Taking aim

As a general rule I side with authority. In that light I told my kids as they became school age that if I got word from school that they were misbehaving somehow then so far as I was concerned, they were misbehaving. Pontificating a moment, I think a lot more parents need to take that attitude too.

Yet teachers, being human, aren't always right either, and I recognize that. 

There was a minor incident one day with my son and another boy.  While a group of boys were playing football during lunch one kid, I'll call him Cloyce just to give him a name, got mad. He picked up the football and flung it at my son Charlie, but missed. Charlie however picked up the ball to return the favor, drilling it right upside Cloyce's head.

As it happened I was the one to pick up the kids from school that day. The principal spotted me and explained what happened. When he was done I said something like, "Oh." I was dismissive of it, quite frankly.

Coughing, the principal asked, "I'm wondering how you intend to handle it."

I shrugged my shoulders and said,  "Not my fault Charlie's got better aim than Cloyce." The principal stood in front of me, speechless.

The way I saw it, then and now, was that it was just boys being boys (they were in sixth grade) and simply no big deal. If anything, Charlie was really only defending himself with a dose of playground justice (and I was admittedly kind of proud of that). On top of it all, the two kids were good friends before the incident and remained good friends after it. Let it go; there simply was no real harm done.

I think they both got detention. Okay, whatever. Perhaps it did merit that. But Mr. Principal was clearly taken aback by what he felt my cavalier attitude. Me? If that was the worst thing one of my kids were to do in school, I could live with it.

Why Our Schools Don't Teach

Sixth graders in a school in Arkansas were given an assignment to revise the Bill of Rights as they have become outdated. You can read about the task here: http://www.infowars.com/sixth-grade-assignment-destroy-the-bill-of-rights/ if you like.

We chose not to read it, and for very good reasons. First and foremost, we can't possibly see how any such drivel could really pass for education. The typical sixth grader simply isn't going to have the wherewithal to discuss anything as important as human rights with any useful insight. This isn't to dismiss them as dumb. But it is to point out that they simply are not likely to have the academic background or real world experience to contribute anything significant to such debates. They're sixth graders, for crying out loud. They cannot as a group be taken as seriously as the actual authors of the Constitution could be.

Secondly, and we know this from experience with serious schoolteachers and not from the facilitators graduating from many teacher academies, assignments like this are not education. They're open ended bull sessions which are easy to grade. They make the job of the teacher and student easier. The former's job becomes less difficult while the latter receives an artificially good grade. After all, you might have to tell a student who misidentifies the Fourth Amendment that he's wrong and hurt his GPA and self esteem. How can you call his view (and almost assuredly a knee jerk and shallow view it will be) of a revised Bill of Rights wrong, especially once you've established that the current one is broke and needs his special expertise to fix? All you will get from such assignments will be arrogant and self satisfied students. And teachers.

We feel, or, better, we hope, that most adults would get this. Most adults, again, hopefully, will see it for the tripe it is. Yet even as we say that we fear we are wrong, because too many American adults these days came through similar schools and did similar work. It is small wonder Americans are behind many other nations in math and science and real knowledge. America doesn't respect such areas and it can through American teaching.

You'll notice we haven't even gotten into the philosophy behind such an assignment yet, either. We don't have to. There isn't a serious philosophy behind it. There is only the promotion of ego. Yet folks wonder why there is increasing disrespect for others in the United States today. It all begins with sixth graders who know how to run a country.

A Word on Education

An ongoing debate within the political sphere, one which has indeed been carried on since the dawn of the Republic, has been about the extent and nature of public education. it is time that we addressed the issue squarely, by stating unequivocally and emphatically that public education is not a right.

For starters, seeing as education is ultimately the obligation of the individual (if mature enough) or of the parents of young children, then it is up to the person or their moms and dads to see to their learning as much as to their housing, clothing, and food. Society should only step in when the individual or the family needs help, just as it does with housing, clothing, and food. This needs to be said emphatically and forcefully: if you are able to provide for your or your child's education then you should have to provide for it, not the rest of us.

Indeed, with all the blather which the purveyors of teaching at the public trough give towards such ideas as diversity, how much more diverse can you get than to leave education to parental judgment and inquiry? Imagine a world where parents send their kids to schools they like based on their ideas of right and wrong rather than having them indoctrinated by the often errant views of the general society, a society whose 'views' are all too often dictated by judicial and legislative fiat rather of by the rational analysis of the individuals who are more concerned with true education (it is their children involved, you know) than passing fancy? How much more diverse can you get?

Or is diversity not what they truly want? Is their real aim the propagation of erroneous creeds and disreputable acts? To wit, do they want diversity as diversity, which is really only different folks acting different ways with no regard to the value of those acts (something of which even traditionalists should be wary), or do they in fact want indoctrination, the acceptance and living of the acts they, the education elite, deem worthy? Do they really want diversity, or the interpretation of ideas in their own light?

But the bottom line is that education is not a right so much as a duty. When we live up to that, we live well. When we don't, we get whatever comes along. And exactly what we would deserve.

The Count is On

Today throughout Michigan public school districts are pulling whatever stops they can to draw students into class. It's one of two annual so-called 'count days', which determine what amount of funding each district will receive from the state.

Obviously enough, if states are going to fund public education on a per pupil basis as happens here in the Great Lakes State they need some way of finding out who goes where. But it seems that there ought to be a better way to do it than picking two days (there will be another count day in February) and somehow averaging it out to arrive at a figure.

Especially as the school people know the dates in advance. That policy allows districts to employ all sorts of tricks and cajolery to bring students into school on the prized days. It has not been unusual to hold parties, offer the kiddies various treats, and have prizes available as rewards for attendance, among whatever other incentives that may be created in attempts to ratchet up the numbers. A party atmosphere doesn't seem the most conducive to a good educational environment. Arguably, it cheapens learning.

Perhaps a better way would be to call the count day randomly, with no prior notice. That would appear to offer a more real view of a given school district's effectiveness: let's see who attends when nothing appears to be at stake other than education.

No approach is perfect, and that one surely has its flaws as well. Yet on the surface it seems more fair to the taxpayers who actually foot the bill. Because ultimately there is no public money. There's your cash and my cash pooled together for purposes of the general interest. Deciding who gets what ought not be the result of a carnival atmosphere. We should not send in the clowns in lieu of the accountants.