Archive for the ‘lab school’ tag
In Japan, parents train their children to return lost property, even coins found on the pavement
Slate, the online newsmagazine originally funded in part by Microsoft, March 16, 2011 published an article about why there is so little looting now in Japan, following the March 11, 2011 9.0 earthquake and resulting devastating Tsunami.
I don’t know if the articles claims are true, and I won’t sumarize the article here, as I would prefer you give Slate the traffic and read the full article at their site, here: Stop, Thief! Thank You.
Aerial view of damage to Wakuya, Japan following earthquake
However, I do want to call your attention to the part of the article that says that in Japan parents train their children to return property that’s been lost by its owner. How? It takes a bit of effort, but I know it can work, and I recommend you do this with your children.
If a child finds a coin on the street, the parents will take the child and the coin to a police station and have the child turn in the coin to the police. If the owner doesn’t claim the coin within six months, the coin is returned to the child to keep. According to the article, parents and police take this training exercise very seriously.
How do I know it can work? Because my own parents did this with me when I was 9 years old. We were living in London, England at the time. One day I found a 5 pound banknote in the gutter. I think the pound was worth about USD $2.50 then, so this bill was worth about $12.50. But I was 9 years old, and my allowance at the time was probably 25 cents week, so this bill represented a fortune. I was elated to have found it!
My parents cooled my spirits when they told me I would have to turn it in the the police! I recall that we went to the police station and turned it over. Like in Japan, I was told I would get the money returned to me in six months if nobody claimed it. Of course, nobody claimed it, and half a year later my parents somehow got the money from the police and gave it to me.
This was a lesson I never forgot, and I love my parents for teaching me so well.
I know plenty of people who should know better that never learned this lesson, and will pocket anything of value they find. I know people who accepted overpayments from their employer without a word. This was not a few dollars, but thousands of dollars! I know people who would not send a bill back at a restaurant for revision upwards if an item was left off. I know people who will keep any change a cashier returns to them in excess of the proper amount due. I’m certain that everyone reading this knows people like this as well.
I remember when I was about 12 years old and was a student at University of Chicago Laboratory School. I’m told that this is one of the finest schools in the United States, and many of the students come from privileged backgrounds. The father of one of my classmates is a justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, for example. The mother of another classmate will probably win a Nobel Prize, my mother tells me. This student’s mother was featured in a long article about her life in The New Yorker magazine last year, to make the point she really has a shot at such an important prize.
In gym class, our lockers were arranged in alphabetical order, so my locker was near that of my friend Vincent Webster. One day he forgot to put his wallet in his locker and I found it. I returned it to Vincent or to the school authorities. Vincent got his wallet back and the whole class somehow learned I had done this. Believe it or not, I got teased and several of my classmates criticized me for not keeping it! I don’t think there were any poor students in my class. Many of my classmates have gone on to do important work in life. Nobody at this school ‘needed’ whatever could have been in Vincent’s wallet.
Never once did I consider keeping Vincent’s wallet. Vincent was my friend, but even if he were my enemy, I still would have returned his wallet.
My parents raised me well, and I am sure my honesty has been noticed and appreciated by the good people I’ve encountered in life. This is not to suggest I’ve never done anything I’m not pleased with in life, or have never made a decision that looks bad in retrospect. But I have really gone through life guided by an exceptionally strong moral compass.
If you cheat, stop, apologize and go back and make it up.
