Generally speaking, in Jane Jacobs’ article “Learning Responsibility on City Sidewalks,” there are some essential lessons that children learned by playing on city sidewalks. In brief, children become more independent and learn to be active to take civic responsibility and they know it not only relates to family members but also relates to other people around them. and the second lesson is assimilation. Children are starting to realize that people have basic emotions; it is those emotions that hold this society together.
In my opinion, I am willing to argue that being allowed to grow up in public spaces is so beneficial to a young adult, he can learn valuable lessons by assimilating other people’s great qualities and understanding the essence of civic responsibility in public world: people take the initiative to help someone out even if they have no close relationship. These lessons are of great importance to young adults’ future and some of crucial moral lessons they receive in their life. The type of interactions within families is unable to teach children how to act morally in a society because a society is much larger than a family.
First of all, in Jane Jacobs’ article “Learning Responsibility on City Sidewalks,” according to the specific question “How does playing on city sidewalks help children to become more independent but also better citizens?”, he gives a complete explanation that it is mainly by watching and considering about other people’s playing on sidewalks so that children have a chance to meet great behavior, imitate and try to do the same thing, and this special action is called social learning. social learning happens in the street when I’m taking the bus. Take my personal experience as an example: when I was a kid, I didn’t know that
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I should yield the seat to an elderly person who has a hard time standing. The first time an old man was approached me to entreat me to give him the seat, I just totally ignored him. I was actually elbowing that old man really hard because he was leaning on my body. It was by watching another lady yielding the seat to the old guy that I realized I did something terribly wrong and that vacating the seat for anyone in need is the moral standard.
My family was not going to teach me these things because at that time, I was the most vulnerable person in the family, and people would try do something to please me. Before this specific incident, I was just the egotistical kid who thought that everyone should be following my order and doing things the way I wanted them to do it. While that is terribly wrong, it is by being in the street and watching people’s behavior that I successfully corrected my previous behavior. That is also the first time I knew that I had civic responsibility to accommodate other people’s reasonable needs.
Second, social learning also happens in the street when children witness other people parking in the wrong place as stated in the class reading. When children see another person parking in the wrong place and the police warning him/her, they realize that such behavior is morally unacceptable and that there is a consequence for acting that way. Children are learning that lesson by playing in the street. This is actually how I learned that running the red light is illegal and dead wrong. When I was a kid I witnessed an accident that occurred just because a driver was running a red light. I saw the cars crashing, windows breaking and cars catching on fire. This is an experience that I will never forget in my entire life. W
hen I started learning how to drive, I made sure that I understood every single traffic rule, followed the rules, and drove with great caution. I started driving when I was 16 and never had any accident. I appreciate that experience because I learned how to follow the rules, while other person had to learn it the hard way. Through this experience I learned that I have a responsibility to abide by the rules. So these two examples explain the importance of learning lessons by walking and playing in the street.
Last but not least, a straightforward example from class readings is that children learn the correct dining etiquette by eating street food and watching what other customers are doing. People may argue that parents can teach these etiquette to children, but that is simply not true. Most of the time, parents don’t care about the way children eat and won’t try to correct children’s eating manners. Because in family setting, nobody can clearly watch children’s behavior except their parents. So bad eating manners won’t have any negative impact to the children or the family.
If children are behaving badly on the dining table, parents simply laugh at the behavior and ignore it. However, when children are eating in the street, they see other people behaving differently and that those bad behaviors are unacceptable. That’s when they start to learn the correct dining etiquette and they have social responsibility to behave courteously; otherwise other people would laugh at them with malicious intention. So children are learning lessons successfully by walking and playing in the street.
In conclusion, for most readers, I am willing to claim that what all of us should keep in mind is the most important lessons children are learning when playing in the street are civic responsibility and assimilation. Furthermore, children are active to take the responsibility for every citizen in need of help not only helps them assimilate other people’s significant qualities at an early age but also enables them to fully understand how to fit into the modern society to have a wonderful life. Therefore, it is of great importance for adults to take necessary responsibility for guiding children to volunteer to help someone out of trouble to get unforgettable memory and complete understanding about the essence of civic responsibility.
