Rules, Rules, Rules

[Jenni]

That's the scariest part of rule-based systems; since no one is taught to THINK, there's no way to handle a variation from the rules. I would much rather have my former students think through things and choose differently from me than follow me blindly. Besides, a rule without reason lacks conviction; I hated it when I had to enforce rules that didn't make sense; my students would ask me and I'd have to say, "You know, you're right - this doesn't make sense. But I can't get rid of the rule, and neither can you, so let's just do our best to deal with it for now." The worst was when they asked about rules the staff had to follow. My juniors somehow always found out about the "no movies" rule and they thought it was dumb. I thought it was dumb, too, especially since our administrator made frequent trips to the Philippines and to China and always brought back pirated DVDs that were obviously filmed in a theater. Those we could watch, even broadcast to several classes in the auditorium for a treat. But we couldn't go to a theater because that was evil ...