Teaching kids to do the right thing--not to run from problems is right
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Having been raised and educated in rural Canada, beginning in 1980--a time when
many of us children did not even utter a curse-word without fear of getting
"the strap," I agree that our youth need chances to make mistakes and thereby
learn, understand what they believe to be appropriate behaviour.
But I think Poole got it @$$-backwards.
But as a PhD student in the social sciences principles such as "scholarliness"
(the peer review process is one mechanism designed to prevent me from "cherry-
picking evidence or presenting only views that support my position and hoping
that readers don't think of anything that weakens my arguments) and "validity"
(people will accept arguments such as "I spent 20 years as a coal miner--you've
never even set foot in a mind; therefore, what conclusions I draw about mining
are automatically more valid than yours."
[As a scientist, the same peer review process also challenges these types of
cause-and-effect relationships that sound convenient and easy to digest but are
not valid: the veteran miner may draw on a larger set of observations (which may
or may not be interpreted impartially) but conclusions are the product of
reasoning, not solely fact.]
If you are to believe Chris Poole's claims that today's teenaers in a constantly
evolving, radically-dynamic social context need chances to learn the impact of
their mistakes--if indeed the majority of individuals agree with that need--then
I propose that the process of "letting a kid who's just learning off the hook"
should be a transparent one.
Giving anonymity is tantamount to making these teenagers their own judge and
jury and letting them lay off the exeuctioner--it's a non-transparent, non-
defensible process. It's an inherent conflict of interest.
And our children need to learn that some of their actions can be forgiven as
learning experiences. But some just can't.
Our children also need to learn not only that there are consequences to every
choice we make--but also that we must take responsibility, be accountable to
our actions and words.
And in the cases that Mr. Poole's argument stands to reason--when erasing
history doesn't involve a teenager's negligence didn't cause harm or death--then
it should be up to the teen's peers, parents, and educators to choose not to
hold the individual to account. It should be a choice.
And now I find the tables turned, as I try to raise an eight-year-old daughter
in a world wherein the tables have turned--in a world where teachers now fear
students who know the worst punishment they stand to receive are just words...
Words that are far more tame than the coarse language modern teenage casual
language (and there's far more that I worry about than just language...)
And considering the velocity of social change in today's world combined with the
much-more-entitled affluent youth of today's world (within the lifetimes of some
of our now-most-illustrious scientific minds--Dr. David Suzuki, for example, not
only was it common for a parent to lose a child to accident or disease--but our
grandparents' generations had no sense that they were entitled to a long, happy,
healthy--or indeed any--life of experiences with a given child.
By now, some of you may have begun to realize why I have signed these words with
my GPG key; the same mechanism that can attest, using a public key that can be
obtained through a third party keyserver, not only myself also prevents me from
disavowing what I said!
If I attest that I have kept my private key secure, and if this issue is like
a coin, then one side of this coin is that I know that nobody has changed my
words as long as my public key authenticates the accompanying signature.
The other side of the same coin--if I attest that I have kept my private key
secure, since my public keys have been publicly available via third party, then
prevents me from backpedaling and changing my own words or even claiming it was
not I who wrote them.
What we need is to teach our children to be responsible for everything they do--
that everything they say and do in the world, whether stricken from the record-
books or not, has impact on our world.
Just as we would not be satisfied if charges against a drunk driver were dropped
for a technicality (especially if we were left paralyzed or dead), a bigger
favour to our children is to ensure that when push comes to shove and they find
themselves in a sticky situation--they have the confidence to do know what is
right.
And to do it.
Robin L. M. Cheung, BSc, MBA, C.Mgr
AMDS (Finance) PhD Student,
Walden University, School of Management
RobinCheung@MBA2003.biz http://RobinCheung.ca/
+1 (513) 494-6340
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Biting the hand that feeds IT
