Do the Do, Not the Don't!

I read Will Richardson's blog, "Don't, don't, don't vs. do" and I found it interesting that he blogged about what schools put in their code of conduct packet. It's funny how they have to tell their students, at an unidentified school, that they cannot "Download games" or "go to shopping websites" while we have the system that automatically blocks the usage of "personal needs". But why do we have that in our district, and they don't? Is our technology more advanced than theirs? It's definitely cool that we can have that stuff that prevents going to unnecessary websites during school. I was also thinking about his statement on why they actually do have computers for their school. We have ours used for blogging as such, but I wonder if they can even blog? I think that would bug me if we didn't have computer access, for it would make typing documents and searching informational research very difficult and old-fashioned. We would have to use old, dusty textbooks! The Internet is so much more efficient, and easier because you have everything right there on the screen. Richardson also talked about how instead of using negative rules, the rule book could say a bunch of "dos" instead of "dont's". Would kids (including us) respond in a better, more mature way to positive ruling? We are told what to do, instead of what not to do, will this help us to make the good choice and not even consider the bad ones? Do you think the positive rules would make for more productiveness rather than not?

Now Richardson also makes me wonder, do we need to be more productive with what we do? Should the teachers leave it up to the kids to guess what they are recomended to do? Most importantly, how does this effect our everyday lives? If you were told not to go to antarctica because a polar bear would eat you, wouldn't that make you curious as to what is actually down there? Personally, I just think negative restrictions make it more obvious to kids as to what they shouldn't be doing, rather than what they should be. A message to all you teachers out there; Would it be better to use a positive guideline rather than a strict rule for the kids?