No Fault Society

Have you ever noticed that people, generally speaking, don’t want to take responsibility for their actions? I firmly believe that “no fault” insurance was created by a kid. When a kid gets caught red-handed, they begin the blame game.

Recently I was covering a class for one of my teachers. You know what kids do when they get a substitute, right? They ask for permission to do things they are not supposed to do. This particular day I was passing out an assignment and one of the little girls asked if they could use colored pencils on it. Since I have been down similar paths before, I asked, “Does your teacher permit you to use them on these assignments?” She and a friend of hers assured me they could, so I had her pass them out.

Several other kids spoke up in protest when they saw the colored pencils being handed out. The argued that they were not supposed to use them. I told the kids, “Just go ahead and use them. The teacher will sort it out when she gets back.”

Fast forward: The teacher came back to the room. She immediately sees the colored pencils and questioned why they were being used. Obviously the teacher did not give them permission to do this. I looked at the class with a sad face (LOL) and said, “I can’t believe you would ask me to do something that you know the teacher has said no to. That made me look bad to the teacher. Why would you do that?”

Crickets.  LOL. The teacher apologized for the class and I left to do my other duties. A few minutes later one of the little girls who asked to use the pencils was handing me a note to apologize for lying to me. It was really a sweet moment. She is a good kid who just literally wanted to color outside the lines. I let her know all was well between us and I appreciated the note.

That note will go in my collection of notes and pictures that kids have done for me. I think this one is special because she learned a valuable lesson from it. With kids like this in our future I think there is hope for future generations.

Shalom!

Dan Skognes

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