The Culture of Entitlement is What Killed Stephanie

We live in an entitlement culture and it makes sharing the gospel very difficult. Yale Daily News reports "Here at Yale, graduate students claim entitlements to a union, health care for dependents and faculty position assurances, all on top of a free education, generous stipends and benefits. Affirmative-action policies entitle racial minorities to advantages in applying to universities and getting jobs over equally qualified candidates. Medicaid and welfare programs entitle the poor to health care, monthly income and food stamps. The ripe age of 65 entitles today's senior citizens to Social Security's benefits and Medicare's health insurance and prescription drugs. Federal subsidies entitle American farmers and agribusinesses to more than $20 billion in corporate welfare each year. The government hands out, and predictably, the people take."

The problem is that an entitlement culture denies individual responsibility and creates handy excuses for failure. Obese people and smokers claim entitlements to financial compensation by McDonald's and Philip Morris for damage caused by personal indiscretion. Crusaders for excuses like Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson and Louis Farrakhan blame societal racism for the problems that plague the inner city rather than engage in a meaningful critique of a culture that perpetuates low expectations.

Bible study is ineffectual in a culture of entitlement. Most ask, "why do I need to know the bible?, I can just Google the information I need" In a culture of entitlement there are few if any consequences--we design our own life. And concerning God, it's Burger King "Have it your way" Terms like "sin" and "judgment" gets the same response as the RCA Victor dog!

This article written by Naomi Lakritz appeared January 9, 2008 in the Calgary Herald. I thought it was insightful. It's titled "The culture of entitlement is what killed Stefanie"

The killing of Stefanie Rengel is proof the chickens hatched by the child-centred education philosophy have come home to roost.

The 14-year-old Toronto girl was stabbed to death near her house on New Year's Day, allegedly because of an adolescent love triangle. A 15-year-old girl and her 17-year-old boyfriend face first-degree murder charges. The girl reportedly had told her boyfriend that she wanted Stefanie dead.

Stefanie's friend, Victoria Ham, told Toronto media she didn't understand how anyone could "crush someone so filled with joy. Why would anyone want to put out that light?"

Well, Victoria, for so many years now, teachers, parents and the other adults who people kids' lives have been busy telling them how special they are, without the kids first having to do anything to prove it. These adults have walked on eggshells around an entire generation of children, afraid of saying anything the least bit untoward because it might damage kids' self-esteem.

In the process, they've abdicated their duty to teach what's right and what's wrong. Instead, everyone must be non-judgmental, which means anything goes. Every child must exist in this egalitarian specialness defined only by the fact of being present and breathing.

Competition is seen as bad, so it was eliminated, and everyone on the team, from the top athlete to the klutz, gets a trophy, negating the healthy idea that one must put in the requisite hard work in order to walk away with a prize.

Consequences are mere shadows of their former selves, either eliminated or so diluted as to be utterly ineffectual. All this for fear of harming children's egos.

These are the tenets of the child-centred philosophy, which is often symbolized by a classroom in which kids sit at desks arranged so they face each other, their backs to the teacher who is on the periphery "facilitating" the learning experience. What greater metaphor could there be for the folly of this focus on the child as supreme authority, than a classroom in which the teacher becomes an appendage instead of the central figure?

My introduction to child-centred learning occurred when a Grade 1 teacher explained that my son would not be taught grammar. "We believe it's hurtful for a child to be told he's writing something the wrong way," she said.

This was a few years before teachers opted to switch from red pencils to purple to mark papers because "red" so jarringly screams "error!"

When you've gone through childhood with everyone constantly telling you how special you are, even though you've done nothing at all to earn it, you develop a supreme sense of entitlement that dictates because you're so special, you can do exactly as you please. You don't even have to worry about failing a math test any more, because the teacher will let you take it over again and she'll record the higher of the grades.

Whenever horrible things like Stefanie's murder occur -- and they seem to be occurring far more often than they used to -- there is much speculation as to root causes. Violence on TV, video games, single-parent households all get blamed. This speculation misses the point. If a child has received a good moral grounding, has learned that actions have consequences, that he has a collective responsibility to value others as much as he values himself, and understands that praise is won through hard work, then a video game, a TV show or whatever the root cause du jour is, isn't going to throw him for a loop.

But if he has passed through childhood receiving high praise for the mere act of inhaling and exhaling every day, he is going to be entitled. Carried along on the momentum of an exaggerated sense of his own wonderfulness, he won't see why he should face consequences, or why there should even be any.

Fatally stab a classmate because you want her out of your way? Why not? Toss a cat in the microwave, as did a group of Camrose teens this week? Sure, why not? Bully a classmate to the brink of suicide? Why not, if you feel like it?

After all, the world revolves around you. Haven't the adults been telling you that since you were born? Well, it must be true then. What reason would you have to doubt it when the message you've been getting is consistent across the board and down the years?

Undoing all the damage done in the name of self-esteem is going to be huge -- it's gone on so long. But we must continue to find news ways to present the old truths of Scripture "All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God" It will take a wrestling of the reigns from the hands of the culture on entitlement, but we must fight the fight.