Appropriate means proper and fitting.  The definition is certainly easy enough to understand.  The problem is that in today’s culture, it is difficult to determine what is or is not considered appropriate.  However, this is a natural outcome when there are no clear guidelines for one to follow.

    Perhaps it is the result of emphasis being placed upon “tolerance.”  If anyone dared to differ in opinion, he/she was condemned as a biggot…and the society screamed for tolerance!  Yet, even tolerance can be misused and mislabeled today.  I do know that things changed drastically in American schools when students demanded their “rights” and these demands were met with “tolerance” which often led to a lack of control by anyone in the schools.  As teachers became afraid of being taken to court, abdication of authority led to a “blackboard jungle.”  Many films of the time played out these real-life confrontations in the classroom.

    What I have witnessed over my 50+ years of teaching has been very disheartening.  I watched as many great teachers just threw in the towel and quit teaching.  The second law of thermodynamics helps explain what happens to a very nice lawn when little effort is put into it…a weed patch takes over.  Thus, with little or no effort, undisciplined children become society’s problem.

    Sociologists tell us that even the most remote tribes discovered in far-away hidden lands have some form of law as their tribal authority.  Most of these laws closely align with the rules of the Ten Commandments.  Perhaps that has to do with the Biblical statement of God that He has written them in the hearts of men so they would know Him.  It seems any society determines what is appropriate and what punishment awaits those who disregard those rules.

    When people ask why students are shooting classmates in schools, I ask what guidelines have been put in place of the old Ten Commandments which were thrown out of schools?  What is the value system that has replaced them?

    I watched as parents became afraid to discipline their children because someone would report them to the Department of Human Services.  Now, I watch as children “scream, hit, kick, and badger” their parents in Wal Mart because they know no one will interfere.  What a sad state of affairs.  Yet, I’m told the same thing goes on in many classrooms across our nation, as well-behaved students “try not to make waves” when fellow classmates disrupt the learning process.  No one is a winner in this kind of “tolerant” society.

    People may call me old-fashioned, but I believe in manners.  I am trying now to teach such guidelines to my students.  Instead of letting “mob intelligence” rule our society by way of sheer numbers over the Internet, I am trying to help them understand that with “individual rights” come “individual responsibilities.”  How different our world would be if we really did “love our neighbor as much as we love ourselves!”

-       Kay