I work in schools, I used to be a teacher full time and as a teacher we had expectations we were bound to follow by state and federal standards.  Classes had to be safe zones, free of bullying and all other types of criminal behavior.  We do this as teachers because we are required to not only to educationally enhance students intellectually but also emotionally and socially.  We teachers build wisdom of individuals to create professional members of society.  There is even a book about it “Everything I needed to know I learned in Kindergarten.” Habits like standing in line, don’t call people names, share, walk with your scissors pointed down, don’t interrupt while other people are talking, don’t lie, cheat or steal and especially be kind to your elders. All of these are basic rules of society or so I thought.  Some of the jobs I have had all I hear that is not the real world.  Instead, I am learning that the real world consists of the exact opposite?  Careful watch your money, don’t trust people they will take advantage of you if they can.  Someone the other day was proud to announce he was a hustler, can you believe it? I am in shock!  I can’t and don’t want to believe it.  

I don’t understand why we have to be so careful because someone is going to steal the deal, the idea, the land, the client, the customer, etc. I have been in certain stores and I continue to shop there because they ask was anyone working with you on this? Why does this matter, it does because the company has a policy to make sure none of its employees steal another’s workers commission.  They created a safe work environment allowing the right person to get compensated for the work they put into their customer service.  Which is why I as a customer feels good about going back to those stores, I feel I won’t be hammered into something I don’t want or fought over because I know the next customer will get the same care and attention I did, they created a safe environment.  Those other places feel like old used car lots trying to sell you bad cars.  It was so bad we had to make so called “lemon laws”.  

So I go back to the school environment and it is a whole different world.  I read a book to some students and they got all riled up because I read that the character in the story was being called ” dumb”, it was as if I did the worst thing possible and was going to be sent to the principal to write the biggest reflection paper ever and my parents would be called too all for reading the word dumb from a book.  However in the real world I have heard songs say much worse about people.  In fact in the real world this word is so common it could be thought of used as often as the word “store”.  So I ask my fellow educators, parents, and adults with no children, why are we creating safe environments in schools if in the real world it is perfectly ok to lie, cheat and steal or bully someone to get to the top?  I don’t know about you but I would rather disassemble the hunger games society in order to create a safe country. 

-Jennie Nawrocki