It's Kind of a Big Deal

A few weeks ago I was reading an article in USA Today about a survey conducted by the Sesame Street Workshop organization.  As I have a vested interest in Sesame Street by the virtue of parking my two children in front of their program pretty much non-stop for the bulk of their pre-school years. (Don't judge me). In my defense, moms in the 1970's were brainwashed into thinking that Mr. Rogers, the Electric Company crew and the cast of Sesame Street would turn our uneducated 3 year olds into reading and spelling prodigies. Who knows??...  Maybe my children's later successes are in large part due to the efforts of Big Bird.  Sadly, I never sent him a thank you note.  Bad manners on my part I suspect. Regret is an evil emotion.

Well...Back to the subject of the survey.  Sesame Street is now in it's 47th year and tackling the subject of kindness with an emphasis on empathy. According to the article both teachers and parents are worried that today's kids are growing up in an unkind, unempathetic world. Sesame Street creators are going to try to enlighten the little heathens among us by teaching them  how to recognize kindness, emulate it and  how they might look at something from another person's point of view.

I have to think that this is a complicated mission.  The survey included the opinions of  2000 parents and 500 teachers and there seemed to be a lot of confusion between those surveyed as to what is constitutes kindness. Kindness means different things to different people. There is a lot of gray area between using good manners and truly possessing a generous spirit toward others.   If this  murky, undefined  concept of "what exactly constitutes kindness?" wasn't enough of a hurdle for their survey, there were many that questioned "what is the difference between empathy and sympathy?"

After the survey result were in, Jeffery D. Dunn, the CEO of Sesame Workshop said "This survey confirms our concerns. It is time for a national conversation about kindness."

Jennifer Kotler Clark, a researcher at Sesame Workshop said both parents and teachers overwhelmingly felt that being kind was more important than being academically successful. (Note: Hey kids...try using that line on your parents when you get a bad grade.  "Sure I got a D in Algebra but I sure treat my fellow classmates with the utmost respect.")


Kotler Clark went on to say that during the survey they substituted words to represent kindness including empathy, helpfulness, thoughtfulness, politeness, and manners.  When asked which is more important manners or empathy, 58 percent of the parents said manners. Katler Clark suggested that maybe parents assume if a child is mannerly that they are also empathetic. Not so fast, she cautioned.  Bullies are great at using good manners around adults.

While  the parents thought that manners were more important than empathy,  63 percent of the  teachers  ranked empathy as more important than manners.  Only 30 percent of the teachers said that parents are raising their children with values consistent with their teachers.  OUCH!!  Fifty percent of the teachers surveyed said they felt that being kind is not a top priority.  (Did they mean from the perspective of the children, the parents or themselves?  Hey teachers!...use complete sentences.)

According to the article, research has proven that self-regulation, and pro-social behaviors in children are a predictor for future health, financial stability, and academic success.  Supposedly, kids not only need to see and recognize examples of these types of behaviors but they need to practice them.

Rosemary Truglio said that this year Sesame Street is making kindness a top priority. She said they want to make it more explicit. (I am assuming she means that in a good way.) The show wants to get beyond the niceness of manners. (Although....let's not gloss over that too much...manners matter.)


So what's your thoughts, readers?  Is empathy being taken over by narcissism?  Are children not seeing and recognizing behaviors that teach them to be kind?  Collectively, are we becoming a civilization of  people that choose not to care how others feel?

If you could have a super power.....

As I was walking through the family room this morning, I heard  a blip of a news report about a survey. The survey was to determine what Super Power  people would choose if given a choice...and, of course, if it was possible.  According to the survey people chose the ability to read minds over the ability to fly or the invisibility ability.  (try saying invisibility ability three times). Unfortunately, I had missed the first part of the report so I didn't get the information concerning how this survey came to be.  Perhaps, the ability to go back in time should be on my Super Power want list.

Sooooo, if you have learned anything about me...you know I raced over to my computer to look this survey up and try to find out the what and whys of it.  The problem is that when I Googled "super powers"   10s of thousands of sites came up.  I didn't take the time to open them all or I would still be at it.

Even more interesting than the proliferation  of these surveys, were the number of  entertaining web sites and blogs that are devoted to this all consuming quest for super poweredness. A LOT of people have given a LOT of thought to this.

So, readers, what would you want as your super power?? Invisibility, ability to fly, able to read minds, stop time, X-ray vision,  or maybe shape shifting,   If those powers don't do anything for you, you have a bevy of choices.  Turns out there are web sites and blogs that are aimed at helping you pick the   perfect super power.


The first site that had some interesting answers was Highdeas.com. Keep in mind this web sites sub title says this site is for the best ideas you have when your high.  I did happen to notice that they have 178,000 + followers.  Kind of depressing really. 

If you really want to make this easy, there are quizzes to match you to your super power.  I took  a couple of quizzes  a few minutes  ago and can vouch that they  are TOTALLY accurate. (heh heh)  Who knew how important this "finding your super power" is?

http://www.gotoquiz.com/results/super_powers_quiz

http://www.youthink.com/quiz.cfm?obj_id=67211

I proceeded to take the first quiz which claimed that my best match was to master "invisibility".  Again, judging from the "far less than 178,000 followers...how much more invisible can I get???   (kiddo #2 did mention though, if I rename my blog to "XXX rated girls doing XXX things", I could have millions of readers in the next 10 minutes. (They wouldn't stick around reading my nonsense, I suppose.)

The second quiz have me the super power of "power speed".  What?? Speed reading and Power TV watching with pal TIVO isn't enough speed??  Frankly, this doesn't appeal to me in the slightest.  If I had the power of super human speed, people would expect me to do things, a lot of things....seriously that sounds like work. 

Back on point, some guy on highdeas site said he would want  the super power  "convenience". His theory is that he wants to be able to make any situation be convenient for him.  One of his examples was  if he was hungry his room mate would show up with a pizza. Some of the other answers on that site were creative but I can't repeat them,  as the inappropriateness is only topped by the illegality of it.  The word weed comes up a lot in their idealized super powers. I did happen to notice that the super power of  of  "just saying no" did not make the cut on anybody's list.

On Cracked.com they offer up 7 suggestions of awesome super powers but then tell you how those super powers could bite you in the ass.  (killjoys)   Like speeding through space only to have a head-on collision with a jet.  Again...it must be noticed that a lot of time has been spent thinking about powers that aren't really ever within anyone's grasp.

Over at Superpowerlist.com, they have a daily pick of which  of two powers would you rather have.  On today's menu we have the choice between Mirror: the ability to make people feel what you feel or Energy Blade Hands: hands that can cut through anything.  HHHmmm choices, choice, what will it be????  

Back to the original survey, I had heard on the news....that survey came out with the favorite being "mind reading".  Are you kidding me???  Who would want that?   Lot of rude people out there, I certainly don't want to know what they are thinking.  Besides, that is what Facebook and Twitter do.

I mentioned to hubby that I thought a fun super power would be the ability to shock people.  No, I mean shock as in an invisible tazer (set on low of course).  I had this brilliant idea when I was in my 30's. (yeh, before tazers came into being, I was thinking more along the lines of an invisible cattle prod back then.)

Anyway, I was working as a teller at a bank at the time.  A car load of teenage boys came through the drive up to cash their paychecks.  Five boys, five checks, no accounts but our branch cashed these paychecks as a courtesy.  (the toy store the checks were drawn on was managed by the bank manager's wife)
I retrieve the tube with the checks and while I am counting out the cash, these morons are out in the car really saying very descriptive unkind things  ABOUT ME.  They had the "speak to the teller" button on.  After, I got their money out and they left, the other tellers and I came up with the zapping super power idea.  Had I had the ability to just give them a zap every time something crude came out of their mouth, that would have been fun.

Hubby thinks that would be  a waste of a power.  Serves no purpose but revenge according to him.   Maybe, but on the right day, under just the right circumstances when someone is really ticking me off, it would be the greatest of all super powers.  I don't remember the ability to inflict revenge as a super power. Probably that is a very good thing.