Children Will Listen, continued…

In my classroom I work really hard to establish environments of respect where people can contribute and listen and where name calling and belittling is not tolerated. My kindergarteners knew this. So did my middle school students, high school students and now college students. And they understand (I think) that this was because it’s unproductive and a waste of time and energy. Actually, it’s worse than that- it creates distractions and tensions — not to mention anger and hate- that don’t allow for trust, effective communication or the ability to work together to solve problems.

I’m wondering how we have failed so miserably, to establish an expectation for the future leaders of our country, that presidential frontrunners think that this kind of behavior is how we want to be represented as a society? I’m sorry but I believe that our citizens have more dignity and integrity than this. And for these people, supposedly professionals, who want to represent US to think that name calling, throwing insults, hateful speech and screaming at each other is representative of who we are, is frankly, insulting.

I hope that all of our children who witness this behavior and the people who support them, are not confused into thinking that this is ok. Because it’s not. But of course they will because this is how our presidential frontrunners are behaving and people are cheering.

So now what friends? How are we going to fix this one?