Let there be nothing harmonious about our children's playthings, lest they grow up expecting peace and order, and be eaten alive.
Interpretation
Children should learn to navigate chaos and conflict rather than expecting a perfectly harmonious life.
Kurt Vonnegut emphasizes the importance of exposing children to the realities of life through their experiences and play. He suggests that if children become accustomed to harmony and order from their playthings, they may be unprepared for the inevitable chaos and conflicts they will face in the real world. Rather than sheltering them from difficulties, it is crucial to let them learn resilience and adaptability.
In practice
A parenting workshop emphasizing the importance of teaching children to deal with challenges.
But by accident, not by cunning calculation, books, because of their weight and texture, and because of their sweetly token resistance to manipulation, involve our hands and eyes, and then our minds and souls, in a spiritual adventure I would be very sorry for my grandchildren not to know about.
I was not an anthropology student prior to the war. I took it up as part of a personal readjustment following some bewildering experiences as an infantryman and later as a prisoner of war in Dresden, Germany. The science of the Study of Man has been extremely satisfactory from that personal standpoint.
How subservient to Jesus, or to a humane God Almighty, were the leaders of this country back in the 1840's, when Marx said such a supposedly evil thing about religion? They had made it perfectly legal to own human slaves, and weren't going to led women vote or hold public office, God forbid, for another eighty year.
All these people talk so eloquently about getting back to good old-fashioned values. Well, as an old poop I can remember back to when we had those old-fashioned values, and I say let's get back to the good old-fashioned First Amendment of the good old-fashioned Constitution of the United States - and to hell with the censors! Give me knowledge or give me death!
Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you've got about a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I know of, babies - "God damn it, you've got to be kind."
If what Billy Pilgrim learned from the Tralfamadorians is true, that we will all live forever, no matter how dead we may sometimes seem to be, I am not overjoyed. Still--if I am going to spend eternity visiting this moment and that, I'm grateful that so many of those moments are nice.
What we need is a world full of miracles, like the miracle of seeing the young child seeking work and independence, and manifesting a wealth of enthusiasm and love.
The first task in teaching is to bring to consciousness what the students already believe by virtue of their personal experiences about themselves and society.
My father believed young people are among our nation's most valuable resources, and so we should ensure that every child - including children and youth returning from the justice system - have access to the opportunities we would want for our own children.
Knowledge without understanding is useless.
We still raise girls to look to other people for assurance they are attractive and smart, while boys are raised to determine their own value. Many girls are still made to feel it's not feminine to be good at science or math.
I've seen schools in Detroit where the windows are broken, where there's no heat, and children are sitting with their coats on in class in the middle of a snowstorm. I've also seen schools in California with Olympic-sized swimming pools and cafeterias like five-star restaurants.
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