Flawless Heroes? :: essays research papers

Flawless Heroes?     It is important for youth to have heroes exactly edict cannot ignore thefacts and only report on the good side of those heroes. Everyone is human, andthey are going to make mistakes. Hopefully they learn from those mistakes, andif those mistakes are brought to light and conveyed to the puppyish peck thenthey too learn from those mistakes.     History has a duty to report on the entire story. To report anythingless would be wrong. To just simply differentiate that Columbus was a perfect man whonever did anything wrong would paint an unrealistic picture of the past. Mr.Gibbon, the author of this article seems to think that honesty is a unsound thingand should not be taught in our classrooms. Todays youth however need to beprepared for life in some way. They cannot be fed everything with a sugarcoated spoon. If they were given everything on a silver platter like that thenwhen they walked out into the real world for the first time they would not beable to adjust and become a productive part of society.     Todays young battalion are in search of heroes as Mr. Gibbon suggests, exclusivelyevery person is going to have some skeletons in their closet, hero or no hero.To ask society to ignore the facts just so young people can feel that thesepeople are perfectly squeaky clean is wrong. Society cannot lie to them. Thereis some value to teaching reality even though Mr. Gibbon doesnt seem to thinkso.     Mr. Gibbon mentions that there is some sort of "tradition of exemplarylives" in societys heroes that used to exist but no longer does. However therenever was such a tradition of wonderfully perfect people with perfect lives.Back then people ignored the facts and decided to believe that these people wereperfect when the fact was that they were not perfect, they were just human.     You cannot shield todays young people. You cant just cov er their eyesto reality. Reality moldiness be exposed and studied so they can try to understandthe world.     I agree with Gibbon that parents are the first and most importanteducators and they must try to make their lives exemplary so their children will