Getting Ready for Adulthood

When students leave school they should be ready for adulthood.  Both parents and schools should be involved in the process of "growing up", but when parents fail, the school must pick up the slack.  What specifically am I referring to?

Schools and parents both need to require manners, promptness, politeness, reliability and respect from students.  They need to require students to be in school every day unless they have an appropriate reason like illness, they need to require students to be prompt, and they need to require respect between students and between students and teachers.  Teachers need to model these characteristics and parents should also.

You may wonder why schools are hesitant to demand these characteristics.  Schools are concerned about keeping students in school as well as parental support.  These are valid concerns.  However, if you look at what has happened to work ethic and service in this country, I think it shows a necessity for these characteristics.  How often do we wait for repair people to arrive to fix things only to have them decide to come another day and not inform us?  How often are sales people rude and abrupt? How often is work shoddy or incomplete?  How often are students missing these characteristics? 

I believe we must be emphatic in demanding the best from our students not only in learning the facts but also in demanding the best work ethic and personal characteristics that they can promote.