Malcolm GauldNote: Read the first part of this series, “4 2’s: Reflex, Conscience & Their Obstacles” here.
Part II: The two obstacles that get in the way of students developing their character and leading a conscience-driven life.
First, students tend to be afflicted by an inability or unwillingness to accept the simple fact that life is hard. Scott Peck explains this at the beginning of his book, The Road Less Travelled:
Life is difficult. This is a great truth, one of the greatest truths. It is a great truth because once we truly see this truth, we transcend it. Once we truly know that life is difficult – once we truly understand and accept it – then life is no longer difficult. Because once it is accepted, the fact that life is difficult no longer matters.
I have always liked what Justice Brandeis once said to a whining granddaughter, “Your problem, my dear, is that you do not accept that life is difficult. If you would simply accept that it is difficult, it would be so much easier for you.” Hyde kids tend to have considerable difficulty accepting that life is difficult, and as Brandeis intimated, their tendency to hold onto the hope that life could be easy only makes it harder.
The second problem, inextricably related to the first, is the notion of Brother’s Keeper. New students at Hyde typically regard it as a negative “snitch system” as opposed to the most powerful force in a healthy Hyde culture. Bottom line: If you don’t have Brother’s Keeper, you will never have a Hyde culture.
The primary purpose of Brother’s Keeper is to create a community of people who care for each other, who make it safe, and indeed an expectation for all members to take risks and commit to their personal best. In a Brother’s Keeper community, working hard and taking risks is cool. While most kids start out with a distaste for Brother’s Keeper, they tend to become ardent advocates once they benefit from it – i.e., once they accomplish something that they did not think they could accomplish – and they then make the connection between the accomplishment and the fact that somebody pushed them to take this new step.
Next Up: 2 Parent Obstacles
Onward, Malcolm Gauld
