Saturday, August 18, 2012

School Memories of Common Sense

What has happened to common sense? Has it flown the coop? Have we educated it out of our systems? Have we decided that the powers that be know better than we know ourselves how to act? Are we so lazy we would rather someone else decide what's best for us?

My family and I were discussing school rules from my time and from now. When I was in school I can remember being given a turkey name tag and told to search out the bus with the turkey on the front of it. That was the bus that would take me home. Well, that's simple matching skills that anyone can do! Look at the turkey on my shirt and look for the turkey in the window. There's a turtle- nope, not a match. There's a rabbit- oh I wish I had been given a cute rabbit, but no, not a match. Wait a minute, there's a brown turkey, that's mine! Simple matching skills!

Of course that was the old times when things were different. The bell for the end of the day rang and we kids wanted to go home so we went to our appointed buses. If our parents came to pick us up, there were no car lines. Our parents parked and we students went to the car and left! Isn't that a novel idea?

Now we have car lines that people line up for at the beginning of the day. They just drop off the kid in the appointed line and swing around to the end to wait until the end of the day when they pick them back up. Seriously, there are people who start lining up almost 2 hours before school lets out to pick up their kid from school. I'm sorry, this makes no sense. The parents all line up so the kids can all line up and the teachers can all line up to distribute them to the appropriate cars.
Ohhhh, and the bells. Schools now have about 3 different bells to ring at the end of the day. I was subbing a couple of years ago. The bell rang at the end of the day and I thought, "Awwww, I can go home!!" Nope, there were still kids sitting there. I told them the bell rang and they said it wasn't their bell. Come to find out there was a bell that rang for bus riders, a bell for car riders, and a bell for walkers and others. Good grief! That's scheduled to death I believe.

Used to one bell would ring for the end of the day and somehow we all made it to our appropriate destinations without too much difficulty or I wouldn't be sitting here typing this now.

Seems sad to me that common sense is going by the wayside in accomplishing things. I believe common courtesy also plays a role here. How often do you see anyone let someone else cut into traffic when there's a long line? How often do people stop to let someone cross the road? How can we be so callus?

Watched the movie Walle with my Gabe last night and if you watch it you can see where common sense went out the window and was replaced with the higher ups telling the common person everything they needed to do from what kind of food to eat to how to dress. These people were told everything to do all in the name of keeping them safe and sound. How much of this is really happening now with our government and our society? How much are we allowing to happen without seeing the consequences of it in the future. Why do we need tags on hair dryers that say for us not to use it in the bathtub? Because our common sense is going down the drain.

Have a blessed day!
Tela

2 comments:

  1. I enjoyed reading your post. I think the tags in the hair dryers are because of law suits...The whole I did not know therefore I did. There was a case afew years ago of some trying to pull out toast or some toast waffle/pastry with a metal for who got electrocuted and was sueing the toaster company.
    Are schools more crowded today? It does seem more complicated , but I remember always having carpool lines and maybe schools were just too crowded in the areas I lived in.
    When my son was in elementary school a lot of "problem solving skill strategies" were given and your Turkey sticker example exemplifies that the skills were given as part of practical real life problem solving and did not take up precious classroom, let us learn and compete internationally time!
    Great post :)

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    1. I'm sure you are right about the lawsuits. Makes my point about common sense, though, huh? Of course my turkey tag comes from about 30 years ago, too. Hehehe!! 30 years ago!! Ouch!! Thank you for your comment!!

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