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Show Home School and By Daryl J. McCarty Executive Secretary Utah Education Association Your young son tells you he's cleaned up the yard as you asked, but you notice a few minutes later that the job is only half-done. "I did the best I could," your son says lamely. Doing less than a person's best is a tragic trend of the times. Where is the potter who took an ax and shattered any substandard products that came out of his kiln? Where is the silver-haired gentleman who stood outside the Salt Lake City-County Building and boasted to all who would listen that he helped to lay the stone for that structure back in the 1890s? Where, oh, where is the painter who re-did the portrait 26 times before he was satisfied with it? There's something beautiful about a healthy respect for excellence. Accepting less than your child's best effort without some reproof from you can be as crippling to that youngster as polio. Giving a youngster license to accept less than the best can cause a paralysis of spirit. Let the boy get away with a poorly-cleaned yardj and you'll have taught him a lesson -- a lesson that shoddiness is good enough. But ask yourself: Is that the kind of job you'd want him to do when he becomes a brain surgeon? The adult who teaches-sons teaches-sons and daughters to test themselves continually -- to do a lesson, a task or a personal project better every time - is doing those children a favor. Sure, it's a course of action with some risks. Expect entirely too much of a child, and the result can be an unhappy one. But if we expect too little from the younger generation, we can be steering straight for disaster. A Salt Lake music teacher tells the story of a young woman who became a remarkable pianist. The pianist said it didn't come without conflict, though. She admits that at times she was lazy. "Every now and then my mother would give me a good whack in the seat with a wooden spoon from the kitchen," the gifted musician says. "I appreciate ap-preciate what she did." |