"Danger Will Robinson Danger"

Most of us have spent many hours in social studies learning about history much with the idea that learning about history helps us to learn about the mistakes we have made in the past so that we may be able to make better decisions in the future. It is true that a lot of history is interesting, funny, exciting and gives us a connection to our past, but may not be as helpful at guiding us as we might think. We could think about the global aspects of history such as how to prevent wars which certainly are discussed in history classes or we could simply talk about how history teaches us about more local problems like the problems of speeding, drinking and driving and many other problems in our world. We need to continue teaching about global issues, but we may be able to greatly affect changes in our children(and adults) if we do some concentrated training of non-global issues Newspapers are full of such issues, but we often read through them far too quickly without sufficient thought.

Recently it was reported how a young man was "wind surfing" and was picked up by the wind and slammed into a building. This whole event was video taped and has been shown on many news channels. The young man was in critical condition in a hospital, does not remember anything that happened, and although he is now in stable condition, this was a serious accident that was preventable. This happened in the past, so it is now history, but has he or anyone learned from this "history lesson". There are probably just as many young people that saw this on the news that now think that it looked very "cool".

Many years ago now, a couple of young men saw a fully tented house that was being treated for bugs. They went inside the house thinking that they might be able to steal some valuables. The gas started to overpower them and although they did make it out, they did end up in the hospital for awhile and of course were arrested. They learned a valuable lesson, but did other children learn from reading about this in the newspaper?

The newspaper reports hundreds of situations that we should learn from, but don't. As teachers we sometimes discuss such things in class. Like the time a person filled party balloons with natural gas and was planning to explode them by putting a match near them at a party, but after getting them all in his car and then starting the car to leave for the party was quite surprised when they all blew up in his car. He survived, but his car was totaled.

In one school where I first was a teacher two students, not mine, actually looked into the gas take of a scooter with a match to see how much gas was left in the tank. It did blow up and although they survived, they were relatively lucky. They both lost their eyebrows and the front section of their hair on their head. They were allowed to wear caps for about two months at school and the girls in the class drew fake eyebrows on them with makeup.

Only if we can gather up all these stupid things that people have done that cause death or injury and then review them often with each generation do we have any hope of reducing such events. If we don't even know about how such disasters have happened in the past we are likely to repeat them over and over again. Teachers might want to start a notebook of newspaper clippings of such articles that are appropriate for the age level of their students and then each year make an effort at discussing them.

Just like in that Science Fiction show of years ago "Lost In Space" we should be hollering out "Danger Danger Will Robinson" more often. It is amazing that we still have people still leaving pets and children in hot cars, children near pools without guidance, allowing children access to guns etc. It takes more than a newspaper article it takes a concentrated educational effort, but even teachers need examples of things to discuss. Parents can also do their part, they can use the news as a springboard to spark discussions with their children.