Within a week we have had two unsettling and embarrassing examples of unsportsmanlike conduct. Congressman Joe Wilson interrupted a Presidential address to a joint session of Congress with the now infamous "You lie!" outburst. And yesterday Serena Williams sullied the genteel game of tennis at the U.S. Open with threats to a line umpire. While both incidents have been dealt with, at least officially, I would like to suggest that they are symptomatic of a larger issue. People set aside the rules and pretend that there will be no consequences for their actions. But there are consequences. How and why did they think there wouldn't be consequences?
You and I as parents and teachers must set good examples for our children, our students. Talking about issues is one thing. Doing what you say you will do is another. Children are natural mimics. They copy everything and anything. It doesn't matter what the source is either. If they see it on a video game, they copy it. They see their parents fighting. They copy it.
That's why codes of conduct in private schools are at the center of what the schools really teach. Learning how to conjugate a French verb or to complete a physics experiment is important. Understanding that there are consequences for cheating on a test or breaking the rules of a soccer game is equally important.
I listened to the Last Night of the Proms via KVOD in Denver yesterday evening. (Having attended the Royal College of Music years ago, I confess to being something of an Anglophile.) What the BBC Symphony Orchestra conductor David Robertson said in his closing remarks stuck with me as I read the story about Serena Williams this morning. Maestro Robertson pointed out that whenever we get depressed about all the horrible things we see and hear going on in the world today, think about the symphony orchestra. It is composed of over a hundred individuals playing instruments which were never designed to work together. Soloists playing solos, if you like. Yet the beautiful sounds the players and their instruments make are an example to our divided world of the unity and harmony which can result if we all work together and respect each other.
It starts with us. We parents and teachers must set an example. Let's set the right example.
What do you think? You can Twitter your comments to me at PRIVATESCHL or append them to this blog.
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