If I were A Child Again

If I were a child in the year 2008, I might:
---Keep in mind at all times that education is truly a lifelong process, and that the most difficult educational challenge occurs in the years after I have graduated from high school or college, when I have to develop my own lifelong education strategy for myself without guidance from a textbook, and without any assignments from a "teacher."
---keep a daily or near-daily personal journal entry;
--Write my first "resume" or "vita" about myself at some point during my elementary-school years. I could keep that personal resume on file in my computer system inside my family's residence, with myself updating my personal "resume" every year. Among the activities or accomplishments I could cite in my personal resume in elementary school might be:
(a) Excels at jump-roping or skipping rope, and Won First Place in a Jump-Roping Contest at Eanes Elementary School of Eanes Independent School District in Westlake Hills, Texas.
(b) Excels at cooking.
(c) Excels at brewing fresh tea using loose-leaf tea.
(d) Excels at writing letters.
(e) Takes good care of each of the pets I help to raise, which include numerous ducks and chickens, one hamster, and a French poodle I'm currently helping to raise.
(f) Helps my mother and father to help prepare meals for my family.
(g) Excels at preparing and baking fresh loaves of bread, which I like to serve hot, with butter, to my friends and relatives.
(h) Maintains a nice collection of flags of nations of the world, including Greece and The United Kingdom (a lovely design on a cup of mine I keep on my desk at all times), inside the bedroom where I sleep at night.
(i) Pursues volunteer projects aimed to help others, including the volunteer work I've done at non-profit organizations where my mother is an active member.

---pay close attention to the harmful effect on my own interest in a subject that can occur if I have a conflict with my teacher. It is helpful to remind myself that even if I don't admire my teacher's style toward myself or toward the class, I should not allow that to hurt my ability to enjoy the subject itself. The field of science, for instance, should not be faulted merely because one of my science teachers at a particular grade level appeared to be less friendly than I would have wanted her to have been.
---Pursue hobbies that enhance my appreciation for the subjects I am studying in school. If I'm studying Texas history, for instance, I can start a hobby of collecting a variety of postcards with photographs of famous historic sites around Texas. If I'm studying science, I could ask my parents to help me rent or borrow from the library some science-theme educational films or audiotapes I could watch or listen to during my leisuretime inside our family's home.
---keep an ongoing permanent file of factual materials I obtain about each of my keenest cited platonic passions in life, with a file about such topics as "Sweden" and "tennis" and "table tennis" and "political humor" and "environmental protection," for instance;
----pay close attention to which genres of literature in the library, including genres of non-fiction literature, appeal to me the most. What might account for my particular affinity for that genre or subject area?
If I enjoy reading murder mysteries set in Great Britain, for instance, does this imply at age 13 that I value seeing a sense of tranquility and civility and tea-sipping restored to English life after the murderer who disrupted that tranquility and civility is finally exposed by an ingenious sleuth. If I enjoy reading about the ancient Greek religion during my grade-school years, does this suggest that I am intrigued by the opportunity that Athenians enjoyed to decide which of the various Greek deities those Greeks would most like to consult or honor on any given occasion.
---strive to imagine what my life will someday be like at age 30, 40, 50, or 60, say, and attempt to anticipate which hobbies and pastimes I would most like to pursue at each of those ages.
---keep an ongoing factual inventory of honorable skills and talents I had developed or honed, and strive to add to my skills and talents;
---be patient in each attempt at developing a new educational skill or career-related skill or hobby-related skill, since any forward progress on any of those skills is grounds for satisfaction at that stage in my life. Even a "baby step" forward with that skill for each year of my youth will offer me a sense of confidence with that skill in the foreseeable future.
---obtain a list of reputable educational tutors in my urban area, including summer-season tutors, who teach skills or topics I would like to either develop or learn more about;
---keep an ongoing file profiling each of the summer educational workshops and summer educational camps that appeal to me the most;
----keep a separate file containing factual materials and essays about each of the possible eventual career options that interest me the most;
----write a letter to some or several of the government officials and famous persons and writers and thinkers whose political values or religious values or public-policy priorities or ideas or pastimes or creative projects or personalities or personal styles appealed to me the most;
---whenever I identify someone as a "hero" to myself, I should make a point of reading biographies and biographical sketches and newspaper or magazine articles and other factual information about that hero of mine;
---clip out newspaper or magazine articles and jot down notes to myself relating to education-related and intellectual pursuits by each of the various favorite "heroes" of mine made. In this way, I will remind myself that successful people became that way partly because they pursued education with diligence and persistence.
----visit museums and libraries highlighting topics and persons who or that appeal to me the most;
----collect bibliographies about each of the wholesome subjects that intrigue me the most;
----find out which civic groups permit persons under age 18 or under age 21, say, to join as official dues-paying members, and do some research to find out which of the civic groups that hold meetings in my town are the most friendly and empathetic toward minors;
----keep a list of the questions I most want to ask my clergyman or my teachers or my relatives, but never seem to get around to asking them.
----attempt to learn how to myself prepare each of the culinary dishes I enjoy the most that are prepared in my family's household;
---establish a separate recipe file for myself at an early age that I can draw upon throughout my entire life;
----always keep in mind that education is a lifelong process, and that if I don't understand a particular subject at age 8, for instance, persistence in asking questions and learning more about that subject will enable me to feel confident about that same subject at some future point;
----establish a permanent file for myself containing factual information about my ancestors, and about my parents and my uncles and aunts and grandparents.
----attempt to pose friendly questions to my parents and other relatives and friends, and to draw them out in substantive dialogues, including philosophical dialogues.
----make a point of identifying each of the personal attributes and pastimes or accomplishments or traditions of my parents that I admire the most, and then reflecting that in directly verbalized and specific praise to each of my parents.
----strive to be helpful and empathetic toward each of my parents, such as by inviting them to go on friendly hikes with myself or by expressing a politely appreciative and well-mannered and patient style toward each of my parents whenever I dine with them in restaurants or go shopping with them.
----Keep in mind at all times that since my parents are significantly older than myself in age, the number of years available to me for being a kind and generous personal friend to each of my two parents, and for striving for a harmonious relationship with each of my two parents, is likely to be very limited. I shall therefore strive to never take my parents' and generosity and kindness and hospitality toward me for granted, and to myself be consistently fair and good to each of my parents throughout their remaining years.
----tape-record a personal statement on my birthday every day, and then play back those tape-recordings each year in order to hone my personal sense of my own life and how it is progressing.
-----establish a list of each of my leading dislikes or hatreds or aversions or antipathies (a dislike of foreign languages at age 10, for instance) that I sense to be possibly harmful to me. I could then collect articles and other factual items that might help me to diminish the extent of my dislikes or antipathies or aversions. For instance, I could collect articles citing the benefit to one's financial earnings capacity and career prospects from fluency or semi-fluency in both English and Spanish.
-----sponsor some education-theme parties for myself and my friends, as a way of enhancing my own, and my friends', ability to look upon education as fun and creatively rewarding.
----find a consumer guide or educators' guide to children's board games, and attempt to learn from that consumer guide which of those board games will be the most eduationally and intellectually stimulating to myself and my friends or relatives. It makes good sense for me to look upon my board games, even, as an opportunity to hone my educational skills and intellect.
----establish a file for myself that exclusively contains information about each of the products and professional services and businesses and non-profit groups that impress me the most. Developing a sense of what makes a product or business first-rate and excellent and superior, can help to promote a dedication to excellence in all aspects of my life. Developing that sense can also instill in me a greater sense of confidence in the potential of the capitalist system to foster superior achievement.
---find out if I could join the alumni organization for the elementary school, middle school, junior high school, or high school, respectively, from which I had graduated earlier that year. In this way, I could keep up a constructive, mutually-polite acquaintanceship with several or many of my former schoolmates.
---keep a list of which of my acquaintances at present appear to be the most consistently honest and law-abiding and polite, and honorable, in addition to being constructive and helpful to myself, and exhibiting a high level of respect toward my own religious and political and personal and religious and philosophical beliefs. That list should help me to identify which persons might also be the most worthy of becoming mutual-consent and lasting friends with myself.
---establish a "Personal Crisis File" for myself, in which I would keep notes about each occasion in which I experience what I regard as a major setback in my own life. Did I receive a poor grade on a recent exam? I could note the date of that setback, along with observations of mine about what might have accounted for that temporary crisis in my own life.
---Attempt to identify which of the polite and civil persons whose companionship I enjoy the most also exhibit the greatest and most sublimely inspirational and wholesome sense of platonic purpose in life, such as a desire to combat crime in this nation or a desire to promote natural resource recycling in this nation. Those persons are the most likely to be interesting and substantive in-person companions for myself.
---attempt to identify the persons who have the most calming or cheerful effect on me when I'm having a conversation with them in person. That could be an indication that I'd feel comfortable about possibly becoming a lasting mutual-consent friend to that person.
---attempt to identify the persons with whom I have the longest mutual-consent in-person conversations that are pleasant experiences for me.
---pay close attention to the types of questions that my acquaintances and current friends pose to me. Are their questions sincere-sounding, or interesting or thought-provoking? Do the questions they pose to me reveal interest in me as a human being, and respect for my human individuality?
---jot down the birthdate and address for each and every friend and relative of mine whom I want to honor at least once per year through a nice Birthday greeting card on which I would write a friendly message and mail to that person.
----Attempt to identify the adult persons I admire in my town or metro area who are, in fact, honorable and law-abiding and civil in their conduct toward youths, and who might make prospective inter-generational personal friends for myself, if my parents are agreeable to that. The capacity to develop inter-generational friendships, both with persons significantly older than myself and with persons significantly younger than myself, is a very good everyday living skill to have.
---Pursue factual research on how to identify major warning signs that a person significantly older than myself in age might, in fact, be someone capable of committing the sex crime of pederasty, and should automatically be excluded from my own life on that basis.
Among those warnings signs might be:
(a) Does that older person physically grab me or physically hug me in circumstances when most older persons would have merely shaked my hand, if that much.
(b) Does that older person frequently verbalize obscene or profane speech or frequently talk about "sex" in front of myself or in front of any other under-age youths?
(c) Does that older person offer me money or presents on a frequent basis.
(d) Do I see any indication that the older person ever breaks the law, or has an alarming criminal-conviction record?
For instance, does he exceed the speed limit when he drives a motor vehicle? Does he ever purchase tobacco products or alcohol for minors? Does he express contempt toward, or a lack of full respect toward, law-enforcement agencies in my presence? Does he routinely refer to police officers as "cops" or "the fuzz," for instance?
(e) Does that older person give any indication that he himself consumes any quantity of illicit drugs, or that he himself frequently consumes drinking alcohol to the point of inebration, or that he himself consumes tobacco products? Any of those lifestyle habits are an indication that the adult man in question might not be trustworthy as a personal friend to a child.
(f) Does that older person generally indicate that he prefers to meet me in the evening or at nighttime, rather in the daytime during the weekend, whenever he arranges to play tennis with you or meet with you.
(g) Does that older person other than my biological parent or step-parent make frequent comments to me that hurt my own self-confidence, or that demoralize me, such as "You're doing it all wrong," "you are lazy," "you are an under-achiever," "you are ignorant," "you are naive," "you are weak," "you are vulnerable," "you aren't good-looking," "you need someone stronger than you to help you," "you are a loser," "you will never succeed in life unless you let me....", etc.
All of this is another alarming indication that I have a need to possibly (this in a civil and law-abiding manner, of course) exclude that older person from my own life at the earliest opportunity, or at least that I have a need to make sure that some adult person whom I definitely do trust is always present with me whenever I have any future conversations with that possibly injurious older person.