I Am Not Hamlet

Somehow I had a decent discussion with some of my 7th graders yesterday.  We had been covering the birth of Buddhism and discussing the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path, when I brought up the concept of the purpose of morality.  For an example, we briefly turned to the Ten Commandments...specifically the command to refrain from stealing.  I asked students to imagine what the world would be like if they knew that nothing they had would ever be stolen.  I was surprised, though I shouldn't have been, by the limited vision they possessed.  The majority opinion was that the world would be boring.  Somehow, the idea that knowing your property would never be unjustly taken from you only conjures thoughts of boredom.  Mistakes and poor choices are the only way we can learn one student offered.  I shouldn't be too hard on them, I asked this question at the beginning of my teaching years and received nearly the same answer from high school students....

The classical (and Medieval) learning methodology of Grammar, Logic, and Rhetoric is still sound (not that I know it well enough to comment on it competently) but I'd like to offer a scaled-down version that I think can be worked in into anyone's life--child or not.  I propose that possessing a love of reading, an active imagination, and a love for and time spent outdoors will aid any student in any endeavor. It isn't enough to read, because the majority of Americans can do so.  The trouble is that skill is not exercised enough, is not cultivated, is not turned into a tawdry love affair.  So you can read--BFD!  The more important question is: Do You? Reading and reading regularly (of a variety of books, by the way) leads into and is supported by my next necessity: imagination.  This is a quality that everyone possesses, unlike literacy, but too many have one stunted by TV.  Now, TV in small quantities (how much is small?  Good question) will not stun...