Consequences are our Best Friend

Consequences are our Best Friend

We live in the Age of Consequences and yet it seems to me that people are more than ever avoiding seeing or wanting to experience consequences. Now you would assume that means people, understandably, want to avoid BAD consequences – which is understandable. But the way life works when you try to avoid bad consequences you end up also missing out on the GOOD consequences, ie. Rewards and satisfaction of a task well done. Right now I am experiencing this disconnect in its extreme form in local high schools. Basically, because there are no consequences there is not much learning going on but strangely enough not much failing either – because there are consequences in this “Brave New World” of modern education. What I and the other High School teachers then see is a psycholigically weakened student population who cannot face the smallest challenge without experiencing either anxiety or a complete avoidance of the issue at hand.

How does this connect to the ecological destruction we are unleashing upon ourselves? When I look beyond the schools with this experience fresh in my mind I see versions of the same thing everywhere in our society. We don’t see the consequences happening all around us because we are blind to consequences in general because of our desire for safety and security and the idea that it’s there is something/somebody else to blame for whatever ‘bad’ thing is happening to me. The result is that this seems to me another piece in the puzzle of our efforts to discover why it is that we are doing next to nothing to change behaviours which are destroying our society and the natural world we rely upon. So let’s explore the idea of consequences as our best friend to learning you live well in our messy world.

Let’s start with what’s going on in Ottawa High schools. In the new grade 9 & 10 curriculum in Ontario there are no more exams, no more deadlines, in some classes there are no tests, in some classes there are no textbooks or even notes written by the teacher for the student to copy down and there are no consequences to skipping class – other than learning nothing. But that’s not a problem, because teachers must provide multiple opportunities for the student for missed work or “failed” assignments. Together this means that failing a student is very difficult and the students can advance knowing next to nothing and even more importantly they have not learned good learning and study habits. This making everything easier means that when they eventually meet a real challenge in life they often become very anxious or blame others for their failures or cannot understand why the person in this challenging situation is being so nasty. Here is another example of an issue that has large social implications, especially as regards social cohesion and productivity. A few seconds ago it was time to stand for the national anthem. I saw a student walking down the hall and politely

asked him to stop for the anthem and he said: “ I don’t have to stop for it” and kept walking. I could do nothing and so said nothing in response. What are the implications of my inability as a teacher to impose consequences? Enormous. It’s not the national anthem that is the issue, the issue is the attitude of “I will do what I want and you can’t make me do otherwise and there are no consequences to me breaking any rules you may seek to impose upon me”. Oh dear.

Now let’s look at our adult world. In some ways I don’t think we are so different. We need consequences to help us make choices that are in our long term self interest. We don’t do that. Our society is at the point in its social development that “it’s all about me and it’s all about now” – what happens to others and what happens to the future because of my choices is not my problem and not my responsibility. Most people also don’t see, or want to see, the consequences of their choices – especially as regards to the climate emergency and mass extinction event going on. I think that the social choice we have made to not to emphasize consequences is similir to the choice made by the department of education not to have the students experience consequences. The result? We don’t learn do distinguish between positive and negative behaviours. We don’t learn to toughen up and fall on our face and recognize that without mistakes we can learn nothing. We don’t learn to stop blaming others and we don’t learn that we can make a difference. Instead we learn to be passive and afraid and develop a victim mentality.

So what can you and I about this? We need to make choices where the consequences are clear and are experienced – especially for any young people we know. We need to help them not see challenges and mistakes as a negative thing to be feared – but instead as their best friend who is helping them develop the inner resiliance to face the harsh realities of a world in self destruct mode. And within that seeing then to shift their perspective in the most important way: every crisis is an opportunity. We can all let the painful consequences of our life destroying behaviours hit us right in the guts so we choose another way to live – a life affirming way where we feel the consequences of our choices directly and then change. That means every choice we make must include knowing the consequences that choice has on others, and by others I include the non human world, and the future. Perhaps then a new social value system can arise from the ashes of our narcissitic and consequence disconnected society. If we don’t, well then Mother Nature will help us along – in her normal harsh and deadly way. For the old saying “You reap what you sow” is as true now as when it was written thousands of years ago.