Ask Amy: At this school, leadership is paid in pizza
– Sad Colorado Mother
Dear Sad: This sort of popularity contest among seventh-graders should not be initiated by a teacher. Adolescents get enough of that subjective judging everywhere else. They are quite literally surrounded by it.
While talking to children about leadership qualities is important, in my opinion this teacher is displaying poor leadership skills herself, because she is delivering a dispiriting, rather than inspiring, message that in all probability bewilders and embarrasses all of the “leaders,” as well as the excluded.
Not to mention the fact that, if a class has 30 children and 27 of them are “leaders,” this seriously devalues the whole notion of leadership.
I hope the three who were excluded can take some pride in the fact that they are in such an exclusive group!
We are inspired by lessons in leadership – both historically, and in everyday life. Children should be taught to identify the leadership qualities in themselves, as well as in others, and be encouraged to always strive to embody these positive qualities in their own lives.
And as much as everybody loves a pizza party, pizza actually cheapens the notions of integrity, bravery, and simple loving kindness that true leaders convey.
The real praise (and prize) should go to the child who experiences this, but rejects the whole notion, and understands it as being as shallow and flimsy as a soggy slice.
Dear Amy: My wife has asked for a divorce, and I'm not fighting it. In essence, she wants to be with other people, and that's that.
I'm not begging her to stay and go to therapy, because at some point if you love someone you want them to be happy, even if that means being happy without you. That's what I am trying to do.
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