The adversarial relationship

My husband tells this story of how he and his cousins pitted themselves against his uncles.
"My grandmother used to invite all of us to help pick the corn in her field in Cayambe.  Corn grows tall enough to hide a kid, so of course as soon as we went out into the field, we kids took off.  Well one day My Uncle Honorio got mad about that.  He chased after us brandishing his belt like a whip yelling that we were gonna be in big trouble.  We thought this was funny, so we waited till he got close enough to make the chase fun and then we started running.  each of us managed to dive into the bush at the crucial moment, but Gustavo didn't.  He tore off down the hill with Uncle Honorio in full pursuit. Then seeing how close his uncle was, he simply stopped short.  Uncle Honorio barrelled past him, tripped and went rolling down the hill."

This is a story of adversarial conflict at its best.  Notice how genuinely furious the adult was.  Notice how the kids thought this was a big game.  Notcie how getting beaten would have been a punishment, not for the crime of running off, but for simply being stupid enough to get caught.

Maybe this is just what childhood is about: kids sneaking off and taunting the adults.  It doesn't make for a very productive relationship.  In class, if I turn to help a student and the kids behind me begin to slack off, there's something wrong: they're rebelling against me but damaging themselves.

We don't want kids who follow orders.  We don't even want kids who internalise orders and do what they're "supposed to" without being told.  What we want is kids who do the right thing because they realise it's right.  The problem is as long as they're reacting to us, they're not acting in their own interests. 

This, more than anything, is why we need to cut down as much as possible on adversarial situtauions in class.  If I want them to speak English instead of Spanish in my class, I can enforce that by taking off points, giving stars etc...but that would turn me into a full-time cop and it wouldn't teach them anything.

What's the alternative?  I don't know...but I don't have to know.  It's not for me to solve their problems or make their decisions for them.  I'm not God.