Kudzu

I was driving down the road today and I looked at what appeared to be a mountain of Kudzu. It made me start thinking about good intentions gone awry.
When Kudzu was first introduced in the United States, it was believed that it would help stop soil erosion problems. What wasn’t anticipated was that Kudzu would take over the landscape and that there would be problems controlling the Kudzu once it took root.

Kind hearted snake owners, whose pets had become too large to manage, released their pet pythons in the Everglade National Park because they didn’t want to kill their pets. Now we have a growing problem with pythons breeding in the southern part of Florida. Once again, an individual had good intentions for their pet, but they didn’t anticipate or expect that other python owners doing the same thing would cause the introduction of a foreign species in the United States.

Likewise, the introduction of foreign ideas can also cause problems. The idea that everyone is so special that they are exempt from the rules is developing with our children and is taking a toll on civility and decency.

The incivility begins to show itself in school. Students in school will curse at teachers for “disrespecting” them. While I always like to treat students respectfully, when did it become disrespectful to ask a student to show up on time, sit down in class, put up a cell phone, and be quiet during instruction?
Respect is something that is earned, it isn’t an entitlement. People who demonstrate rude and immoral behavior do not deserve to be treated as royalty. At some point in time, life teaches everyone that there is certain authority that we must obey and there should be certain lines that cannot be crossed. People who behave badly should not be placed on a pedestal or be able to earn money from their bad behavior. I question the value of the media creating celebrity status for poor conduct and low behavior.

A current example is the celebrity status of Rielle Hunter. Her claim to fame is that she slept with John Edwards and bore his child. When did being bad become “good?” I know that it isn’t possible to legislate morality, and I wouldn’t do it even if it was possible. However, the message that our children are hearing on television, at the movies and in music is that “being bad” is good for them and it is being reinforced through the difficulty of suspending students who have “behavior disorders” from school. The intentions of the rules for suspending these students are good and valid, the results are incivility in class, disruption of the educational environment for other students in the class, and difficulty in retaining teachers.