Nothing Funny Indeed!

On Thursday (3/17) evening, I was perusing my various social media sites and happened across the video shown above. It caught my attention for a lot of reasons with the primary one being the title which described the motivational speaker shown going "off script" because of the lack of respect shown to him by the student body he was addressing. As the speaker was sharing a much needed message, some students in the audience continued to talk regardless of the speaker speaking on the stage.  The gentleman's experience hit home for me as I frequently have similar ones when addressing the students in the school where I serve. When the video was placed on YouTube, it was entitled NOTHING FUNNY, and that is an appropriate title as the ignorance and disrespect displayed by too many people both young and not so young alike is far from funny, in fact it is sad.

Too many of our children (and I keep prefacing my statements with "too many," as I do not want to generalize)  are not being taught in their homes about respect and other life and social skills. Too many children are raising themselves and are as should be expected doing a horrendous job. It is not the job of a child to raise him/herself, as that's the role of parents. The truth of the matter is, too many of our parents were faced with having to raise themselves and therefore are clueless about raising children themselves thus continuing the terrible cycle. Poorly raised adults have children and raise them poorly. It's hard to teach what you yourself was never taught or never learned.

Life skills such as manners, respect, love, work ethic, punctuality, discipline, self esteem, and so many other skills needed to be successful in society/life are not being taught to our children at home. The burden of this teaching is too often left to our schools and in some instances our churches (if the child or family attends a church).  The motivational speaker in the video above was a visitor at a school with the intent to motivate and inspire the students to reach for more; to reach for excellence and not to settle for mediocrity or slackness. As he is sharing his story in his message, he hears chatter and can see the students from his position on the stage blatantly talking while he is talking. He can see the students not listening or paying attention. At that point, he leaves his original message and commands the student's attention by an impromptu message that came from his heart as of result of their disrespect. What he began sharing with them was once again the type of discussion that need to be occurring in homes at the dinner table or family gatherings in the living room. In order to get their attention, he had to come across as a drill sergeant or prison warden.

It's ashamed the only way we can get the attention of too many is by having to dictate, yell, scream or carry a big stick. What type of mentality only responds to that type of communication? It took for this gentleman to "Tell like it really is" in a harsh manner for the students to realize just how disrespectful they were being when he was speaking to them in a calm and logical manner.

Parents, as I have said within the confines of this blog before, too many of us have dropped the ball and our society is paying a heavy price because of it. Children do not ask to come here and far too many parents abdicate their responsibilities at conception and delivery. After that it is for everyone else to raise their children. The government; the schools; the daycare centers; the churches; the streets; and finally the penal system. At what point does it become enough?  If you have not done so already, please take the seven minutes and fifty-three seconds to watch the video in this post. I'm sure you will agree that it is something to critically think about and act upon.

You are invited to listen to me live as host of The Reading Circle with Marc Medley each Saturday at 6:00 a.m. eastern time. The show is web streamed around the world on gobrave.org and heard locally in northern NJ on FM radio WP88.7 FM. You are also invited to follow me on Twitter @thinkcritical and @readingcircle01.