Rule #1- No Cell Phones in Restaurants
A new project at the University of Virginia, the Civility Project, is encouraging young people to review George Washington’s “Rules of Civility” and create standards of social behavior for Americans of the 21st century. Students of all ages can read the “Rules” (available through the Papers of George Washington) and submit their own rule of civility. Miss Manners herself (otherwise known as Judith Martin) is even an adviser to the project.
The Mount Vernon Education Dept. provides several lessons that use these “Rules” to introduce students to the personal rules of decorum by which George Washington lived. The “110 Rules of Civility & Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation” that George Washington hand‐copied sometime before the age of sixteen- and that is sometimes sold today as George Washington’s “etiquette book”- was a school curriculum staple of a sort that was common in his day, and copying it may well have been nothing more than a way of practicing penmanship. Regardless, the “Rules” provide a window into the manners and mores of 18th century America and offer a wonderful opportunity for students to compare them to the rules by which we live today. The elementary lesson plan, Going By the Rules (by Teachers’ Institute alumnist Carol Scott), and the middle school lesson plan, Manners & Mores of Washington’s America (by alumnist Rene Lape) are great resources for using the “Rules” in the classroom.
Tags: civility project, papers of george washington, rules of civility, university of virginia
