The ‘War on Bad Manners’ – in the classroom
Editorial
Guyana Chronicle
August 25, 2003
THE Guyana Tourism Authority is reporting encouraging responses to its war on bad manners.
In just about every place its sashed crusaders have appeared, people have heeded their please for a change of attitude toward one another.
The campaign couldn’t have come sooner.
Falling standards have wrecked havoc in Guyana particularly over the past six years.
Like most other countries, we have watched an upsurge of lawlessness – violent crimes, the expression of bad language, even refusal to line up in cases where more than one customer is soliciting the same service – erode the moral fabric of our society. In other instances, the aberration of disrespect for law and order and for lawful authority has been hailed by some as the inspired expression of a great idea.
As far back as 1952, Dr. Alexis Carrel wrote in Reflections On Life that “Through its own fault, civilized humanity has brought an immense catastrophe upon itself.”
Dr. Carrel’s book, intended to help young people, during difficult times, concludes that conflict resolves none of the fundamental human problems that people need to address. If anything, inter-ethnic or class conflict poses afresh the very problems that were perceived to be the root cause of the conflict.
“It is only on ourselves that we can count for their solution,” adds Dr. Carrel.
We often say that if we want to effect fundamental changes in society, our best hope are our children, tomorrow’s adults.
Our suggestion, then, is that the organizers of the war on bad manners should extend the war to the classroom.
How do manners fit in?
Perhaps because the influence of television, music, the Internet and peers competes with religion, the school and family values about what constitutes moral and civil behaviour, a very large percentage of our children are rude and ill-mannered.
So, too, are parents, most of whom are people in their teens and below 30. The expectation was that parents would monitor children’s activities so that they would know where the competing influences on their children’s behaviour came from.
More importantly, parents were charged with working with the school system to teach their children the underlying values of caring, appreciation, compassion, empathy, sympathy, kindness, consideration and respect that manners signify.
Using words like "please," "thank you," and "excuse me," are symbols of respect for others and are the most basic pieces of the "civility puzzle". The elderly of yesteryear hoped that parents and other adults would pass on those desired values to succeeding generations.
That hasn’t happened.
Yet our future depends on our aptitude to behave ourselves rationally. So, the Tourism Authority should seriously consider working with the Ministry of Education to extend the War on Bad Manners campaign in the classroom, from the first week that school reopens.