Why Is It So Hard To Be Kind?

I teach high school students, so I see lots of emotions in the course of any given day.

• There is the relationship drama, often exacerbated by the presence of additional parties to the romance. For example, A and B are having trouble, so C swoops in to woo A. Meanwhile, D makes moves on B. When A and B see that D and C are making moves on their One True Love, they rush back into one another's arms, leaving C and D crushed and alone. That type of love quadrangle can mess up the best-laid instructional plans. After all, how can one worry about the trials of Odysseus when your New Crush or Long-time GF / BF are mooning over / glaring at you.
• Then there is the girl drama. This often occurs when two girls are pursuing the same guy. But, it can also occur over something totally random and seemingly unimportant (like when one girl reads the part of Juliet in class and the rest of the girls are mad that she was chosen to be Juliet and they weren't...).
• Then there is the boy drama. This sounds a lot like the fight scenes of beefy, monosyllabic actors ("You want to start something? You want a piece of me? I'll take you down!") Although initially intense, this type of drama goes away quickly, unlike girl drama which seems to last forever.

There are more types of drama, but you get the idea. I have worked with teens long enough to know that these are just symptoms of being a teenager. Most of my students will outgrow these behaviors as they mature.

There is one type of behavior, though, that I have not been able to accept or understand: being mean. I often hear students say awful things to one another. I get that people don't always like one another. I mean, I don't like everybody, so I understand that. But that doesn't mean you have to be mean to someone. (In fact, generally speaking, my preferred method of dealing with someone I don't care for is to ignore them. Maybe not the most mature way to do it, but I find it more appropriate than just being nasty to someone else.)

You may dislike someone because you think they are too whatever. Maybe they look or smell weird. Maybe they don't look like you or their beliefs are different from yours or they worship a "different" god. Maybe they aren't as smart or athletic or socially acceptable as you are. Who cares.

http://img.timeinc.net/time/2007/la_riots/king_rodney.jpg

Why must we continue being cruel to people who are different, In the now-famous words of Rodney King (click here if you don't know who he is), I wonder, Can we all get along? 

Imagine how amazing our world would be if we could manage that one "little" feat.