I Cannot Tell A Lie

There are many rewarding moments when working with children. Some of these include being a role model, watching them reach their goals, and seeing their faces when the light bulb finally goes on. One thing no one ever talks about is how completely blunt and truthful young kids are. Spending 3 hours a day, 5 days a week with a group of 25 1^st graders gives nothing but truthful comments. The great, and sometimes awful, thing about 6 year olds is they have no filter between what they think and what they say, providing some pretty priceless conversations.

A little girl in my class came up to me one afternoon and said, “Your hair looks like you just woke up.” That day, instead of slicking my hair back in a ponytail, I took the time to apply product and hairspray, embracing my natural curls. Apparently, 30 minutes of prep time= bed head.

A coworker of mine experienced a similar situation. A child in her class told her she looked pretty that day and wondered why she didn’t look pretty every day. A simple compliment can turn into an insult in a matter of seconds when talking to a 6 year old.

The only time a 1^st grader can lie is when they are tattling on someone or they desperately want something. Most of these white lies are so obvious that anyone but a 6 year old would know it’s not true.  Every day there is a countless amount of tattling about physical fights. A little boy runs up to me crying and says, “The boy in the white shirt kicked me.” About 30 seconds after that, Jimmy comes running up to defend himself, saying Ben kicked him first. So I ask Ben, “Did you kick him first?” “Well yea, but…”  He still doesn’t realize he turned himself in.

The second most told lie in my classroom has to do with homework. Every kid has homework and every kid doesn’t want to do homework. Getting them to complete their homework is a chore in itself. So, of course, I bribe them. It’s amazing how much motivation a bucket of candy can provide. Knowing they get a prize for reading, they say “I read these two books already. Do I get candy now?” I glance up at the clock, realizing only 3 minutes have gone by. Knowing quite well that a 1^st grader cannot possibly read that many pages in 3 minutes, I ask what the books were about. The only response I get is an “um” and a blank stare.

If we all think about it, maybe the 1^st graders have a good thing going there. Granted, when they lie, they hardly ever get away with it. But the part about being extremely truthful, to the point of being blunt may be a brilliant thought. It would make things a lot easier for everyone and people would benefit from the truthfulness. Husbands could simply say yes dear, that dress does make you look slightly fat. Or that your meatloaf is a little dry. We always tell children to tell the truth, yet we tell little white lies every day.

Imagine a college university filled with students with the truthfulness of a 6 year old. All of the comments whispered under your breath during class can be expressed without concern. With this technique, teachers will always know how stupid their assignments are and how much of a waste of time these math problems truly are. There wouldn’t be a filter stopping people from expressing the thoughts they were always taught to keep to themselves.

We’ve all had classes that seem to be filled with nothing but busy work. There are ways to learn materials from classes without having to answer pages full of analysis questions yet it seems these are the types of assignments due every other day. When students receive this assignment, everyone always accepts the inevitable but there’s always a hand full of students thinking, “Are you kidding me? I’m not doing that. What a way to completely waste my time.” Expressing these views to teachers will help them realize students aren’t doing the work anyways and they will eliminate it from the workload.

Writing for the school paper can be difficult. There are so many special rules that go with media writing that applies nowhere else in the writing world. The team was handed a worksheet to practice our editing marks and abbreviations. A classmate of mine turned to me and said, “A worksheet? Really? What are we 12?”  I couldn’t agree with her more.

I absolutely love the professors that deduct a significant amount of points for simple grammatical mistakes in papers. Their reasoning being we need to take the time to proofread our papers more thoroughly. Yet students receive study guides and paper assignments with grammatical errors all over the place. There’s a huge difference between the Sahara Desert and the Sahara Dessert. Do I get to take points from your teacher evaluation?

There’s always that teacher that drills into your mind the fact that “you’re going to need this someday.” There’s always that student that thinks, “When am I ever going to need this someday. I need a time and a place, ‘cause I don’t see it ever becoming essential.” Maybe someday teachers will actually explain when class material will show up in real life.

Take the pledge to become blunt from this day forward. Help those who are stupid enough to not know the truth and help those who can’t help themselves. The whole world will prosper from our honesty. The next time you find yourself thinking up a lie, just spill out the truth. What harm can it do?