Teaching Cursive Part 7 (of 25): How to Teach Correct Forward Slant

 

Turn the paper while writing in order to get properly slanted cursive.

 

Correct positioning for left-handed writers to obtain the forward slant.

 

This post is both for parents and for teachers who may be called upon to teach cursive, but need help with how to teach the correct slant.  For examples of correct slant, see this post.

The way to get a slant is to TURN THE PAPER (or notebook). Instead of having the paper directly upright in front of you, rotate it about 45° COUNTER-CLOCKWISE, so that the upper right corner is in the 12:00 position (and lower left corner is in 6:00 position). Then write normally on the page, and the writing will have the proper slant.

The paper should be turned on an angle to write for one’s entire life–it is the correct way–it is not something one does while learning as a child, and later on reverts back to using a straight paper.  No one can write with a proper forward slant if the page is not turned on the desk

A helpful hint for teachers and parents is to cut a thin strip of paper (I used to use a 1/8th-wide strip cut from red construction paper, but any paper will do) and tape it to the desk or table where your student is working. The bottom edge of his paper should rest on that line. As a third-grade teacher, I taped these red lines on each desk before the first day of school. (I also did it when I taught Kindergarten for three years.) How did I get the idea? My own teachers did it when I was a child.

Line taped on edge of desk for slanted cursive writing.

If you would like to try the taped line method (highly recommended), here is how to put it in the right position:

It’s important to WATCH your own children or students work, for several weeks or months, until they develop the habit automatically. It feels very awkward at first since they have most likely learned incorrectly. They might need constant reminding every two or three minutes at first.  As a teacher, it was easy for me to keep constant watch in the classroom and remind students all day long, “Turn your papers,” or “Papers on the red line.”

Once students start writing, there will naturally be some students whose writing is not slanted enough, and others whose writing is too slanted.  At that point, tell those individual students to habitually turn their papers more, or less–whatever is required–in order to arrive at the correct amount of slant.

 

My hope is that these instructions will help parents and teachers understand how to teach cursive slant with excellent results.

Teaching Cursive Part 6 (of 25): WHY Correct Cursive Slant Is Important in American Writing

Why is cursive slant still important?  American society still makes judgments about people based on their handwriting, and slant is one of the strongest criteria used.   Most people make these judgments subjectively and subconsciously every day.  However, employers and bank officers are just two examples of those in the power structure who employ professional handwriting analysts to make judgments about prospective employees and about people applying for loans.

In the photo above, I have written out some examples of various slants, as well as how they are perceived.  As a teacher, when I introduce cursive writing, I actually write samples like this on the chalk board to show them to students, and explain what people might think about others based on the slant of their handwriting.  So I encourage them right from the very first day that our goal is to try for an average forward slant, shown in the last example in the photo above.

One other example did not fit on the page, so here it is:

Our slant, like other aspects of our handwriting, will change from day-to-day, but we should generally try for a correct forward slant.  This can be obtained by turning the writing paper 45° counterclockwise (subject of the post following this one, Part 7).

Countries and cultures, when compared with one another, also tend to have typical characteristics.  For example, British “reserve” as compared with American “friendliness with strangers” can be seen in typical handwriting slants from each culture.  Vertical, or even backslanted writing is more common in British culture than in American.  If we move to North Africa, we find people generally suspicious and distrustful of others, and as expected, backslanted writing (in Western languages) is most common of all.

If you are from outside the United States, you should be all right using the slant which is most common in your own culture, and no one will judge you negatively.  But if you are living or working in America, you should be very aware of this and of the impact it could have on your personal life or career with any of the undesirable slants discussed above.

My next post will explain, with photos, how to position the paper to get a correct forward slant.

In case anyone has had trouble reading the cursive in the photo, here is a typed version:

Cursive Slant for American Writing

In American culture:

A vertical slant is not considered desirable; you are judged to be too logical, too cold, and without feeling.

A backslant is to be avoided at all costs; you are judged to be  emotionally suppressed, possibly with some kind of ecret emotional trauma in your background, difficult to approach,and someone who maintains a shell around themselves.

This is too much forward slant; these people are judged as being far too emotional, of making all of their decisions based on feelings.

This is the minimum acceptable forward slant.

This is an average/normal forward slant, which is considered most desirable in America.  This slant, to Americans, indicates a balanced person who uses good judgment between logical decisions and emotion in their decision-making.

A variable (frequently changing) slant indicates moodiness, instability, and a frequently changing picture of oneself, as well as trouble making decisions.

 

How Can Parents and Students Find a Good Tutor?

When looking for a tutor, start by asking individual teachers and other parents at your own school if they can recommend someone.  Ask other parents, first, because sometimes they know of current tutors that the school doesn’t.  Sometimes students don’t want anyone at school to know that they are being tutored, which is why parents sometimes know of more tutors than schools do.  Numerous individuals in schools know of good people, so don’t just limit yourself to asking only one teacher, or one administrator.  If you don’t find someone through other parents, ask the librarian, the administrator, and all the teachers near the grade level of your child–a couple grades up, and a couple grades down.  If that doesn’t work, try asking neighbors and work colleagues who have children.  Don’t forget to ask people with older children, as previous tutors may still be available, but current school personnel may no longer know them.  If you are an expat, ask other expats in your community.

The most important things in finding a tutor for your child are that:

1.)  The student likes the tutor, and that they are able to develop a personal connection; otherwise, no matter how knowledgeable the tutor, it just doesn’t work with your child.

2.)  The tutor understands that what you want is better grades, but also for your child’s skills to improve.  It has to be a combination of both to work out.

3.)  The tutor also functions as a cheerleader/coach for your child, as many students in need of tutoring have lost confidence in themselves.  A good tutor, who the student connects with, can help replace that confidence, while helping your child master the skills he or she is having trouble with.  This is why it’s so important that they like each other and have a good relationship.

4.)  The tutor needs to be just a little more on your child’s side, than on the school’s side.  Sometimes, the problem with tutors who are also teachers at the same time is that there is a fine line between helping a student overcome difficulties and helping them improve their grades, vs. helping too much, and crossing over into doing it for them.  Tutors who are also teachers sometimes don’t go far enough, while sometimes tutors go too far.  A personal recommendation from other pleased parents or pleased teachers can go far in finding a tutor that strikes the right balance to really help your child.

–Lynne Diligent

The New Math: Part II – Three Reasons Why It’s NOT Working in So Many Schools

My students come to me for math tutoring because they continue to flounder with the “new math” curriculum.  For a complete description of what is being taught and how it feels for students, see Part I of this series.  Part I – The New Math:  Why We Have It

If expert mathematicians have redesigned the curriculum, why aren’t the results better?

I believe it’s because the experts aren’t taking into account the developmental stages of most students, and because they really aren’t aware of the problems most classroom teachers are faced with.

The new math teaching methods are mainly designed to create:

1.)  the ability to work in cross-disciplinary teams;

2.)  understanding (now viewed as even more important than being able to compute); and

3.)  innovative and divergent math thinkers–the three characteristics increasingly required of white-collar jobs in industry today.

Yet the new math curriculum is failing to achieve these goals.  Let’s take a look at WHY, by seeing how these things actually play out in most classrooms.

How These Three Goals Actually Work Out in Classrooms:

1. Creating an ability to work in cross-disciplinary teams. The idea is clearly that “putting students in groups to solve problems” will create this ability. However, there are TWO IMPORTANT REASONS why this is not happening in most classrooms. The first reason is BULLYING, and the second reason is STUDENT ATTITUDE and LACK OF MATURITY.

Middle-school, when most students are first put into math-solution groups, is the age of the MOST EXTREME BULLYING (although bullying starts in Kindergarten). Students are usually left to sort themselves into groups, and usually, in-crowd friends choose each other, while the remaining students are randomly forced into groups with students who regularly bully them. This same situation continues in many high-school classes, and is sometimes worst of all in the smallest schools where there is only one math class per grade.

It takes an extremely effective teacher who can give groups precise tasks, direction, and rewards based on individual effort to get a group to make effective progress. Generally what happens is one of several things. The students don’t understand what they are doing at all and therefore have no idea (or motivation) even to try. They end up wasting time and talking about non-math-related matters. Or, at best, one or two students do understand and do the work, while the others loaf and do nothing, but coast on the group grade (if there is one), having not done the work, and not understanding the work that was done by the others. Or, those who are friends in the group use the hour as a social time, while the unwanted group members spend the time staring at their papers, feeling excluded, and just wasting the whole hour.

Requirements for effective group work are:  1.) being in a group with others you like or respect, and others who like or respect you; 2.) Having enough background in the subject, that when given A SPECIFIC TASK, all the individuals in the group can work on it;  3.) Being able to effectively subdivide tasks; and 4.) Having individual accountability for one’s contributions to the group. Most teachers do not have either sufficient time or experience to be effective in all these ways and rely on immature students who are not willing/able to these things themselves (as an adult work group would be able to do).

2.  Creating understanding of WHY methods work, rather than merely learning computational solutions.  This is an admirable goal, but it is not being correctly implemented at the proper ages, in the proper stages, or in the proper ways.

Mental maturity, and ability to deal with abstract concepts arrives at different times for different students.  Abstract thinking arrives for a very few students in the lower elementary grades, for a few more students in the upper elementary grades, for about half of students by middle school, and for at best two-thirds of students by high school and early adulthood.  For some people, it never arrives at all.  Having taught a great variety of math topics over the years, some students grasp one topic at a young age, but don’t grasp another until many years later, if at all.  Since every student has a unique profile of what they grasp or don’t grasp, this is the origin of the “spiral curriculum,” where each year, many topics are introduced, and each year, the math texts cut slightly deeper into each topic (assuming the school is still using math texts).

Let us take telling time as an example.  A few students are able to grasp telling time well in kindergarten, while others, no matter HOW much time is spent in the classroom in grades two and three, just cannot grasp it until fifth grade.  Then suddenly, something “clicks.”  Their brain has arrived at the right level of mental maturity.

Unfortunately, today’s curriculum introduces so many topics that few are actually mastered.  Thus, many students move up through the grades NEITHER understanding, NOR being proficient in calculating.  Most students need and WANT to become proficient at calculating and getting the right answer in the elementary grades.  This builds their confidence.  They also want to know in what situations they might use those skills (which gives learners motivation, and is often an area neglected by teachers).  Those who do not become proficient at calculating lose confidence in themselves and are certainly even LESS likely to be open to any discussions of “understanding.”

A current controversial topic in the math field is whether students need a certain amount of proficiency before they can understand “why” things work.  After two decades of experience teaching math at the elementary and middle-school levels, I come down hard on the side that it IS necessary.  Young elementary students can appreciate that a correct answer can be found through several different methods, but it is a waste of precious class time AT THAT AGE to spend a lot of time on WHY (an abstract concept which despite the weeks spent on it does not actually increase their understanding) instead of on developing proficiency and thereby building students’ confidence and excitement about learning more.

It was not the intent of the math experts, I am sure, in revising math curriculum, to have students wind up being neither able to understand, NOR be able to calculate!  Their intent was to WIDEN the curriculum to INCLUDE more understanding.  But with only four-to-five hours a week (at best) of classroom time to teach math per week,  at least half of the available time is being taken up with “understanding” (which is not being understood by the majority of students), and not enough time for most students to become proficient at calculating.  Those who do become proficient are generally having additional support from parents and tutors.  Furthermore, homework has been greatly reduced from a decade ago (approximately cut in half) which means that more students than ever before are not mastering basic procedures.  When students get into middle school and one-third of them still cannot determine the answer to 3 x 8 without consulting their calculators, it is highly unlikely they will gain any “higher understanding.”

3.  Creating innovative and divergent math thinkers.  Criticisms of the past were that students were memorizing times tables and learning to calculate, but not understanding what those calculations meant; students were unable to take even a simple story problem and know which calculations to perform.

After two decades in the classroom, I can easily see this problem did not stem from memorizing or calculating.  This problem stemmed from teachers throughout school not teaching children how to TRANSLATE between English words, and math language.  In most cases, elementary teachers are not math majors.  In fact, most became elementary teachers because they are math-phobic!  They teach the calculations, and generally skip all the story problems (as did I when I first began to teach math).  Yes, it is partly a time problem, but the REAL problem is that most teachers are afraid they will not be able to explain to students how to do story problems, because they never learned themselves! Speaking as someone who did not learn this skill myself until I was an adult, I see that this is the number one area that students need the MOST help with.  I find myself wondering if students in India, China, and Japan are getting this sort of help from a young age, while students in the West are not?

Rather than wasting precious elementary time on esoteric math subjects, and making “arrays” for WEEKS in order to “understand” multiplication, students would be much better served learning to calculate, and having DAILY GUIDED PRACTICE on particular types of story problems, both in order to recognize types of problems, and to be able to readily understand how to translate the English language into MATH language.

What the math “experts” who design curriculum are not realizing is that showing students all the different possible ways to solve every type of math problem does NOT create the “divergent” innovative thinkers they are looking for.
As for math majors, sometimes (not always), those who were brilliant in math are unable to explain it clearly to those who are having trouble, because the teachers never experienced those same troubles themselves.  Sometimes (not always) teachers who were not good math students are able to master math, and are far better at figuring out where and why students are “stuck.”  Lucky children with difficulties have those teachers!  The very first requirement for becoming a divergent thinker is self-confidence in one’s own abilities.  This comes from being sure that one knows at least ONE way to get the right answer every time, even if one knows that other ways do exist.  The main thing is to MASTER at least one method.

Beyond competence, creating divergent thinkers is more of a personality-trait question.  This question has more to do with motivation and stimulating interest, and comes from the sort of child who always asks, “Why?”  Most children don’t ask why, and most don’t care about why.  To create more innovative, divergent thinkers, every teacher in every classroom, in every subject, needs to challenge ideas and get students excited about learning.  And yes, teachers need to be “entertaining,” too! Innovative thinkers aren’t usually innovative in just one area (such as math).  Most innovative thinkers draw their ideas from multiple sources and synthesis of ideas from multiple disciplines.  Students need help becoming competent, and beyond that, to be inspired enough to pursue their own interests in a self-directed way.  Curriculum which forces students to calculate by many different methods fatigues many students and actually de-motivates them from further self-directed learning.

It is difficult for a new or average teacher to overcome these difficulties.  Hopefully with time and experience, Western society will adjust to the new math curriculum, but I am afraid it will be later, rather than sooner.

–Lynne Diligent

The NEW Math:  Part I – WHY We Have It

The NEW Math: Part I – WHY We Have It

“PLEASE, can you help me, Mrs. D.?  We are having a math test TOMORROW and I don’t understand anything!”  This has been the most common complaint I have from my sixth- and seventh-grade tutoring students (ages 11-13).  Whether the topic involves geometry, equations, story problems, or even more basic calculations, nearly all my students (excellent students, too) are having the same dilemma.

If you are a parent or educator who has wondering for years (as I have) WHY we HAVE the new math, this post will explain it clearly.  (Part II explains why the new math is not working in many schools.)

 The New Math Style

The new math style in some schools appears to be, “The teacher doesn’t explain—he or she merely facilitates ‘groups’ while students (hopefully) just teach themselves.”  Like many people, I have felt confused for several years about the new style of math teaching.  Instead of presenting a lesson, giving students guided practice, and then sending them home to do independent practice (homework), the new style, which my tutoring students are experiencing, seems to be, “Don’t follow a text book (even if they are available).  Instead, just find some seemingly random problems off the internet (seemingly without any overall coherent plan of units), tell students to put themselves into groups, and pass out the photocopies.  Tell the students, ‘See if you can find some solutions to these problems.  Do this for three or four days, then tell students, “We will be having a test on Friday.’ “

Imagine middle-school students with these feelings being asked to get into groups and work on random problems. It is not likely to go well.

Of course parents’ reaction to this is panic.  Eighty percent of the children are LOST with this approach. Those who can afford it are rushing to math tutors, who teach the children by traditional methods what they should have learned in school.  Those who cannot afford it have children who fail.

Let us look at a “hammer” analogy.  Instead of saying, “Let’s learn how to use a hammer and see if we can get a good result with the nail pounded in correctly,” the new approach effectively asks, “Let’s learn why the hammer was developed, and how and why it works in theory….but don’t waste your time becoming competent in using one!”

Next, students are given a national or state test consisting of pounding nails into a board, which of course they FAIL!   Meanwhile, the “experts” lament that they are unable to do it!  

This is exactly what has happened with math education.  Teachers using “traditional” methods have been drummed out of education (mostly retired), while younger teachers have all been trained to use the “new” methods.  

WHERE did this approach ever come from?

I finally found the answer I’d been searching for, in a MOOC (FREE online course offered through Coursera, taught by world-renowned British mathematician Keith Devlin of Stanford University, Fall 2013, called Introduction to Mathematical Thinking.)

Keith Devlin

Devlin explains that in the job market, there is a need for two types of mathematical skills.  He describes Type 1 skills as being able to solve math problems that are already formulated, and it’s just a matter of calculating the correct answers.

Type 2 skills involve being able to “take a new problem, say in manufacturing, identify and describe key features  problem mathematically, and use that mathematical description to analyze the problem in a precise fashion.”

“In the past,” Devlin says, “there was a huge demand for employees with Type 1 skills, and a small need for Type 2 talent.”  In the past, education produced many Type 1 employees and a few Type 2 employees.  However, in today’s world, the need for Type 2 thinkers has greatly expanded.  Not only do scientists, engineers, and computer scientists need to think this way, but  new business managers also need to, in order to be able to understand and communicate with math experts and make decisions based upon properly understanding those experts.  So the “new math” curriculum is an attempt by the “experts” to produce many more Type 2 thinkers; yet, it is FAILING to do so.

Prior to the late 1800s, math was viewed as “a collection of procedures for solving problems.”  In the late 1800s a revolution occurred among mathematicians which shifted the emphasis from calculation to understanding.  The new math of the 1960s was the first attempt to put this shift into the classroom, and the results were not successful.  I see the current shifts to put new math into the classroom as the second attempt, which is different from the 1960s attempt (children are not studying various bases these days), yet no more successful in reality.  Part II of this series will explain the three reasons WHY this is happening.

 –Lynne Diligent

The New Math:  Part II – Why It’s NOT Working in So Many Schools

Students Mourn Never Learning Cursive

Cursive – the new undecipherable secret code script!

Cursive was taught in my school until four years ago.  When I left, the school discontinued it as a regular subject.  Now those students are in upper elementary and early middle school, and can neither read nor write in cursive writing.

Among my tutoring students, several of them have expressed to me their sadness that their older brothers and sisters can read and write in cursive, and they cannot.  Still being in the first few classes not to learn cursive, they feel babyish and incompetent.  Perhaps in subsequent years, this embarrassment will disappear when none of the new students  have older brothers and sisters who know cursive, when they don’t.  In another six or seven years, no one will know it, and it will seem normal to upcoming students.  It’s only those in these transition years who will feel the loss.  But they will feel it for the rest of their lives.

How many adults remember the childhood feeling of waiting to learn “grown-up” writing, or scribbling to other young friends (at the age of five or six) on a paper and bragging, “I know how to write in cursive?”  Of course, at that age, no one knew, so your friends believed you, because they couldn’t read it, either!

When I tutor these students, I have to slow down and print (much more time-consuming).  Of course these students also will never be able to read historical documents or even old family letters. Furthermore, most European and Latin American countries don’t teach printing at all–they teach only cursive script starting at the age of five.  I feel this bodes poorly for a future globalized world.

I’d be happy to teach cursive to these students (being an expert cursive teacher), but that is not what I’m being paid to tutor in–we generally spend the time on math, science, reading, and writing. Furthermore, teaching cursive at an older age can be done, but it is not generally enjoyable as it is for children.  It makes children feel grown-up, and they enjoy learning it.

–Lynne Diligent

What Happened to Centigrade? Confusion Over the Celsius Temperature Scale…

When I started teaching elementary school (as a second career in 1995), I was very surprised to find all the new textbooks now referring to the centigrade scale as the Celsius scale. Of course they are the same thing, but I wondered why the textbooks were now using this term when I had never heard it growing up. Now, I know why.

The short answer is that people continue to call a thing by the same name they, themselves, learned while growing up.  Most adults, and just about everyone in academia through the 1980s, grew up hearing “centigrade” and continued to use that term with their own students throughout high school and university.

The new name, “Celsius,” disturbed me ever since I began hearing it in the mid-1990s; but now that I know there was an actual reason for the name change, it no longer bothers me.  A unit of measurement, called a “grade,” was actually in use.  Therefore, in 1948, the Conference General de Pois et Measures (in France) decided to change the name of the scale to “Celsius.”

The International System of Units

A second reason for the change in name was that the Conference General de Pois et Measures decided that “All common temperature scales would have their units named after someone closely associated with them; namely, Kelvin, Celsius, Fahrenheit, Réaumur and Rankine.”

The change in elementary-school textbooks began to take place around 1968, and during the 1970s, as districts began to replace their former textbooks.  In the meantime, parents, scientists, and college professors continued to use the name they had grown up with.  Only students born in the 1970s and later would have grown up calling the scale “Celsius.”  (I continue to catch myself saying “centigrade” to my own students.)

In England, the BBC Weather did not begin using the term Celsius until 1985, and the word centigrade continues to to be commonly used in England, according to some sources.

Swedish Astronomer Anders Celsius (1701-1744)

The centigrade scale was known as such from 1743-1954.  In 1948, the scale was renamed the Celsius scale, after the Swedish astronomer Anders Celsius (1701-1744) who developed a SIMILAR scale (but not actually the same scale).  Interestingly, Celsius’ original scale was the reverse of today’s scale; “0” indicated the boiling point of water, while “100” indicated the freezing point of water.

Swedish Zoologist and Botanist Carolus Linnaeus(1708-1777)

The Swedish zoologist and botanist, Carolus Linnaeus (1707-1778), remembered for giving us the basis of taxonomy (classification of living things into genus and species), reversed Celsius’ original scale so that “0” indicated the freezing point of water, while “100” indicated the boiling point. As the older generations retire and pass away, the new name change will become universal.  It seems to take about three generations for a name change to really become universally accepted in society.

–Lynne Diligent

Young Student Remembers Past Life?

Several years ago, while teaching third grade, the school asked me to have students write stories.  One of my third-grade boys (age 8) wrote a story unlike any I have ever seen in all of my years of teaching.  Instead of writing about the usual kinds of stories which children do, he wrote about his experience as an adult man during war.

His story was about trying to save his family while he was being called off to war.  He was rushing to hide them in the basement and get them necessities, while trucks of soldiers were coming by to pick him up and take him with them off to war.  It was in Europe, and there were trucks.  It’s been several years, and I no longer recall all the details, but the essence of the story has stayed with me ever since.  Out of all the stories my students wrote over the years, it is the only one I can clearly remember today.

As someone who believes in reincarnation, I’ve always wondered if, in fact, this child’s story was a past-life memory.  It was shocking to read.  It sounded like one of the World Wars.  His concerns sounded just as if an adult man of 35 was speaking about his feelings.  There are a number cases now researched and published of young children who remember past lives, and even past lives in wars.

I mentioned the story to his mother, and she responded, “I know.  He’s just like an old man, in a little boy’s body.”

–Lynne Diligent

“Animals Can’t Think, Because They Don’t Have a Brain,” My Student Said.

Here in North Africa, we were discussing organs in animals, and I reminded my student that he’d forgotten to mention the brain.  My 13-year-old student said, “Animals don’t have a brain.”  When I asked why he thought that, he said, “Animals can’t think because they don’t have a brain.”

Even though I told him that most animals do have a brain, the conversation continued to trouble me.  I wondered, “How could an intelligent 13-year-old, who is a good student and reasonably good in science have this idea?”  I decided to speak to a teaching colleague from the local culture.

My colleague suggested that I remind my student of the annual Sheep Sacrifice Festival, where a sheep is  butchered in nearly every home (except the very poor).  He suggested I ask my student if he had remembered eating the sheep’s head, and that inside the head are the brains.

My colleague and my husband (both from the local culture) explained that since there is emphasis here on humans being able to think and reason, and animals just acting on their instincts, so that it’s generally said, “Animals don’t have a mind.”  My student, himself, apparently interpreted that to mean, “Animals don’t have a brain.”

When I spoke about this to my student, he said, “Oh, YES!  I HAVE seen that!”  I explained that every animal needs a brain even to walk around, even to eat, even to see.  He said, “Thank you for explaining this!”

–Lynne Diligent

Do Cat Thieves Give Clues to the Origins of Criminality in Humans?

Here in  North Africa, I watch the neighborhood animals, who belong to no one, and make their rounds in the same places daily.  We have a lot of street animals, and cats often jump in to our house through the windows (other people’s houses, too), in search of food. Some of them can get quite aggressive, especially with our own cats.  Our cats feel they have to go outside and “defend the yard” every time they see a cat jump in over the garden wall.  Of course they go absolutely wild if a neighborhood cat jumps into our house.

I began to think about these intruders as thieves, because that’s what they would be considered, if they were humans. It’s easier for them to steal food than it is for them to hunt for it themselves in an urban environment.

It’s also easier (than working) for human thieves to do the same–either because they are lazy, or their environment didn’t give them other reasonable options, or because they are more greedy than others (white collar criminals?). I wonder how much of this laziness/greediness could be genetically determined, or if it is somewhat genetically programmed into all of us.  In fact, scientists are now finding evidence of this (see HERE and HERE).

My observation of cats in the neighborhood has lead me wonder whether ALL cats would be thieves if they weren’t fed by their owners.

Therefore, what keeps ALL humans from becoming thieves? Rather than asking the question who is likely to become a criminal (in human society), perhaps we should seek to understand this question  by asking instead, what KEEPS people from taking the easy route of becoming a thief/criminal? Instead of asking who cheats and why, maybe we should be asking, “Why doesn’t EVERYONE cheating/lying/stealing? What keeps those of us who are law-abiding citizens, so?”

I wonder if the answer lies in the environment.  Instead of saying that the environment causes criminality, perhaps the reverse is actually closer to the truth.  Perhaps we would all be criminals, except for if we have a positive environment which, as we are raised, gives us POSITIVE REWARDS (such as RESPECT or ADMIRATION) for becoming law-abiding citizens.  Those who grow up in impoverished environments (or cultural environments) where they never experience these rewards, are unlikely to become honest and law-abiding.

What do others think?