Date:         Thu, 9 Jan 1997 22:41:24 -0500
From: rah rah tink! <mbarker@MIT.EDU>
Subject:      EXERCISE: Values (Honesty) #1

[Based on the book "Teaching Your Children Values" by Linda and Richard
Eyre, ISBN 0-671-76966-9]

You may or may not agree with the values I'll be looking at in this
series of exercises.  That's fine.  To quote from the book I'm reading
(p. 14) "The problem is clarifying (in our own minds) exactly what
values we want to teach...and then finding methods and techniques that
actually work in conveying those values (and their desirability)."

And for clarification, (p. 15) "By _values_ we mean the standards of our
actions and the attitudes of our hearts and minds that shape who we are,
how we live, and how we treat other people...By _morality_ we mean
behavior that...helps rather than hurts other people."

With that hasty start, let's move on to the first value:

(p. 41) "Honesty with other individuals, with institutions, wiht
society, with self.  The inner strength and confidence that is bred by
exacting truthfulness, trustworthiness, and integrity."

"General Guidelines" include
    1.  Be completely honest
    2.  Give praise and the chance to "start over"
    3.  Point out consequences

Some observations/games...

    1.  Being honest about feelings can be hard.
    2.  Think about situations where it is difficult to be honest--both
beforehand and in retrospect, so that you can learn from them.
    3.  You need to think through the short-range and long-range
consequences.
    4.  Consider the many ways to be dishonest...and what happens next.
    5.  Consider the shades of meaning--dishonest, deception, lie,
cheat...and their antonyms.  Which helps, which hurts?  Why?
    6.  Watch for the dilemmas of honesty.
    7.  What about some scenarios--cheating?  Exaggerating?  Protecting
yourself?

And lest you think you are going to get off easy...pick a number from
one to six?

    1.  "A man may be in as just possession of truth as of a city, and
yet be forced to surrender; 'tis therefore far better to enjoy her with
peace, than to hazard her on a battle."  Sir Thomas Browne, Religio
Medici (1642)

    2.  "Truth's fountains may be clear--her streams are muddy,/ And cut
through such canals of contradiction,/ That she must often navigate o'er
fiction." Byron, Don Juan (1819-24), 15.88.

    3.  "Truth is a river that is always splitting up into arms that
reunite.  Islanded between the arms the inhabitants argue for a lifetime
as to which is the main river."  Cyril Connolly, _The Unquiet Grave_
(1945), 3.

    4.  "Truth has already ceased to be itself if polemically said."
Emerson, Journals, 1836.

    5.  "Truth often suffers more by the heat of its defenders than from
the arguments of its opposers."  William Penn, _Some Fruits of Solitude_
(1693), 1.142

    6.  "It profits not me to have any man fence or fight for me, to
flourish or take a side.  Stand for truth and 'tis enough." Ben Johnson,
"Of Liberal Studies," _Timber_ (1640)

[Quotes taken from The International Thesaurus of Quotations, by Rhoda
Thomas Tripp, ISBN 0-06-091382-7]

And roll your dice (all right, the pedantic may roll their die) again,
please?  And your number is:

    1.  a clear plastic superball with swirls of dayglo color embedded
    2.  a splintered old board, weatherbeaten
    3.  one child's skate key, shiny with wear
    4.  a river-smoothed stone
    5.  a feather (perhaps a crow?  or...species of bird at your
discretion)
    6.  a well-worn sneaker

A quote, a piece of reality, and...one more number, please?

    1.  father
    2.  mother
    3.  son
    4.  daughter
    5.  lover
    6.  diety

Let your quote tingle in your brain.  Put the fingers of your
imagination out and touch that object.  And let the characters look at
their relationship, infusing that bind that ties with the value of
honesty...

Now write!

[one sentence?  you want to start with something borrowed, eh?

    In the harmony of life, true notes may not be the loudest, but
they're the ones that reverberate.

If you would like to use this to start your work, feel free to do so.]

one word, two word, three word, four!
put 'em in a row and write some more!

*tink*
        *  *
        tink
                 * *
                t  k
               i  n
                        n i
                         kt
                        *  *
                                    *
                                  nk
                               *ti
                                        *tink*

(a cheerleader, now?  like the pompoms?  how about that cartwheel!  *grin*)