Over
the years, I have given numerous journal prompts to students on the
subject of
respect. It should
be noted that I do
not generally imagine that children are much less respectful now than
at any
time in the past. I
am not prone to believe
that students in my day were vastly more respectful and treated their
elders or
authority figures with greater appreciation than students do now. In fact, if I were forced
to testify in court,
I would probably have to say that students are more respectful now than
we
were. (I believe
that I have evidence to
that effect, but that would be the subject of a different journal, so I
will
refrain from harping on it now.)(And it certainly might be conditional.)
There
is one element of modern respect, though, that really grinds my gears,
and that
is the topic for this journal. A
frequent thought process over the years has generally followed this
line of
“logic”: ‘I have no problem showing respect to people if they show me
respect.’ To this,
my general sort of
response is, “Well whoop de doo!”
I have
a number of reasons for finding that statement insufficient. To wit:
It is
remarkably easy to show another person the same respect that they show
to
us. But true
respect is not a
conditional thing; it is an always
thing. We should
not hoard our respect,
waiting on others to earn it; we should give it freely, knowing that it
is the
right thing to do. Whether
or not we are
respectful to others is about our personal values
not about their
behavior. Being
respectful is a way of
life, and we do not (should not) change our own values simply because
someone
else does (or does not) share those values.
Certainly, it is more difficult to be respectful of
someone who does not
demonstrate respect, but that is no excuse.
Usually
this approach will cause a student to raise an extreme question like,
“Should
we respect Hitler’s beliefs about the Jews?”
Of course the answer is, “No”, but that then puts us in
the position of
trying to define when respect is appropriate and
when it is not. Unless
we can define our parameters for
respect, and even the meaning of the term itself, we cannot discuss it
intelligently.
In
a more realistic vein, it might
recently have been a question when a U.S. Congressman shouted out, “You
lie”
during the President’s State of the Union message.
By nearly every definition, this rises to a
level of disrespect that we should not countenance.
No matter what we think of Barack Obama the
man, our definition of respect and the necessary appreciation for the
significance of the office of the Presidency, as well as our general
desire for
decorum should preclude such behavior.
It is an indication of the current
state of our social civility
that such behavior is not seen as unusual or even unacceptable by some
folks. (It should
be noted that the
shouter later publicly apologized, but not to a national TV audience.)
The
irony of conditional respect is
that it works much better the other way around.
People who give respect to others are bound to receive much more respect in
return. It kind of
boggles my mind that students
don’t perceive this formula. If
they
would walk into each classroom on Day 1, showing their teacher and the
subject
great respect, the entire educational process would go so
much better it
would almost be immeasurable. As
a
student of human behavior, I believe that then teachers would be much
more
respectful of their students’ intelligence, contributions, and feelings. In that environment, I
have to think that all
of us would be better off.