid didn't like, the parents would come to the school raising hell instead of doing a decent job bringing up their children. She said some of the kids were bad, but some of the parents were worse as "little Johnny" could do no wrong.

Wayne