COMMENTARY | In news of the "misundereducated," according to CNN, a third grade class in Memphis, Tenn., has voted for and honored 92-year-old Lester Matteson, who, in December, chewed through his duct tape restraints to free himself after being subdued by crooks during a home invasion robbery. The students honored Lester with a medal and a homemade certificate of heroism.
While I applaud Lester's resolve in freeing himself, I'm left scratching my head and wondering exactly what it is that we are teaching our children. Heroism and self-preservation are entirely different concepts. A hero is someone who does something courageous for the benefit of another person in need, whereas self preservation is just doing whatever you must, in an effort to save your own hide.
While both sorts of people are to be admired, the Hero must be held sacred. The Hero is the wounded soldier who rejects his own pain to back into enemy fire to hauls his comrades to safety. The self-preservationist is the airman shot down that manages through sheer force of will to survive for years in a POW camp. The hero is the fire fighter who runs into a burning building. The self-preservationist is the man with a broken arm and two broken legs who drags himself out of the burning building with his good arm.
It may seem, to some, an insignificant or subtle difference, but it's not. You see, heroism is unnatural. It's sacred, and deserves the highest measure of our respect and appreciation. Stories such as Lester Matteson's story of self-preservation is important in its own right, because through stories like his we can teach others how to think outside of the box to survive when they find themselves in situations that require them to save themselves for lack of available heroes, but stories of heroism have a different purpose.
For when we learn about true heroism, we learn through modeling, that we are part of something bigger than ourselves, and that helping others, even when risking ourselves to do so is noble, pure, honorable and right.
A third grade class in Tennessee honored a man who had helped himself, for a sacred honor too often misunderstood, and it leaves me to wonder why the teacher didn't seize an opportunity to teach, and just what are we teaching our kids?
