This exchange bring a story to mind. Picture a very bright 6th grader writing a report. She's looked up her information and has everything she needs to put her report together. As she's writing, she comes to a word she wants to use, but does not know how to spell. She looks up from to kitchen table and asks her father how to spell the word. Her father says "look it up in the dictionary."
"But Daddy, how can I look it up if I don't know how to spell it?"
"Well, sound the word out and look where you think it may be. If it's not where you first looked, they a second place in the dictionary. Once you've looked everywhere you can think of to look, ask me again and I'll help you."
Ladies & gentlemen, that bright 6th grader was me. That lesson, although I didn't understand it at the time & I truly thought my Dad enjoyed seeing me suffer, taught me a few things. It taught me self-reliance, that is, the first person I should look to for help is ME. I learned problem-solving, the systematic means of working through possible soloutions until the correct one is found. LEARNING happens when you read is something else I picked up from that experience. And, most importantly, I learned people are more than willing to help you if you are willing to help yourself.
I think sometimes people think when we say "do some research" that we flat out don't want to give information. That's not always the case. Our parents spent a great deal of time, effort and tears teaching us how to be self-reliant & responsible adults. Our teachers spent a great deal of time teaching us how to do research. Why is it suddenly OK for us to let the efforts of these people be in vain when it comes to an interest, be it membership driven or not, in fraternities and sororities?
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