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Follow the crowd and Excellent

Countless days with Dora.

By WILBERT R BREWTONPublished 3 years ago 5 min read
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Follow the crowd and Excellent
Photo by MI PHAM on Unsplash

I've been thinking about it and haven't found any reason not to like school", Dora told me.

Dora, isn't it nice that there's no reason not to like school?

"But I'm embarrassed to say it. If I say it, my classmates will laugh at me."

I came to my senses. Dora's little bit of confusion could be talked about a lot further down the line.

Dora, I understand you. Dad went to elementary school too. I understand your concern that it doesn't feel good to be laughed at.

But I remember you telling me about a time in speech class when you didn't think the way your classmates spoke was very good, so you spoke in your own way. It worked out well.

That time you were different from everyone else and everyone laughed, so why didn't you care? If you say you don't dislike school that much and are different from everyone else, why do you care about being laughed at?

"Dad, you don't understand. I can tell the difference between classmates laughing and jokes."

When a classmate would laugh at a joke and when a classmate would laugh at a joke, Dora's mouth could not speak clearly and her mind was clear as a mirror. To get a laugh from her classmates, she does her best. To avoid a classmate's joke, and to do whatever you can to avoid it. I was like that too.

Dora, if you know exactly what you want to do, and you know that what you want to do is right, what does it matter if you get laughed at by your classmates? I asked knowingly.

"Dad, you don't understand."

There's nothing wrong with understanding, Dad I understand it very well. It's called peer pressure.

Dora, you're about to enter a critical period. It's going to be a while, but you're going to go from being a child to a girl and into puberty.

Peers are most important to people during puberty. Peer respect is more important than anything else, and peer ridicule is more terrifying than anything else. You will feel it a little now, but it will get stronger later.

In the middle of adolescence, you will say this more and more often: daddy you don't understand.

When the time comes, whatever Dad says, you'll probably answer the same way. It's almost inevitable, and I'm telling you three things now, not to change you, but just to remind you of them by then.

First, every adult comes from puberty. So it's impossible for Dad to understand what puberty is all about.Dad has taught you to think of everything not only from your own point of view, but also from the point of view of others. If you only think from your own point of view, of course you think daddy doesn't understand; if you think from daddy's point of view, you will understand that daddy is also an adolescent, and has read so many books and seen so many things, how can he not understand.Even if you don't understand, if you talk to your dad, he will understand.Secondly, it's a strong tendency to want to be like everyone else, to follow the crowd, it's normal. Everyone has this tendency.

It comes from millions of years of evolution.

We watch BBC Earth documentaries, and the horned horses on the savannah always move together because it's safe, and the stragglers are always the first target of the lions. Migratory birds take off, always in flocks, not because of which bird is in overall command, but because each bird looks at what the birds around it are doing, others stop at the water to catch small fish, it also stops at the water to catch small fish, others take off, it also takes off, so naturally there is a flock.

The same way people do, the genes for not flocking have long since disappeared.

Genes design your body this way: at puberty, it strongly shapes your brain and behavior by producing a lot of hormones - you think of hormones as magic formulas with messages just fine - by producing a lot of hormones. During this time, with the hormones at your disposal, you pay more attention to your peers than anything else, more than mom and dad, and more than school.

Dad is telling you this just to tell you this fact, and for you to remember that Dad knows all of this, probably more than you do. The secrets that you feel belong only to you, that everyone has experienced, and that people have been studying, and that Daddy has been understanding.

In the future, if there is anything you don't understand, you can talk to me. I'm not talking about this now for you to understand, just to remember and to remember in the future.

Third, actually, school is not a necessity in theory, but in reality it is a necessity.This is because school is a tool for society to choose its future. You go to school, you learn, your grades make a difference, and the school uses it to choose you, and society uses it to choose you in the future.

Actually, the choice doesn't have to be school. If everyone didn't go to school, you wouldn't have to go to school, because then society changes the choice. We can well imagine a society without schools. But we live in reality, and in reality everyone goes to school, then you have to go to school, because the society we live in uses it to determine the choice for you.

If everyone doesn't go to school, then you can stay out of school, and if everyone goes to school, then you have to go to school.

Dora, Dad has one last point to make.

It's both reasonable and normal to want to be like everyone else and follow the crowd, but you can't do it all over again.

If you're just like everyone else, what's it worth to you? You're just like a screwdriver then it's not unusual.

Being different from everyone else, and being different in a way that is useful to everyone else, has value.

Back to what you said in the beginning, "I don't see any reason why I don't like school". May I ask, are you useful to others because of your good grades? Or are grades generally useful to others?

"Excellent and useful."

student
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