Do you believe children should be taught to "respect their elders"?

Duuuuuude! What about the boys who had to endure Sandusky at Penn State? Everybody on the coaching staff knew what was happening yet it continued. Then there was the Unabomer who attended Harvard and became involved with tests that warped him so badly that he ended up in a cabin way out west where he made bombs which he mailed to researchers. Latest is the guy who shot up the movies in Colorado after seeing a psychiatrist. He was so loaded with dope from his doctor that he was unable to follow what was happening.What if you had to go to the shrink who shot up Fort Hood?

Sure, children should be taught how to behave and be well-mannered, that's just a part of being a decent member of society, but I don't believe they should be taught to blindly respect anyone older than them just because of age. Some young people are smart, and some old people are dumb, and if a smart young teenager disagrees with an old idiot, the teenager shouldn't just accept the old person's opinion because they're older.

"Wisdom doesn't come with the gaining of age, age comes with the gaining of wisdom."

Exactly, CCC. Respect has to be earned, and often those people who children are told to respect simply do not deserve it.

When I ws young, I respected my English teacher because he was a good person, respected us, taught well and lessons were interesting. I did not respect the headmaster or the deputy head, because they didn't teach well and had little respect for the pupils.

Back in the 50's there was a case known as Brown v Board of Education which dealt with racial discrimmination in schools. It also established that students have the right to due process i.e. students have the right to speak up. I remember many times in which I was a dumb 10 year old and had to deal with an adult in school who screamed at me without being able to say anything. One time I had to deal with a shrink who gave the choice of taking a drug or taking a drug. It was supposed to help me in school. When I was the pill I was so far out of it I could not safely cross the street and if I had been in class would not have been able to remember being there. Years later I LEGALLY did some classic drugs like opium and coke. I had a pleasant time with them and since I could control when I took them was not the local drug addled zombie.