I don’t choose to lie to my child about the things you have mentioned. I certainly don’t approve of lies that seem designed to encourage selfishness and shallowness.
Ironically, the phrase itself may do more harm than good, yet the inventor of the phrase intended to do the right thing.
I took as, that when you do the right thing, no one (not just the actor, but other people as well) gets hurt. (But I also looked at it in that direction not in the direction “figure out how no one will get hurt, and that will be the right thing”)
Anyway, yes, it’s stupid and dumb and doesn’t encompass many situations… but then, I wonder if it does encompass most situations that your average 8-year-old (it was on a school building) will encounter? I don’t think it’s inappropriate, though.
Oh, come off your high horse. There are bigger fish to fry than getting worked up over a sign at an elementary school.
sheesh.
If it is of no import, why would you comment at all?
I am concerned with what young people are being taught, but more to the point, I was wondering how many feel that the sign conveyed a truthful appropriate message. I am reassured that many think it does not.
If they are kids, they’ll do kid things anyway. Teaching them about the real world won’t turn them into adults, it’ll just help them prepare for their adult lives. You can’t expect kids to learn how to live in the real world all at once, during the split second between age 17.999 and age 18.
So, when do you propose they learn that sometimes, doing the right thing can hurt you? High school? College? Or would you rather have them learn it the hard way, by doing something “right” that harms them, and realizing that they were being fed bullshit in school?
The road to hell is paved by good intentions.
It’s best that this happen when they’re around 10 or so, so that they can learn that they shouldn’t trust their teachers and parents early on. That way, they’ll get the clear message that school is full of crap and stop paying attention, and drop out as soon as possible.
Lies to children are a bad thing, especially when they’re big lies like this one.
The truth of the matter is that any number of harms can come to a person as a direct result of doing the right thing.
I think it would be better to tell children that they will, in fact, be harmed bydoing the right thing, but that they should do it anyway. It will get us strange looks from the children.
If I had it to do over again, would I still refuse to play along with a scheme that a few lower to middle management types cooked up to get my supervisor fired based on false accusations, knowing that I would be fired as a result?
You betcha.