Hang 10

First it was school prayer. Now the religious right wants to post the 10 Commandments in classrooms. While this would seem to violate the First Amendment, which prohibits the government from endorsing a particular religion, supporters of the move say the 10 Commandments are a historical document, along the lines of the Magna Carta. Besides, students need codes of conduct. OK. With that in mind, we asked some of our favorite people what they would hang on school walls.

Scott Adams

(1) Stop looking at your teacher's ass.

(2) Remember that 95 percent of the people in the world have the wrong religion.

(3) Aren't you glad you aren't one of those idiots?

(4) In retrospect, I shouldn't have made your arms long enough to reach your genitals.

(5) I just noticed that you all look like ants from here.

(6) What's that behind your ear? Look, it's a quarter!

(7) If I'm going to be watching you all the time, you'd better start doing something interesting. Don't make me flood.

(8) No more Viagra jokes about my omnipotence, and I mean it.

(9) Next millennium I might put the dingo dogs in charge just to see what happens.

(10) Look out--your pencil is the devil! (Just kidding.)

Adams is the creator of the comic strip Dilbert.

Susie Bright

Signs belong in traffic, not in schools. Classroom walls should be a gallery for students' creativity, teachers' lesson plans and, I hope, a window or two. This year, I pulled my fifth grader out of school in part because of a beef I had with her teacher about signs. We are now happily home-schooling without printed directions on the walls.

At her old school, my kid's instructor, Mr. Brown, asked each of his students to create a poster that read be nice. Even for fifth graders, that kind of reprimand is banal and patronizing. After a few minutes of drawing, several students who used more than one color to shade their polite signage were disciplined for taking too long. I don't think that was very nice.

Do our kids need more we-told-you-so disciplinary reminders, or soundbites of religious and political propaganda? I would rather teach my kids to read everything from the Old Testament to the Bill of Rights and then discuss it all night long. Still, if I could replace official signs with original and provocative messages, I would be willing to run a small, temporary and insightful installation:

(1) Bow your heads and observe a moment of profound daydreaming.

(2) Read banned books.

(3) Defy stereotypes.

(4) Assume everyone is sexual.

(5) Develop a healthy cynicism for standardized tests.

(6) Take care of your beautiful body.

(7) Remember: Drug wars are bad.

(8) Appreciate the simplest gesture.

(9) Love all creation.

(10) Avoid the cafeteria.

Bright is the author of Full Exposure: Opening Up to Sex and Creativity.

Alan Dershowitz

(1) Never claim God supports your team or is on your side of an issue.

(2) Don't hang out only with kids who are members of your religion or race.

(3) Don't denounce as antireligious those who differ with you about the role of religion in public life.

(4) Don't accept something as true just because "the Bible says so."

(5) Honor and respect the diversity of the nation, remembering that many Americans came here to escape the tyranny of enforced religious uniformity and, more recently, enforced antireligious uniformity.

(6) Do good because it's right and refrain from doing bad because it's wrong--not because of any promise of heaven or threat of hell.

(7) Do not accuse those who reject formal religion of being immoral. Some of our nation's greatest leaders did not practice or accept religion.

(8) Do not equate morality and religion. Although some great moral teachers were religious, some great sinners also acted in the name of religion.

(9) Be a skeptic about everything-- God, science, your teachers, your parents, yourself.

(10) Remember that every belief is a minority belief somewhere, and act as if your belief were the least popular.

Dershowitz is a professor at Harvard Law School.

Ellen Fein and Sherrie Schneider

(1) Thou shalt not chase boys. That includes calling, e-mailing and asking them out. Boys must chase you.

(2) Thou shalt not look up a boy's class schedule and then follow him around school, hoping he will notice you. He either notices you or he doesn't.

(3) Thou shalt not hang out by his locker or lunch table, chatting and flirting. He must ask you out on dates (yes, by Wednesday for Saturday).

(4) Thou shalt not write his term paper or do his math homework, hoping these favors will help him fall in love with you. They won't!

(5) Thou shalt not sleep with him until you are going steady.

(6) Thou shalt use condoms when having sex whether he likes it or not.

(7) Thou shalt not smoke, drink or take drugs to be cool or because he does those things. That's not the way to get him anyway.

(8) Thou shalt concentrate on studying, not getting your Mrs. degree.

(9) Thou shalt not gain 50 pounds and take up grunge, but eat right, exercise and always look clean and pretty.

(10) Thou shalt not make excuses for why the boy you like is not asking you out--term paper, finals, shy, etc. Thou shalt get honest with thyself.

Fein and Schneider are the authors of The Rules: Time-Tested Secrets for Capturing the Heart of Mr. Right.

P.J. O'Rourke

I have no particular objection to the 10 Commandments, but judging by what I hear about public education in America, what really needs posting on the school wall is a crib sheet. It should be a very simple crib sheet:

2 + 2 = 4

I am

You are

He, she, it is

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ

O'Rourke is foreign affairs desk chief at Rolling Stone.

Not Hentoff

I would post the Bill of Rights. The vast majority of people, including teachers, have no idea what they are.

Hentoff is a columnist for The Village Voice and an authority on the First Amendment.

John Rush

Most of the 10 Commandments (a word which implies that some authoritarian brute is dictating orders) are useless restrictions that hinder human progress. The first four deal strictly with man's subservience thousands of years ago to a mythical tribal deity. Together they could be replaced with "Get along with others as best you can."

The implication of rule five is that kids should honor even those parents who abuse, neglect or molest them. There is no reverse requirement that parents should take care of their offspring. I'd toss this one for "Respect those who have earned it; learn from those with knowledge and experience, and share valid information."

The last half of the thou-shalt-nots make me wonder how Christians dare call anyone else negative. Number six is hypocritical given the context--Joshua and David were among the most brutal killers in the Bible, yet they're considered heroes. "Live and let live" would be a better statement here. Number seven prohibits adultery, but what's wrong with adultery if a married person is not sexually gratified? Some cultures have no concept of adultery, because they have no concept of marriage, which has its roots in religion. So let's discard this one, too, and substitute "Love and let love."

Nobody likes to have their possessions stolen, but I can't see punishing a starving vagrant for taking an apple. Still, theft violates the rights of ownership and privacy. Change number eight to "Respect the property of others."

Number nine can be shortened to "Thou shall not lie." Banning lies means we'd have to live without literature and most forms of entertainment. Preachers also are professional liars, so we'd better not spend too much time here. Make this one "Allow free speech."

If you cover something you neighbor has, what's wrong with making him an offer? The more disturbing aspect of number 10 is that it places a man's wife in the category of slave. Better here to say "Deal fairly with others."

Finally, I would add "Enjoy your life, since it's the only one you have."

Rush is the author of Real Atheists Don't Attend Church.

William F. Buckley Jr.

Why not the 10 Commandments? The argument that their appearance would undermine the separation of church and state really shouldn't be made, because curious youth would think the teacher who made it was crazy, and to foster that impression undermines the constitutional presumptions of the classroom.

What are other reasons for omitting the commandments from our schools? The most persuasive is that only the commandment enjoining that we keep holy the Sabbath will instantly engage the student as furnishing corollary evidence of the dogmatic truths of the Decalogue. Sunday is the Sabbath and schools are closed on Sunday! A five-year-old can stare at the coincidence and, who knows, perhaps wonder whether there are other correlations to be drawn from the commandments.

"Honor thy father and thy mother" is pretty safe: They do that on pain of immediate punishment if delinquent. It's a good idea, the kid will reason, not to kill the teacher, though she certainly deserves CRUEL DEATH! after holding him past school hours on Friday.

What about the casting of false idols? No problem: I don't know how to cast a true idol, so I'm not going to be casting any false ones. I'm not supposed to covet my neighbor's wife? I didn't even know my neighbor had a wife; he has only Julie and she's in the second grade, so I couldn't possibly covet her and wouldn't want to anyway. And I wouldn't steal, even if God told me I could. Though that doesn't include candies, but I won't ask Miss Grady about when I took Jimmy's candies--she might not understand. Grown-ups don't understand. And they don't eat candies much. Moses, maybe he did, when he was a kid. That was before the flood. Taking God's name in vain?--that's no fucking good. I'd never do that. So it's OK by me and Susan--I already asked her--to put up the 10 Commandments. They won't get in the way.

Buckley is editor-at-large for the National Review.

What rules would you post? Send them to the Playboy Forum, 680 North Lake Shore Drive, Chicago IL 60611, fax 312-951-2939, or e-mail [email protected].