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DOING THE RIGHT THING
Published On 11-08-2009 , 7:50 AM
EYEWITNESSES claim they didn't see anything. Financial regulators pass over the obvious accounting irregularities.
Parents say Johnny will outgrow his troublesome behavior.
Teachers pass non-achieving students on to the next grade.
Those who saw the shooter draw his firearm and "off" the kid who was walking home from school don't want to become the next target.
Those in charge of keeping the money safe are either on the hand-out from the embezzler or are too lazy to follow up on the leads that stare them in the face.
Parents don't want to believe what they've created or just plain don't understand simple signals - torturing the pets, stealing, lying and other anti-social behaviors in youngsters, which follow them along to adolescence and into adulthood.
And teachers who pass the student who doesn't know grade-level work by giving passing marks on papers that don't cut the mustard, just plain ol' don't care or really don't know the long-range significance of their evil deeds.
Hello!
Whatever happened to accountability, excellence and responsibility? How come people don't do the right thing?
The officials who, for 20 years, visited their child-molester parolee who had a captive in the yard of the very house they came to, never paid attention to anything peculiar or out of the ordinary - yet still collected paychecks.
Say what you will about Michael Moore's recent documentary, "Capitalism: A Love Affair" - he's got some answers to my dilemma regarding accountability, excellence and responsibility. While teachers aren't ripping off citizens when it comes to investments as we generally classify investments, they really are squandering our money by not providing adequate education but instead helping to fill our prisons with school dropouts.
Parents who don't do the job of observing their children, then correcting or seeking help for anti-social behavior, don't rank any better than the officials who pass over troublesome indicators or the teachers who help to fill the jail cells.
Surely I'm not alone in recognizing our society no longer perpetuates the concept of doing the right thing. We've changed from the lessons of old that made us believe if you witnessed the old lady being robbed it was your responsibility to tell law enforcement everything you knew. The only fear we used to have was our behavior standards not letting us do the wrong thing and our conscious not ever letting us have another peaceful night's sleep.
Is my quandary regarding doing the right thing tied to greed and money? I'm not so sure I want to take it that far, but chasing the paycheck kinda figures into parents who don't have time to spend with the kids because they work more than one job, and not just to make ends meet, but instead to acquire more trinkets.
It just may be easier for the teacher of an inner-city classroom filled with difficult students to simply pass them on rather than educate them - the paycheck is not tied to performance.
It's a tough job blowing the whistle, especially when it's a supposedly respectable guy like Bernie Madoff, so why risk the trouble of being fired for pointing out irregularities?
And then there's Jaycee Dugard, who could have had a very different life if the authorities on the case believed in doing the right thing: a good job.
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Comment
| | 1. | I don't think going back is needed. I believe we can ween ourselves from this mentality and move forward. It has to start with corporations. Marketing, advertising, movies and media in general influence us in their lust for profits so much it's not funny.
No one's going to fall for Ozzie and Harriet Re-duex but the acceptance and complacenty of greed has to start by example and media is the main source of influence by the pace setters.
Yes I am long winded and do not write well but trying to get something done is better than not doing anything just because I write poorly.
- by Omni, 11-11-2009, 6:17 PM
| | 2. | We live in a narcissistic, pack-mentality society now, and sense of community in the grander scheme of life is lost because of it.
Unfortunately, there is no going back.
- by Aaron, 11-11-2009, 11:29 AM
| | 3. | Hello Mrs Smith,
I just felt the need to respond. I too have felt for such a long time the decline and fall of our values and principles in this world.
Boy, I wish I had the answer to turn it all around. It does come back to those of us who still have the values of old. being the Example of doing the right thing. Its not always easy but like you said, I still need my sleep and there's not much choice.
I believe in Heaven and Hell, It is the core of all I do and say. Sometimes right sometimes wrong. So having someone Eternal to answer to is what keeps me on track.
Is Evangelism the answer?
Please keep writing the right thing.
A fan,
.
- by Pat, 11-08-2009, 10:21 PM
| | 4. | Shirlee.
It really is very simple. It all starts with home and family. It starts with parents being and doing the right thing. If it happens there, then society won't have to deal with the product.
If it doesn't happen at home, then Society is gonna have to deal with it. And, when we have to deal with it, we deal with it-and we don't let nobody turn us around from doing whatever we have to do.
Hank
- by Hank Wilfong, 11-08-2009, 11:12 AM
| | 5. | You have absolutely NO idea as to what it's like to teach in an inner city school. NO IDEA!
Teachers have to deal with foul mouthed, street wise jerks whose parents lost control of their brats long, long ago. There who students who cuss at teachers, call them fags, fat asses, Niggers, kikes, Christ Killers, ad nauseum with impunity.
If a teacher kicks these assholes out of the room, he/she gets in trouble for alleged poor classroom management. We have administrators who play with little boys and girls, point weapons at parents and so forth.
From the elementary level, there are forces, family and/or social that prevent educational process. By the high school level, it's so bad with kids reading at the second grade level that they will never catch up. With the NCLB requirements, there s no time to reteach fifth grade math, third grade reading, and they are turned off anyway.
IPods and text messenging are what interests them, not literature. Math teachers do not teach geometric reasoning because the jerks have such bad skills that teacher efforts are for naught.
Administrators do not want to rock the boat lest they lose their jobs and talknrhe alk but fail to walk the walk.
Home discipline is gone. Kids KNOW their rights and if a parent slaps a nasty child, all he or she has to do is tell a teacher who MUST, by law, file a report with county services. I'm sure that many a child has had a parent arrested for exerting parental authority.
Students have assaulted teachers and even though they have caused injury, nothing happens to them. They're just children.
Get with it, lady and learn that this is a dog eat dog world and only the strong will survive. You have a hell of a lot to learn, even at YOUR age. Either it's that or you're plain naïve.
Have a nice day.
- by Schnell, 11-08-2009, 9:54 AM
| | 6. | M.A., Maybe this will help you make the connection.
Greed is immediate satisfaction.
In the original article the author mentions teachers, finacial watchdogs and parents. All of which make decisions based on monetary costs and emotional "cost" which end up being detrimental. Since our society is geared to immidiate gratification or greed so we make those types of decisions.
I hope that consolidates it for you.
Also if you are just here to be a critic leave me alone or post something productive. There's already enough "griefers" in the world.
- by Omni, 11-08-2009, 9:50 AM
| | 7. | Omni has posted a long read, and mostly off topic. The art of editing is lost on some people.
- by MaryAnn, 11-08-2009, 9:47 AM
| | 8. | My wife and I have raised two children to be responsible adults, ages 28 & 24, a teacher and a nurse. The principles you encourage, of parental responsibility were tops on our list, along with strong spiritual Christian values.
In your Nov 7 column, you take teachers to task for passing kids along without doing the work. I fully agree that this happens. However, my son, a Jr. Hi science teacher in San Antonio, TX, expresses the same sentiments, but it is the administration that forces that on the teachers in his situation, and likely in many other places as well. He was giddy last week when he told me he actually gave failing grades to some students at mid term. In the past he was forced to give indefinite time for assignments to be turned in and to give minimum 50% for all assignments, regardless of quality. The policy has changed some this year, thankfully.
There are certainly some teachers who do not take their jobs seriously, but most do and are frustrated by the systems they work in. So the next time you take the teachers to task, be sure to include the school district administrators as well.
Thanks for writing-you always cause me to think.
- by Richard, 11-08-2009, 8:38 AM
| | 9. |
It is greed and monetary systems in a whole that create inequities and the substainal failure of healthcare, education and socail structure.
"Funding", a horrible corporate term that has no place in goverment terminology, has become so entangled in Corporation America we no longer see people as people and can easily classify them as numerical profits and losses.
We are quadrillions in debt and yet we can afford a war but we can't feed or house everyone here.
That is a corporate tactic; spend on profitable projects, cut funding to lossing projects. These corporate mentalities have forced their way into our government and overtaken the values we dreamed of installing in our country's youth.
I personally have seen over 15 finacially motivated "decisiosn" by doctors, who if not monetarily bound to profit%28 and their buddy the specialist's profit %29 would have made life saving, life prolonging and emmensly cost efficient calls.
We will never have proper education, healthcare or government unitl we completely remove money from their processes.
Government tells us to fear socialized structures of society. I believe that is the answer to our government's problem.
We need to dissallow any monetary gain, corporate investments, retirement packages and any other form of monetary gain that can be influenced by corporate and/or military powers from ALL government officals local to federal and immediate family.
Give politicians/policy makers, adequate housing, food and a reasonalbe annual expenditure for life. But that is it. No longer should we allow corporate influence upon our governmental policy makers.
Since we print money as we need it and no longer follow a gold/silver standard, why not print what ever we need for healthcare, education and better support of our poor and disabled.
The same system could be apply to a fair percentage of willing doctors and the education system. Imagine how effcient a teacher would be if they did'nt have to worry about food or housing. Can you imagine a doctor who didn't hear a "ca-ching" every time he wrote a script? Without a immense finacial push to market new drugs maybe we would get safer and better tested drugs?
As we watch our tax money fund the bail out blunder, and more banks report losses it should be pretty obvious, even to the most hardcore capitalist, the money is never going to help the majorilty.
If you look at basic criminology one looks to who profits for a motive and perpetrator.
If you simply take away the profit from the criminal he has no motive.
I believe the intended form of banking in this country had merit but we have strayed very far for our founding fathers warnings and intentions. I would surmise that the only plausible solution at this point is to dissallow the corrput from gains and the avenues in which they receive them.
- by Omni, 11-08-2009, 8:09 AM
| | 10. | Writing will help you in the long run everyone should try to write more. Because attention spans are way too short, try to avoid the manifesto style writing.
But your point is correct.
- by Lois, 00-00-0000, 12:00 AM
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