Teaching kids responsibility and initiative... ...what's wrong with that?

Have you ever taken a look along the road as you drive?  How about looking at the town park or youth ball fields?  What will you find?  Tons of trash, it's everywhere.  Are we a society of lazy pigs, born and brough up in pig pens?  Okay, enough ranting and on with the story.

I know a young lady who works as a teacher in a pre-school and day care.  Ever since sending her a copy of Kirk Weisler's Dog Poop Initiative, she has begun teaching responsibility and initiative to the next generation.  Simple, age appropriate things, to help her kids to become scoopers instead of pointers (you'll need to get and read Kirk's book to fully understand that).  Little things like picking up a paper towel that might have missed the trash can in the bathroom.  I've learned that she has been quite astonded by the attitudes of these little tykes, almost to the point of where it looks like their indifference or lack of responsibility is already part of their makeup (silently being taught by observation of and doing the same things their parents do).  Hard to believe but easy to see.

During the summer (when it's more of a day care than a school), the kids often walk to a local town owned park rather than the school's own playground for a change of pace.  During the trips, the lessons in responsibility and initiative were easily continued as they found plenty of litter along the way and in the park.  The teachers suggested good citizenship by helping clean up the park by picking the trash left behind by other less responsible people.  Some teachers even took initiative of their own, to ensure they kids were protected, by providing rubber gloves to wear as they collected and disposed of the litter it in plastic bags.  The park became a cleaner place; the kids were taught good citizenship and initiative to do the right things, but guess what?

Parents complained.  They didn't want their precious children to be picking up the trash of others, after all, they were not playing the school all that money for their kids to pick up the trash!  Holy cow!  Here's the kicker, one parent that came and complained the loudest about not spending so much money, was in arrears in payments thousands of doallars to the school, yet used money as part of her argument.  That figures.

Check out these sites: "Kids Against Trash", "Kids Stuff World" or "Zoom, by kids, for kids".  I couldn't find any Web site that supported the irresponsible adults I just talked about, but they might want to take a look at Larry Winget's book: "Your Kids Are Your Own Fault", the guide for raising responsible, productive adults.  I think the next generation is going to be our own damn fault, for better or worse.

Thoughts?