Public school follies: Yoga 101
Oh, criminey. Just what American high school students need: “Less homework, more yoga:”
It was 6:30 p.m. The lights were still on at Needham High School, here in the affluent Boston suburbs. Paul Richards, the principal, was meeting with the Stress Reduction Committee.
On the agenda: finding the right time to bring in experts to train students in relaxation techniques.
Don’t try to have them teach relaxation in study hall, said Olivia Boyd, a senior. Students, she explained, won’t want to interrupt their work. They were already too busy before or after school for the training.
No one is busier than Josh Goldman. Captain of varsity tennis, president of the Spanish club and a member of the student council and the Stress Reduction Committee, Josh was not able to squeeze in the meeting at all.
Mr. Richards noted his absence wryly. “Josh is a perfect example,” he said. “He’s got a hundred things going on.”
Here is the high-powered culture that Mr. Richards is trying to change, even if only a little.
Turns out Mr. Richards is the same principal who got rid of the honor roll to “lessen student stress.”
Now, Richards is leading an entire cult of educrats more obsessed with reducing “stress” and coddling fragile minds and bodies than with challenging students to push themselves to the limit and demanding nothing less than their best:
Mr. Richards is just one principal in the vanguard of a movement to push back against an ethos of super-achievement at affluent suburban high schools amid the extreme competition over college admissions. He has joined like-minded administrators from 44 other high schools and middle schools — most in the San Francisco Bay Area but others scattered from Texas to New York — to form a group known as S.O.S., for Stressed Out Students.
The group was formed four years ago by Denise Pope, a lecturer at the Stanford University School of Education and author of the book, “Doing School: How We Are Creating a Generation of Stressed Out, Materialistic and Miseducated Students” (Yale University Press, 2001).
High schools in other Boston suburbs — Wellesley, Lexington, Wayland — have taken steps similar to Needham’s, organizing stress committees and yoga classes. Some high schools are requiring students to get parental permission before enrolling in Advanced Placement classes. Others are experimenting with later start times so students can get more sleep.
Welcome to 21st century public education in the US, where one in 10 schools are “dropout factories:”
No more honor rolls to reward the high achievers.
Birth control for middle schoolers.
Forced bilingual ed for students who don’t speak Spanish.
Pledges of allegiance to the planet.
The penetration of fuzzy math, whole language, and other destructive pedagogical fads.
And just this summer, the U.S. dropped out of prestigious international math competitions in the wake of bottom-of-the-barrel test results.
Self-esteem rises, academic rigor plunges.
American kids’ brains are getting emptier every year.
But they’ll have the most limber muscles in the world. Hooray.
***
Oh, double criminey. See-Dubya points to yet another idiotic addition to the mush-minded, academic-depleted curriculum: “Mindfulness.”
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here’s one more.
There are two types of stress. Good stress and bad stress. There are also many people (myself included) that found the balance of this a difficult task. Yoga is a great outlet. So is meditation… But many have absolutely no problem functioning under stress.
I can’t say this is a stupid idea entirely, however, the mandtory mass implementation of such a program seems to ring of not so sublte idiocy.
Truth is, some people are inherantly impervious to stress and stressful situations…and some folk, like me, need a little yoga.
Say, why not make this an elective course???? Let the students feeling overwhelmed and stressed, take a nicey nicey little stretchy class….and not impose this on others who don’t have a problem. What a novel idea?!?!
With the amount of OVER medication of kids going on these days, yoga (as an elective) is not a half bad idea.
Making all students take it, not so much. This is just another junket that will take away money and resources of other programs available to the student body.
That said, getting rid of honor role or having kids get permission for AP classes is lunacy. We are going to have a bunch of sissies running this country when I am old grey. Not a comforting thought in the least.
my two cents, for what it is worth (nada)!
Making all students take it, not so much. This is just another junket that will take
awaymoney and resources away fromofother programs available to the student body.That sentence was horrible, even for feebs. Had to change it!
Today we discovered that 7.6% of public schools in my state have dropout rates of at least 40%. That includes every “traditional” public highschool in the city of Tacoma.
Yeah, they need yoga. They particularly need to teach the kids the all-important positions of:
Sitting on Park Bench,
Begging Thrirty Year Old, and
Squatting in Parent’s Basement.
BTW: What happened to the “preview” button?
See… if there had been a preview button, I would have changed “7.6% of public schools” to “7.6% of public high schools.”
Hey 29, how goes it!
- I agree, preview button helpful…
but a spell and grammar check button would be even BETTER!!!
Use Mozilla Firefox. It has built-in spell check.
I don’t much care if they teach yoga, square dancing, or calf roping. After school. But considering how wretchedly they perform the tasks that were done much better and for less cost some 100 years ago, perhaps they might set some priorities? Getting rid of these dunce educrats would be a useful beginning to that process. Clearly they don’t have enough real work to do, or they’re just trying to find something that they are fit for.
Gee, how did writers ever produce clean copy without preview and spell check?
Pretty soon their just going to have Students show up and hand them one of these.
Play-Doh
Michelle - I completely agree. We would all be blessed to be so talented. I however am not.
On that note, thanks mojo. I appreciate your help! Installation complete…I feel like I’ve turned over a new leaf!
AJ - but is the play-doh edible?
When your problem is obvious, some solutions are surprisingly simple.
multiple layers of painstaking editorial fact-checking
They must have never thought about Sex.
or Food! lol.
I don’t mind yoga as part of PE and it might help, but this is such BS. Liberal niceties might have a place but this is like the sauce that overkills the dish.
It smells yummy.
btw anyone here read Fahrenheit 451? I swear what’s going on in schools reminds me of the discussion between the protagonist and the fire-chief as the latter describes how this world came to be. And how they describe school there is what is being done right now. Liberals are right that the world is looking like 1984 and Fahrenheit 451 and Animal Farm and Brave New World, but like any dumb student, they can’t apply it correctly.
AJ- so you were that kid that ate the play-doh!?
PS. Strunk and White was my life support system in college and now with business letters. IT is a struggle…But I’ll take my lumps for the laziness factor thrown in there…
Oh Hell No! I was the Cookie Monster.
When our youth applies for employment with an international company, right up there in the first paragraph of their resume will be “Yoga 101, 102, 103 & 4. You won’t get the job, but the rest of your limited world will, I’m sure, be impressed. Good luck, you only have to compete, literally, against jobseekers from the whole planet.
I’ll bet AJ!
But I knew who the port o potty kid was.
what a wonderful memory that kid gave me today. my teach was so upset…(and he was one of the good teach’s). made the stinky kid leave and go to the office. didn’t matter at that point. we couldn’t stop laughing the entire period.
1) Most of the great writers existed before the advent of the dictionary so they could spell things anee whay thaat zey wantzzeqteed.
3) Editors.
2) I am the proud graduate of Washington State Public Schools (did you click the link?). I may not be able to spell, but I can meditate on how it makes me feel to not be able to spell. (I can also write/steal enough javascript to enable a client-side preview feature).
#26 - LMAO.
freebs
thanks
They had English-literate illegals do the spell-checking that Americans wouldn’t do?
CRAP!! No Preview.
should be:
feebs
sorry.
Feeb - the big problem here is in the school teaching a religious ritual-technique.
If we’re going to incorporate such techiques, prayer to God would be a much better route to “relieve stress” and help “overwhelmed students”. Worked great for almost 200 years until it was outlawed.
its ok, i get that a lot Vic.
Note, I put down a lot, not alot. I did learn that in college!
Yeah, I learned that little tidbit in college too. That’s kinda sad.
&
The yoga will help the kids cope with all of the stresses of being a single unemployable parent later in life (or not so much later).
I think a religious ritual is a bit of a stretch. But we can agree to disagree on that.
I’m catholic, I take yoga. I don’t feel swayed in the least to become part of another religion. Have you taken one?
By making this a PE elective, (just like weights or dance) would only allow the class to continue if the participation was there. To me, that would be money well spent.
Making it mandatory for all students to take a yoga class is an unwise use of school funds.
Taking academic achievement awards and accolades away from well performing students is somewhat of a communist concept to me (we are all equal, even if you study longer and work harder). I also don’t agree with teachers who grade on a curve.
Like I said, my two cents.
Y’know, Mojo, I had given up on Netscape Navigator about v.6, but just started using v.9 in the last week. Pretty good - has most, if not all, the features of Firefox and it’s much less clunky and wieldy than FFox tho they both use the same basic program.
I’m impressed - and I don’t impress easy.
For IE, a good substitute is Maxthon browser (freeware, like Navigator) which uses the IE engine. Great features and again much less clunky than IE.
Opera has also been free for a while, so that’s another option. Fast browser, but kinda iffy sometimes in rendering some pages.
Instead of yoga, teach classical music. It is just as relaxing and it is also intellectually and culturally enriching. It’s no coincidence that many great scientists, such as Einstein and Planck, were into it as a mental stimulant. But how many teachers can pull it off if they wer rised on heavy metal?
See, no preview and even I screw up. it’s “were raised on heavy metal.”
Feeb - the big problem here is in the school teaching a religious ritual-technique.
Not at all, Feebs. It’s a decidedly Hindu ritual in specific. It’s not a matter of differing opinions anymore than is noting that saying Hail Marys is a decidedly Catholic religious ritual.
If so, you are rejecting Catholic teaching, Feebs - or maybe you haven’t really looked at Yoga?
Why is Yoga incompatible with Catholicism?
FATHER JOHN HARDON, S.J.
Yoga — Health or Stealth?
The summation of the second piece reads:
“”In closing, yoga and all New Age practices have filled the void that exists because we abandoned the greatest source of bliss and comfort, the Eucharist. A return to the Eucharist and a renewed program of instruction on contemplative prayer will bring many Catholics back from these deceptively beautiful practices and philosophies.”
New management strategy to embarrass poor spellers and English major drop-outs into spending more time on other blogs? Or a demonstration of the current thesis?
Clever and subtle.
(I have been cheating using cut/paste and Outlook’s spellcheck)
purplepeep
Netscape Navigator still exists?
I remember when they wanted $40 for it. Don’t think I ever paid tho, not even when it let you download pictures… Aah, the heady days of getting that zippy 14.4 modem, 14.4 that was so awesome! Oh. And writing cross-browser pages for NN & IE, hokey smoke! We would compare surveys that were supposed to show which had greater market share so that you would know which one to focus your work on. And then IE’s share started going up and up and then the Mac got IE and NN just kinda faded away until Mozilla and Firefox came along. Man, I hated writing for NN, it was a buggy beast. I hope they stick to the standards better in the new version than they used to (not saying IE was any better, but it has vastly improved thanks, in large part, to FF).
Sorry, got a little nostalgic there (Of course, I still get weepy thinking about my first jumperless motherboard (Asus P3V4X…what a beauty)).
purplepeep
I agree. With the caveat that Yoga in the U.S. (like most imported religious practices) has been so Westernized that it probably bears little resemblance to its Hindu roots.
Nevertheless, Christian meditation has historically focused upon God or His Word and centers upon finding peace and meaning in growing in one’s relationship with God, while Eastern meditation is an attempt to unite with nothing, self, everything or an object.
Free the Preview Button!!!
Oh, yeah, you should download v.9 and give it a go, 29V. It doesn’t have all that pain in the @ss AOL baggage and garbage anymore, which id really nice.
It should be compatible with all FFox plug-ins. I’ve been using it where I usually use FF and it’s doing great. I’m expecially pleased how well it handles streaming divx video. (IE and FF sometimes get stuck on a divx stream and need to be shut down.)
Yeah, the old rival times of IE v. NN did made for some interesting “seat of the pants” html and other coding issues. I still observe the “keep it simple, stupid” creedo as much as possible. Always hated goofy over-busy pages/sites anyway. Elegant, simple and easy to use is the way to go, to my thinkin’.
Ah, yes, the heady 14.4 days. In a pinch where hi-speed isn’t available I’ll still burn up the phone line at 56K!
But I go back to the days of 300 baud and local BBS use (actually before) - try explaining all that to young ‘uns who’ve pretty much only known life in the “internet fast lane”.
Actually the strongest and most sentient argument I’ve heard against Christians doing yoga was from a Hindu Yoga teacher-guru who is none too happy Christians take up his religion for “exercize”.
He made a very good point when he said it would be the same as him getting baptized with the excuse “I’m really doing it to get cleaned up - just taking a bath”.
(Or I suppose someone could recite the Rosary in a school speech class soley for “vocal/speech practice”.)
BTW I’m not a Catholic. I’m just aware of the faith and many of it’s teachings.
Daddy…what’s a baud? Is it true Paul McCartney was in a band before Wings?
Remember trying to get around long-distance on a BBS’s? Hooking up with a board with people with phone lines in two areas? That was soooo coool. You computer could hook up to other people in a nearby town FOR FREE! What’s this Internet thing compared to that!
purplepeep
Yeah, how insulting are we when we take such liberties with other’s religions?
We import reincarnation but make it democratic. We use religious symbols that we don’t even understand as home furnishings. We turn ancient African legends into children’s books. We commondere a religion, “improve upon it” and fail to change it’s name. All to make ourselves feel like we are “worldly,” “multicultural” and “understanding of other’s cultures.”
But acting like this isn’t understanding, it’s offensive and condescending.
No offense meant to anyone here, but peep brought up a thing that’s always bugged me. I can’t imagine how I’d feel if, say, the Japanese began having “communion clubs,” “Wailing Wall Wednesday Nights at the bar” or “baptism pool parties.” But we do it to other cultures all the time.
Well at least some religion - err, one religion - “gets respect” in the schools.
Islam studies required in California district
Course has 7th-graders memorizing Koran verses, praying to Allah
And that bit of insanity was on the heels of 9/11!
Re: the school that’s the subject of this thread. I think Michelle is more pointing out not just this bit of New Age naval gazing silliness but also the long history of the PC stupidy affecting this school (and other public schools in general).
I wonder - since learning to read is passe in schools, does this mean kids can pronounce their mantras but are unable to read or write them?
Aum-m-m-m.
ooooooooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhmmmmmmmmm!
This country is in deep kimpche
You obviously have never tasted lutefisk, Snoop, or you would have used that culinary wonder to express something you don’t wanna be “in deep”.
everyone knows that high school boys do a ’stress reliever’ most everyday anyhow..
why would they need yoga as well?
When my daughter was in a private highschool, she took a class that had some vague title.
I found out a few weeks later that she was “chanting”.
This high dollar school very quickly lost a student.
I failed to say that is was a required course of instruction!
I’ve been watching schools in this country deteriorate since 1960 when prayer was taken out of schools. Say what you want, but after that happened our schools started becoming prisons staffed by armed guards called “resource officers” who are really deputy sheriffs, and they’ve become indoctrination centers instead of education centers.
So tell me, who has the master plan for tearing down the country via the schools?
#42
I’ve got to believe that somehow George Bush is behind the disappearance of the preview button!
#53-
As a student who graduated in the ’80’s; my elementry school became more like the Maricopa County Jail when they placed bars on the classroom windows, and the local gang was dismissed by the Creighton School District as nothing more than a group of kids looking to have some fun.
Camelback high school wasn’t too bad, but started to become worse when the Phoenix Union High School District implemented “magnet schools” (’86-’87)and all the good programs became consolidated at various campuses. This way the gangs that were living in one part of the valley could apply their trade in other parts of Phoenix.
The best thing I remembered about my public school education is that then we actually learned, the teachers cared, and if a student applied themselves they would be successful. The honor roll was something to be proud of, the pledge of alligence was recited everyday, we had kickball/football/ tag/ and of course dodgeball! When the school had its art fair to show our work, not everyone received the blue ribbon (or an award for that matter) but that our work was on display for all to see and to listen to the comments from our parent(s) was exciting.
The sad and pathetic thing is that my college courses aren’t any where close to challenging than my regular h.s. classes and yet the average Memphis public school student can’t even pass the entrance test to get into U of M.
Little johnnie or suzie can’t read, write or do basic math…But they have loads of self esteem, can put a condom on a cucumber, are tolerant of people with diffrent affectional preferences, and dispise western civilization unless it gives them money that they can waste every day-while complaining about others people’s accomplishments and increased bank accounts.
They are very quick NOT to accept any personal responsibility for themselves and yet blame everyone else for their short comings in life. It is always someone else’s fault-never their own!
If you can read this—either you had parents that cared enough to teach you phonics or you were fortunate to actually have a teacher that cared enough to teach…….
Taking away our freedoms, one at a time.
Blasted Republicans.
My kids will be homeschooled or sent to a Christian/private school.
Liberty University has just unveiled a homeschooling program. It is similar to their distance learning program (on-line). So, that’s an option to.
Public schools in NJ…I don’t think so.
After reading gayle’s post. I would like to offer up this correction…
Michelle:
Regarding your point about “how ever did we produce clean copy without preview and spell check,” isn’t the answer that editors played the role of “preview and spell check” for decades? One of our secretaries worked as a proof editor for our local newspaper (Cleveland Plain Dealer) for years. Just sayin’.
As for yoga and stress, I don’t mind the school offering yoga as an extracurricular activity. It’s apparently quite good exercise, and God knows our kids in school need exercise. I do mind the image that the school provides to the kids: “we don’t want you to worry, we want school to be a happy place where you can get condoms and birth control and get easy As and not do homework and do yoga on the side!”
Is this the same school district that decided it the number one focus of math classes should be teaching Political Correctness with math as a secondary focus?
What ever happened to ‘recess’ as a form of relaxation for our kids in school? I was the 3rd grader who looked up girls skirts when they were on the monkey bars.
I sit, at the moment, about 12 miles (as the crow flies) from Needham High School.
To give a little background, this town has more “Not on our watch, save Darfur” signs per capita, then any other Massatwoshits towns that I’m aware of (except maybe Cambridge).
I drive through to get to work in a neighboring town, and I’m horrified daily at the sheer number of bumper stickers that I get stuck behind. Gore/Lieberman, Kerry/Edwards, 1/20/09, Support the troops-bring them home, and those stupid “Coexist” stickers that incorporate all the religious symbols.
Montgomery County, MD tried to implement Singapore Math in several schools. Singapore has a highly rigorous, academic program that has caused it to consistently place #1 in the world in math and science scores.
Here is an article from Fall 2006 from Hoover Institution about it: http://www.hoover.org/publications/ednext/3853357.html
Fall 2007 update: Many schools in Montgomery County, MD drop Singapore Math because it is TOO HARD FOR MANY TEACHERS and liberals were annoyed that it was actually successful–embarrassing socialists and other liberals advocating fuzzy math.
Yoga is the practice of far-Eastern religion. In schools, I thought it was a violation of the establishment clause to practice religion as a part of the curriculum. Oh wait…I’m sorry. That is just the practice of Christian religion. My bad.
The public school system is dangerous to young minds. It is more about indoctrination than education. Its continuing failures are particularly scandalous in the highly competitive world. Worst, it leaves the young embittered when they are finally faced with the real world and its demands.
I love Black History month….that seems to run about 2 months in the schools around here.(sarcasm)
Wonder how a White History month would fare with that title in the curricula?
Guess we’ll soon have Hispanic/Islamic months added as part of the “being mindful”…..yeah, full alright….crap!
Unfortunately, students pushing themselves to their limit leads to more depression and other mental illnesses. The ultra-competitive get in to the best college possible philosophy is fundamentally flawed. It doesn’t help a student become a full person. Learning how to cope with stress and have some fun is an important part of that process.
Stress reduction should be an important part of a high school curriculum since it prepares its students for the rigors of college where it’s harder to do work because of the flexible schedules (and the drinking).
It’s working! It’s working! With this rigorous curriculum, students across America will be poised to carry on my legacy long after I’m gone.
Regards,
Mediocrity
Stress relief is not for the students, its for the staff! While there are many wonderful school districts filled with caring, competent professionals, this string of logic plays out all too often:
We give students a curriculum that is filled with elements that cannot be measured objectively.
With no measurable goals, students cannot be held accountable for their performance.
If you can’t hold students accountable for their performance, there is no reasonable way to hold teachers accountable.
If students and teachers aren’t accountable for their performance, it is impossible to hold the Superintendent accountable for the performance of the school district.
So, with no accountability, the superintendent has no stress.
Therefore, yoga=no stress, calculus=stress.
Professional educators, and the schools that produce them, are the root problem - much like journalists and journalism schools are the problem with news media. These are two pseudo-professions constantly struggling (and failing) to invent new reasons for being; and here we see one more in a long list of silly, often destructive, products of their flailing about in these critical areas.
Politically Correct gone amouk, in Texas, the only way to reference traditional holidays is through the seasons…we have fall, winter and spring…no mention of the holidays we celebrate, during those same seasons. Why? Multi Culturalism, we already have a Culture “American” how about we observe what we have incommon, instead of accomodating diversity nation? One Nation Under God indivisable with Liberty and Justice for all. Is this why they want to take God out of the Pledge? diversity? I don’t live in Muliticultural States of America, I live in The United States of America…well for now.
The New Age Movement: The Cult of Man (relevant essay on transcendental meditation from a Catholic perspective. I’m not Catholic, btw)
THE NEW AGE MOVEMENT: Beware! The New Age Movement Is More Than Self-Indulgent Silliness (comprehensive essay on the New Age Movement and its goals)
The New Religious Order (connects the dots between the NAM and its access our public schools)
Homeschooling may not be an option for long. Raise your children the way you thing is right? Not if the “village” has anything to say about it.
While searching for original sources, I found this little article sympathetic to the NAM that provides nice summaries of its goals.
Excerpt:
Enjoy.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,305865,00.html
I hope this doesn’t interfere with there other classes’ gay indoctrination and multiculturalism classes.
Sorry, Peeps, one of my pet peaves is someone telling me because I do ONE thing I am going to hell in a hand-basket. Not cool.
If the Catholic Church would kick me out for doing Yoga. Well, then so be it. Honestly, considering I take this class with some of the people I go to Church with….they might be missing a few this Sunday.
There are many things I differ with the Church on with respects to cannonical laws and rules of the Church. I suspect I am not the only one. Call me what you will, religion is a private deal with me - I guess I can talk to God about my yoga classes when I go to visit him at some point.
I find there to be much more damaging threats to the Church (and kids) out there than Yoga.
That aside, I really don’t believe that Yoga as a threat to Christianity is the intention of this post. I could however, be wrong.
…Wonder if they’ll start passing out “Stress Cards”.
Worked great for the Army.
/sarc
thank you for returning the “Preview” function, BTW.
Pokerguy said:
Professional educators, and the schools that produce them, are the root problem - much like journalists and journalism schools are the problem with news media.
couldn’t agree more Pokerguy… the end resuklt, we get…
Readin’, Writin’…Engendering Entitlement and Encouraging Underachievement!
sadly, the kids will outsmart the “educators” as usual I’m sure, playing both sides against the middle to get what they want…
I read an article like this and think that I’ve inadvertantly come to the Onion. As they say, “You can’t make this stuff up.”
And why haven’t the parents demanded that this fool be fired?
Greetings all, I’m a long term Reader to this site. But not one for posting. I would not really call my self a conservative, but most definitely not a liberal. But I do enjoy this site as the Main Stream Media, I find to be incompetent, one-sided, and defeatist. Ever since I was in school I noticed this trend with in the schools becoming centers of indoctrination, and not Education.
As a child I was told the “It takes a village line” And I constantly scoffed at such. Also I would take stance’s on what I seen to be morally right, even if it meant provocation, or cutting off my own support. I come from a rough childhood and family, and I learnt from the mistakes, and adapted. I did not cut myself and cry, nor did I go to a councilor like so many from my generation. In fact I can’t identify myself with any of the more recent generations de facto.
Personally I see no problem with religious and social acceptance, with a dose of Hegemony of course. However there are some things that are and must be Labeled in Black and white. Right and Wrong. Evil is alive, just too many have made peace with such. And one language is all that is needed, communication is essential to the survival of any people or nation. Although English has many redundant words, it would serve as best as the template for development however given its wide range as a spoken language. The Current path of the schools is not a path of Co-existence, hegemony or national survival.
It is a path of United irrelevance. The end of True Self esteem, struggle and self worth. A Baby state with increasing Balkanization, weak-minded, weak-bodied, and ill informed Denizens of the State is in the making. A race of humans so inept and so concerned with self indulgence, that they are no threat to anyone or anything. In today’s Schools, speaking out on moral issues is racist, backwards, and xenophobic as our Children are led to believe.
An atmosphere of Ignorance and Fear. And honestly I have my doubts the Current system can be fixed with the form of government we currently have. Sacrifice, loyalty, have lost their meaning. Just look around, economics and the nanny state trump all. This is only an observation, however my children will be raised by me, even if it means un-teaching most of what the school as taught short of valued education.
In the end of this lengthy post I must ask this. With Evolution a theory becoming law de facto in our schools and all other thought crushed, with children unable to voice an opinion, with no one truth allowed in all things, is it really the education at fault? Or is it the state of the Society itself? Loyalty, sacrifice, Justice, have they given way to greed, selfishness, and gaining ground for ones self?
Michelle, I like the photo. Ouch! In fact I like all the photos used at the heading of your blog articles. My favorite is lettuce head. Keep them coming.
Just a thought from an atheist:maybe if the kids were brought with some religious belief,they wouldn’t be stressed.A strong belief in right and wrong gives one an outlook and perspective to deal with the ups and downs of life.
I fear for your children.
Well well well, what do we have here?
What a coincidence.
#76
Sadly the US Navy RTC Great Lakes has the “training time out” for any phase of training-even where there is no risk of life to the poor baby recruit.
OT—Since this thread is about the dumbing down of education, the US military isn’t immune to it either.
Navy basic training; the recruits are no longer drilling with weapons (learning the manual of arms), each division has their own mess hall, and the Company Commanders can no longer drop them for push-ups when needed. The only time they can be dropped is back in their barracks and even then under very stringient conditions.
The fleet started seeing the quality of the recruits coming out, and saw that they knew all about their rights-but not much in the way of professional discipline and respect for those above. Even if their superior was a PO1 (E-6) with 19 years of Naval service. The Navy is responsible for teaching the recruits that all blue shirts are equal and the diffrence in respect begins at CPO-it was one of the reasons why I dropped my retirement papers in 2005 rather than go up for CPO.
Enough of the rant
GSP
Back in the day we had a stress reliever in school. P.E.
#80, Welcome! I say this as a new member myself… teehee.
The current state of our educational system and society are coterminous. One ought to look no further than the debacle in Portland, Maine. A school in Portland is intending to distribute birth control to 11 year olds. 11 year olds!
Why? Because society tells us that you can’t keep kids from having sex (they are having sex!). Nevermind there are kids who aren’t sexually active, ignore the statistics showing that abstinence works and whatever you do, don’t inform parents that their child is taking birth control…it’s none of their business. Shhh
I’m just going to come right out and say it - God is what is missing from our society, our educational system, etc… We constantly hear about how much more money we need to pour into failing public schools. We never hear about those children who are in parochial schools. We don’t want to shine a light on what works and use that as an example. God is missing, and, well - it shows.
heres a thought: how about we let kids be kids? Let them have some down time. I have 5th graders ( i teach music lessons from my home) who don’t have a spare minute because of soccer/basketball/homework/chess club etc. etc.
Part of growing up is learning to balance work and play.
Also, do kids really need 8 hours a day in school to learn what they need to know? Surely it doesn’t take that long. I’m willing to bet that theres a ton of busywork that could be eliminated. there certainly was enough when i was in public school.
Yet another reason to homeschool.
oh, and excuse the typos and non-capitalization. I’m typing with my 6 week old daughter in one arm!
#85 GSP
My sentiments exactly. The military has long been used as an experiment in social engineering, with mixed results.
The “stress card” thing is (IMHO) a bad one.
Congrat’s on the retirement (same year for me) and keep on truckin’!
21 years, 7 months, 10 days and still serving…
Also, do kids really need 8 hours a day in school to learn what they need to know?
No, but the main function of public schools in the 21st century is cheap day care. You start reducing the hours, and the parents who expect the village to raise their kids are gonna revolt.
For parents out there, I’d have to Google them to find them, but there are programs on-line where you can get math tutoring from someone in India, Singapore or Korea I believe. Probably worth the money.
And then, the NY Times has an article that mentions TutorVista in India.
For $99 a month, your kid can have as many 45 minute sessions as they can schedule.