Go hug a tree!

I was trying to teach my 6th graders about the debates Traveling Thinkers in Ancient China would have. This was after we'd briefly looked at the philosophies of Confucians, Daoists, and Legalists, so I was using their viewpoints as the basis of my lesson. The point I was trying to make was that within debate you can have solid arguments, and you can have pointless arguments that add nothing to the debate. In fact, those arguments can get so off topic or become accusing of the people rather than the subject. So here's a snippet of the monologue I performed.

Confucian: Leaders need to be virtuous. If a leader has nothing good about him, people won't follow him, and what good is he then?

Legalist: I'm fine with a leader being virtuous, but that's not the most important characteristic. A leader needs to be strong and enforce the law. People will follow that!

Daoist: Ah, you're both plain nuts. Forget leaders! Go hug a tree!

At this point, the entire 6th grade dissolved into laughter and stayed there for the rest of the period. Not exactly what I had intended, but one of the moms told me today that her son got it. He recounted the entire thing last night for them at home (including the positions of all three philosophies) and then ran around the house yelling "Go hug a tree! Go hug a tree!"