Register
Parents
Parents of current McDonogh students may sign up for website accounts. Signing up for an account allows a parent to access the online directory, DASH, and your customized parent Personal Page.
Alumni
Alumni can create an account in order to take advantage of McDonogh Connect or Pledgemail.
Login
News & Photos
Wise Words from the Civility Expert
Are these times more uncivil than before?" asked civility expert, university professor, and author P.M. Forni.
Drawing from themes in his 2002 book Choosing Civility, Forni answered that question and others in talks to faculty, staff, parents, and guests in the Ceres M. Horn Theatre on April 8. Forni's book was required reading for faculty and staff.
"Certain established forms of civility are becoming obsolete, but new behaviors have emerged," explained Forni. "As a society we've been very good at instilling self-esteem in kids. But when we feed our kids oversized portions of self-esteem, we create kids who are self-absorbed. We need to rebalance the pendulum. No society can survive the assault on self-control that our society has seen in the last 50 years.
"I would be delirious with joy if I knew that schools in this country taught these four things,"
"Think before acting; other people bruise as easily as we do; there's a difference between happiness and fun; there are two ways to be successful in life."
When children understand and follow these principles, he said, the threat of school violence is reduced. "Civility is a matter of life and death."
"I'm always delighted when I talk in schools. It's an ideal audience--people who want to learn to change the world," said Forni, head of the Civility Initiative at Johns Hopkins University.
Forni explained how civility became his focus. For the first 20 or 25 years of his career, he was a scholar of the Middle Ages. He taught Italian literature. Then, the Middle Ages expert experienced his own middle-age crisis.
"What was important to me before paled to the alternative of reaching people with stuff that had relevance to the everyday world. ...
"I was teaching my Dante class one day. I looked at my students and a thought occurred to me that had not occurred to me before. I started to think that in the first part of our lives, we pursue beauty. In the second part, we pursue goodness."
Forni had fallen in love with the notion of gracious goodness.
He had also witnessed the coarsening of society, a circumstance he found distressing. He and equally concerned colleagues established the Johns Hopkins Civility Project in 1997. Out of that research and conversations came Choosing Civility. Another second book is due out in June.
To the faculty group, Forni encouraged teachers to establish a civil environment in their classrooms. "Your students learn better and more. You create a cycle where learning reinforces behavior and behavior reinforces learning."
Are these times more uncivil than before?" asked civility expert, university professor, and author P.M. Forni.
Drawing from themes in his 2002 book Choosing Civility, Forni answered that question and others in talks to faculty, staff, parents, and guests in the Ceres M. Horn Theatre on April 8. Forni's book was required reading for faculty and staff.
"Certain established forms of civility are becoming obsolete, but new behaviors have emerged," explained Forni. "As a society we've been very good at instilling self-esteem in kids. But when we feed our kids oversized portions of self-esteem, we create kids who are self-absorbed. We need to rebalance the pendulum. No society can survive the assault on self-control that our society has seen in the last 50 years.
"I would be delirious with joy if I knew that schools in this country taught these four things,"
"Think before acting; other people bruise as easily as we do; there's a difference between happiness and fun; there are two ways to be successful in life."When children understand and follow these principles, he said, the threat of school violence is reduced. "Civility is a matter of life and death."
"I'm always delighted when I talk in schools. It's an ideal audience--people who want to learn to change the world," said Forni, head of the Civility Initiative at Johns Hopkins University.
Forni explained how civility became his focus. For the first 20 or 25 years of his career, he was a scholar of the Middle Ages. He taught Italian literature. Then, the Middle Ages expert experienced his own middle-age crisis.
"What was important to me before paled to the alternative of reaching people with stuff that had relevance to the everyday world. ...
"I was teaching my Dante class one day. I looked at my students and a thought occurred to me that had not occurred to me before. I started to think that in the first part of our lives, we pursue beauty. In the second part, we pursue goodness."
Forni had fallen in love with the notion of gracious goodness.
He had also witnessed the coarsening of society, a circumstance he found distressing. He and equally concerned colleagues established the Johns Hopkins Civility Project in 1997. Out of that research and conversations came Choosing Civility. Another second book is due out in June.
To the faculty group, Forni encouraged teachers to establish a civil environment in their classrooms. "Your students learn better and more. You create a cycle where learning reinforces behavior and behavior reinforces learning."