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From: ian@darwin.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.kids
Subject: discipline (vs coercion)
Message-ID: <31@darwin.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 2-Mar-85 13:16:37 EST
Article-I.D.: darwin.31
Posted: Sat Mar  2 13:16:37 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 2-Mar-85 16:00:28 EST
References: <322@cadre.ARPA> <3654@mit-eddie.UUCP> <943@gloria.UUCP>
Organization: darwin!ian systems
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	[Mikki writes...]
	> ... Even though my class (karate) is supposed to teach
	> discipline, I often find parents asking me to take care of their
	> child's reading problem, sibling problems, classmate problems, etc. I
	> even had one ask me to smack their kid for them because of the child
	> being unruly in the car on the way to class.

	[Colonel replies...]
	Karate supposed to teach discipline!  That sounds like a figment of
	pedagogical mythology.
Karate-do teaches the one kind of discipline that matters, that is,
self-discipline. See below.

	When applied to kids, "discipline" means one of two things:
		1. Do what I tell you, not what you want to do.
		2. Beating kids for not doing what you tell them.

Here's the crux of the difference. Colonel thinks that discipline
is about coercion; Mikki and I think it is about learning to make
decisions and take responsibility for them. The former is the kind
of discipline that public schools and conventional wisdom on child
rearing teach; the latter is what karate-do and many kinds of
alternative schooling teach.

	Major premise: you can learn discipline only from a truly disciplined
		person.
	Minor premise: a truly disciplined person does not teach discipline.
	Conclusion: ???
Conclusion: check your premises.