Values

I am still getting mailings from my high school that I went to back in the late 30's and early 40's. A few years ago I received a letter from my grade school! I graduated from the eighth grade in 1938. Their letter reminded me that " probably most of the values that I have today were taught to me in St Joseph's School." When I reflected on that statement I must say I agree with that premise. We focused on learning at that school. When we left our home each morning and went off to school our parents were very secure in the fact that we were walking into an institution that would shore up the values that we were being taught at home. School was just an extent ion of the family.
Back in the early 1900's a prominent anthropologist from Yale University traveled around the world to study all of the major cultures of the world. He found that all of the cultures shared the same value system that we do. Values like Courage, Prudence, Perseverance, Self Control, Honesty, Ethics, Morality, Compassion to name some of them. It was determined that the nature of man drives the necessity of values being taught. It has been said that ignorance is man's worst enemy, knowledge is man's only defence against the abuse of power and corruption.Education is the cure for such ignorance as behavioral non-conformity, lack of consideration of others, a knowledge of right and wrong.
We have to start educating and building a value system for people when they are still in their babyhood. We teach them to "share" to say "please,thank you" (consideration for others)They rapidly learn to respond to praise for "good behavior" and to sanctions for "bad behavior." As a teacher of children for 40 years, I could determine which children had a good basic understanding of honesty, self control, courage and so on. The later they start to learn basic values the harder it is to teach them.
In most cases children mirror the values of their parents. I have wondered so many times if the parents and adults in the child's world realize the lessons the child is learning from them. I had a young boy in my class one year that told me they were going to Florida on spring break and it was not going to cost anything. When I asked how this came about he very proudly said ,"Well my dad owns his own business and when we go places he looks at places that are for sale and then he charges the trip to his company because he can say it's a business trip!" Uh.
What messages are the children learning today when they view political ads. Some of them are out and out lies and others lies by innuendo. I am very disheartened. Character assassination is rampant. What value system is that? Fewer and fewer good people will be running for office because of this 'accepted' practice. Then what defense will be put in place to cure the abuses of power and corruption? Who do we hold responsible for this and how do we stop it.?