Pikes...The question that always immediately came to my mind when someone gave me a rule is "Why?"  (more akin to "What's the point" rather than a causal question)  When I first began teaching (late 80s) I remember dealing with a particular child who was troubled in more ways than I was equipped to deal with, and as I puzzled over what to do, the frightening realization came to me: "I cannot Do anything to Make this child adhere to rules or follow expectations".  At the end of the day, if  a child refuses over and over, there is little a teacher can do.  It scared the s**t out of me, but it made me a better teacher...that's when I began focusing on motivation and giving Them a reason why...a reason that has little to do with "What will I get out of it".

 

Teaching has done me few financial favors...but it kept me from despair.  I'm not being melodramatic.  I had to find a way to change (even if a little) the destructive apathy that seeped into the marrow of a generation.  (Maybe the conservative opposition to stem cell research is metaphor as well...)

 

I have spent my share of faculty meetings listening to peers bemoan the current class of students; however, if you examine closely enough, each generation is precisely who the previous generation raised them to be -- for good or ill.