IT IS NOT HOW I SAY YOU SHOULD LIVE, IT IS NOT HOW I WANT YOU TO LIVE, BUT THIS THE WAY YOU WILL LIVE
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Thursday, August 17, 2006
Death of Amrica, the education
SELF- DESTRUCTION
Death of America, the education
The debate about our education has been totally non-stop and nonsensical, for ever. I have heard a million experts and passionate partisans speaking out about the mess that we call the education system. Everyone out there has his own band-aid that they know will fix it and a few will even do away with the school system all together. More money, better teachers, home schooling, private school, none of these will improve our overall standards. School prayer, intelligent design, pledge of allegiance none of these is THE solution to save our schools from failing.At the time where employers are complaining that they are unable to find qualified workers, our high schools are graduating students cannot read or are able to add and subtract even simple numbers. So unless you believe that the world is coming to an end let me tell you about three of my basic theories1. the world today is too complicated a place for a person of average intelligence2. if 1 is true, then we are a point in evolution where the mankind will split along the smart and dumb intelligence line and the dumb ones will fall by the wayside3.the world today is over populated and that most of us exist as slaves and don’t even realize this, that most of us are slaves by choice.If it were not so, then why we have not been able to change this system? Regardless of all of our protestations the system is failing, and it keeps failing while we blame each other, the teachers, the administration, the parents (or lack of parenting) and of course “God” (or the lack there of).If I were to tell you that we really no longer have “our children”, that they are confiscated from us at birth (actually we give them away ourselves) to others to raise, or that we raise them up to be slaves you would be upset, but that is the truth, and truth hurts. (I am having a hard time trying to keep it short and yet get my point across, and more than likely I have already managed to make you mad, or am going way over your head). And that we raise our children to the benefit of our masters, either to be great slaves or to exclude themselves from the rest of the society as undesirables.Today as our churches decry the moral decay of our society and our failing education system, they forget that is they that are the biggest supporters of the big business. Do they not know that the big business thrives on materialism? And the materialism thrives the on break down of the family and morals. And that the big corporations write the pay checks for the so called liberal media.But in short order and in the interest of keeping it simple, these few simple and short steps will improve our education system more than any governmental interventions or the church supportmake uniforms mandatory at all levels thru high schoolseparate classes by the gendersmake attendance completely voluntaryban extracurricular activities such as foot ball, cheerleading , proms, beauty pageantsgive the counseling and sex education services back to community healthemphasize discipline and learning, not make ups and making outmake separate schools for hookers, studs, bullies and the thugs in trainingstop teaching teachers anything about psychology, it interferes with their teachingcomputers, besides television and cell phone are actually detrimental to a child’s education ( let them read books)only kids with degree and a full time job are allowed on uncheparoned datescancel all high school graduation ceremonies, it makes kids think they have arrived, a high school diploma in most cases only guarantees a life of miseryparents must keep their sex lives very privateWe have talked previously about separating our school classes by gender and imposing uniform clothing on the school kids. But why? It has been said that probably because I was raised in a conservative society. If you buy this line of reasoning then you are not evaluating my reasoning with an open mind.I have said it before that “if the stupidity were a virtue, most of us would be saints”. While the psychologists and the anthropologists keep looking at us as just another species of animal, (I do believe in evolution, mind you) they somewhere forget what made us advanced developed and successful as a species was that we also controlled the behavior of our communities (through religion and brute force at times). Eons ago we realized that lying stealing cheating committing murder and stealing another’s spouse were acts not conducive to the peace of the community. And that is true of all societies whether they knew of a god as such or not.In these societies, a boy and a girl had to be capable of accomplishing certain tasks and had to be able to show they had matured into capable and responsible members of the society before they would be allowed to be married (given the privilege of having sex). That is be able to hunt, fish, skin an animal, clean fish, bring in the crops, cook clean and raise kids (usually practiced by taking care of the siblings), learn a trade or even be a fighter or a soldier and making a living at it. How is it then that we want our children to go out and have sex. Yes, that is right. Of course no boy will come to your door and ask you to let him have sex with your daughter out right, and no son goes to his daddy and tells him, daddy I am going to knock up Suzie tonight and then we will both go live on welfare, saving you money on my college. But the fact remains that a majority of children are having sex before leaving the high school, and they don’t have to earn the right to do it.The responsibility of sexualizing the children today lies squarely with the media, the dysfunctional parents and the idiots in practice of psychology who say to a child you can do what you want. But first and foremost the major corporations that exploit children and then whine about not getting capable workers. Our corporations need for a fat bottom line supersedes all human, adult or even patriotic responsibility. Whatever you see on your TV screens, in theaters, in video games, radio and music CDs and magazines etc as to crudeness, nudity, vulgarity, lack of responsibility, mannerism and sexualizing of young people in word and image is not there because a writer could not do better, but that a corporation (business) is paying him to write the crap. Period. And that the parents are also paying for it, directly and indirectly.Let me just stop here a while and change the subject. We all have problems with our school systems. Even though schools are supposedly run by the states and paid for by property tax and part of the local sales taxes (with some federal aid), everyone and his second and third cousins think they can and have the right to run the school system.Just go to a local school board meeting, there are people in their pajamas, and hair in the rollers telling the board how to run the system, and how their particular off-spring was not being fairly treated. Then there are the godlies and the ungodlies worried about whether god had made it to the school or was being kept on extended suspension. Forget that the school is having hard enough time teaching your average child his ABCs and the basic math and that a discussion of a god is probably more appropriate subject for a Sunday school or may be a graduate level philosophy class.As if it were not already enough, we have superintendents and principles being elected not on merit but their ability to suck up to the appropriate level of higher ups in the food chain. Our classrooms are manned (or womaned by to be politically correct) by teachers who are there not to teach but they get a year’s pay (lousy as it may be) for six months work. We could discuss all of these IF we were sending to our schools children who were WILLING and ABLE to learn. A teacher, any teacher, no matter how good, can not teach anyone anything if they were not willing and able to learn.And if you believe that a boy of fourteen or fifteen or sixteen etc is going to sit next to a girl in a halter top and shorts that say “can’t touch this” is going to pay attention to the teacher in his calculus class, I have some water front property for you in Arizona.What has become of our schools? Are they a place of learning, or a holding block for juvenile delinquents just waiting to be processed? Do we send our children to school to learn or are they a place for their sexual expression. Are we a nation of morons? What business a school has having beauty pageants for six year olds or sixteen year olds for that matter? If we are sending children to school to learn to read and write, and to become knowledgeable and productive citizens then leave it at that. If you want them to have social- life then do it outside the school. The emphasis here should be on learning and studying, not on who is getting a date with whom, and who is the last remaining virgin standing. And when the boys and the girls are holding hands and kissing and practically making out on school grounds you know that the last thing on their mind then is to excel in their studies.The situation is not just urgent or serious; it is critical, terminal if you will. Before I go on with the why I believe in what I believe about this situation with our education system we should consider some economic facts.We have all heard about people on food stamps eating better than the working people. Now if you consider that the poverty level is considered at $19,800 for a family of four. What this means is that if you are making less than that amount, and may be even a bit over, you get food stamps, childcare assistance, Medicaid and earned income credit, thus putting your income closer to forty thousand a year, the true poverty level. Now remember also that the median income in the United States is about $42,000, so actually half of our country lives in poverty. ($42,000 is $21 per hour). Actually in most places in the United States it will take an income of over $100,000 per year for a person to buy a house and a car and be able to buy food for a family of four.Secondly, we must consider that we live in a global market place. Ever since MR Reagan started to promote NAFTA, and simultaneously broke the back bone of the unions the wages of the American worker have stagnated, Today companies are moving jobs overseas by the millions while we keep buying the merchandise manufactured overseas. Only thing this keeping our economy afloat these days is the imaginary money that the government is “printing”, called the federal deficit. Workers in the United States no longer have a bargaining power; look at the automotive and the airline industries, the health benefits are being eliminated, retirements have been lost, and workers new contracts include ever lower wages then the previous. This is what passes for an economic boom in the presidency of an MBA.
We are forever talking about the money we (the government) spend on education, and it appears that no matter how much money we spend, it never seems to be just enough. From the very first day of school, the kids bring home some silly brochure of goodies to sell, be it wrapping paper, Christmas stuff, candies, magazine subscriptions, it is all counter productive. For one the children are expected to spend their study or leisure time in the silly pursuit of finding buyers in their neighborhood. In certain neighborhoods of course there more children selling goodies than there are house holds. And more often than not there is a seller already living in the house you are trying to sell to. If you live in a rich neighborhood or your folks have money, you can be a sales champion without even having to try, daddy or mommy can just write you a check. But what if you live in a neighborhood where people have little or no money, the people must pay more for an item than the value received ( they could just as well make a donation of half the amount directly to the school). Or they must let their child be embarrassed in front of the class for not having collected the right amount of money. I know in our society we are to believe that poor are stupid, but please these kids did not chose to be born poor. Same is true about the beauty pageants. A poor girls may not be able to buy and expensive dress and pay for a fifty dollar hairdo, are we not teaching the kids about class distinction? And why the school be party to teaching the girls if you are a female then beauty and pretty is more important than a good solid education. We are teaching our girls from the beginning that a big toothy grin for the camera and the on lookers can get you farther than a diploma, what about the girls that are not all that pretty? Or once again whose parents cannot buy them frilly dresses and braces, and it can get really ugly real quick.
And business does a school have to hold dances for its student? We need to get out of the mind set of the fifties. The school is not the place to find a mate or a date, when the obvious goal of schooling is not to be getting married at the end of a high school. The aim is to be getting the students ready for COLLEGE. PERIOD. Once again the class distinctions creep into the picture. From prom dresses costing thousands to year book picture bundles costing nearly as much, what is the message here? What about the poor kid that drops out of school in the senior year because he or she cannot afford the scams perpetrated to take their money, because she did not have the money to buy a pretty prom gown or he did not have the money to rent a tux and pay for the limo ride? These are but a few of the counter intuitive pressures we place our children under. Once again it is not to say that these things have a negative effect on all children, but I am sure you will agree these are points worth considering.
When a child has been properly educated at his or her grade level the child should not need extra classes to get prepared for their SAT or ACT exams. Once again here the money talks, if a child has parents with money, or parents that want the child to excel, they can enroll the child in special classes to prepare for their college entrance exams, or pay for more than one exam to get the kid to score better, this again assures that the kids with less money are being left behind. At the end of his or her high school education the school should be able to certify that the child is ready for college, not that school helped this child in successfully losing their virginity while only suffering one or two episodes of a VD.
But any way
(M.N.R.)
Ok. I read quickly toward the end, but I have to say i agree with what you write, mostly, even if I think it is sometimes a little over simplified. I can only praise you for putting down your thoughts (and not thoughts about the wife, the kids, the football!).
ReplyDeleteI disagree, that the world is too complicated for some, and that they are doomed to fall by the wayside (is that what you meant?). I think most of the worlds problems can be easily explained, and solved.I guess you're talking mainly about the US, but what you talk about in your post can be applied to the rest of the world. As for me, a European, I don't believe uniforms and non-mixed schools are necessarily better. I went through various mixed schools without uniforms, and most of my friends and myself were (are?!) pretty level-headed, I think. I
didn't have sex before 18 (not particularly by choice, I just wasn't promiscuous), and if my friends did, it wasn't written on their foreheads.
What I find amazing is, that you actually feel the need to clarify, that you believe in evolution. Is it really that bad in the US? I mean, I went to a catholic school for a few years, and yet we weren't taught creationism-thank god!
Anyway, I shall continue reading your posts. Please pay me a visit at globalikum.blogspot.com
thank you friend for taking the time to read, I most certainly appericiate your comments. I know it all seems so simple minded, but in these times, we don not have much time left to find solutions that will be agreeable to all, the personal "freedoms" are important to all, with these freedoms comes responsiblity, children are not responsible for their acts, nor are they "REQUIRED" to make informed and smart choices, then they and the society suffer from the consequences of their poor judgement, so i recommend taking away of some of the liberties, please keep reading, once again thanks
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