Stories In School

Yesterday I spent the evening at my daughter's school watching a show.  Over all it went well and the kids all had a good time.  The teaching staff and administration took turns reading stories to the kids all based around Mother Goose themed stories.  One story however struck me as being a little too preachy for a cause.

We all know the story of Humpty Dumpty right?  He falls off the wall and the kings horses and men couldn't put him back together again.  This story took up where that left off. 

Humpty is scooped up and rushed to a doctor who is able to save him and put him back together where the king's men couldn't.  The preachy part comes into play when the doctor gives Humpty the bill for the services.  Humpty is shocked that he'd have to pay for something as necessary as having his life saved and confesses to the doctor that being an egg he doesn't have any money.  The doctor's solution is for Humpty to talk to his friend the king.  Clearly since the king would send his horses and men to attempt to save humpty he would have no problem paying Humpty's doctor bill.

See where this is going?

Whether the school intended it or not this story was pushing the idea of government paid for medicine into the minds of the young and impressionable.  This has been a trick from the left for a while now, usually pushed in movies like Wall-e or and number of Penguin based movies.

It's stories like this one that have created the mentality that people have a right to a service provided by others even if they themselves cannot afford it.

The other problem with this is that you don't see counter stories, you no longer hear the story of the grasshopper and the ant with the moral of personal responsibility.  You have no counter arguments to balance these ideals out and allow children to form their own opinions based on both sides of an argument.

Even the story of Robin Hood has been hijacked by the left and twisted down to what they want it to be.  Ask a child or an adult for that matter the basic idea of the story of Robin Hood.  Anyone who thinks they know the story will answer the same way... Robin Hood robs from the rich and gives to the poor.  Problem is that's not the case.

In fact Robin Hood is the story of the Tea Party.  Robin Hood is a guy who strongly supports the second Amendment carrying his bow everywhere he goes.  He built an army (a militia) to fight the oppressive government.  And look closer at most tellings of the story, it isn't the rich he's stealing from.  It's Prince John and his tax collectors.  Robin Hood is stealing the money that was taken by force by the government and giving it back to the people who worked for it in the first place.  Of course you wont see stories like that told in any school because it promotes right wing ideas.

Drop Out Rates Drop

John Lynch after being slapped down hard this week by the supreme court for attempting to illegally take money that didn't belong to him in order to cover his party's out of control spending needed something to toot his horn about.  He needed good news.

Out comes the news about High School drop out rates.  According to figures just released this tuesday, the state's drop out rates have declined.

Hip hip hooray, that's good news right?

Not as great as you would think.  Let's not forget that in 2007 Lynch signed law raising the drop out rates to 18.  Kind of hard for a kid to drop out when it's now against the law to do so.

Considering it's now against the law to drop out, where before it wasn't is it really that impressive that we now have a 6.7% drop out rate compared to 9.7% before the law took effect?

The thing to watch isn't going to be a one year look at drop out rates.  No, the real telling statistic will be graduation rates.  Is it really helping anyone to force a 17 year old to stay in school one more year if he simply turns around and drops out at 18 instead of 17 and learns nothing in that year he's forced to stay in school?  All we're accomplishing is wasting thousands of tax dollars on a child who do not wish to be there and refuses to try.

Since the law was just signed in 2007 and didn't take effect until July 2009 the data is not there yet to really see if there are impacts on graduation rates.  That will be the real measure of it's success.

What Does Christmas Mean to You?

The question of what Christmas means to you was asked of a second grade class in Taunton, MA and they were asked to draw a picture as part of that assignment.

Now when asked that question people will answer a lot of different things.  Presents, Santa, family, giving, trees and decorations, and so on.  And of course many will point out that Christmas and most other holidays celebrated at this time of year are also religious in nature.  Regardless of whether you celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah, Pagan Winter Solstice or something else most tie back to religious beliefs.  So when asked what Christmas means is it all that shocking to find out an 8 year old child of Christian faith drew a picture of Christ?

That image lead to the eight year old Maxham Elementary School in hot water causing him not only to be suspended but the school demanded an evaluation from a psychiatrist before being allowed back into the school, which the parents of this child had to cover with their own money.

What has happened to our society that drawing a picture of a religious figure leads teachers to demand an evaluation of someone's mental well being?  Have we really sunk that low that what this school is putting this family through is acceptable?

Of course this isn't the first sign of over reaction at this school.

In April of this year students were sent home because the found that the school had asbestos insulation.  While that may sound shocking at first take, many older buildings have some form of asbestos in them.  Merrimack, NH for instance has been undertaking the long process of abatement over the past few years but still has large quantities in nearly all of its school buildings.  As long as it isn't damaged and has fibers escaping into the air it's not something to panic over.

A ten year old child was suspended and faced criminal charges back in June of 2008 over a stick figure drawing he made of himself with a gun shooting another stick figure of his teacher.  While in this case even the child's mother agrees the picture was inappropriate she questions why the school chose to file charges against the boy rather then attempt to handle it through administration.  While the DA had enough sense to decline to press charges, this case has now lead to the mother filing a lawsuit against the school district.  The question I have is what charges would have been filed in the first place?  Drawing a picture?

Perhaps some of the officials are the ones needing an evaluation.

Contest Implies Banning Free Speech Is OK

I recently read a blurb about an ongoing contest mentioned in the Nashua Telegraph.  Here's what they wrote about it:

Essay contest

For the third year in a row, the New Hampshire Supreme Court, in cooperation with the state’s newspapers, is hosting a Constitution Day essay contest, with two categories – grades 5-8 and grades 9-12.

The topic this year is about free speech: “When should a school be allowed to ban T-shirts that have certain kind of messages and pictures on them?”

A full page description 
of the contest, rules and prizes 
appeared in last Sunday’s 
Telegraph and is republished today.

Essays not to exceed 300 words must be postmarked by Oct. 1 and mailed to Constitution 
Contest, The Telegraph, 17 Executive Drive, Hudson, NH 03051.

Full contest details also are 
available at www.courts.state.nh.us or www.loebschool.org.

Kids are being asked to write an essay explaining why a school should be allowed to ban a T-shirt and this is how the bureaucrats at the NH Supreme Court felt we can best honor Constitution Day?

The very question itself implies that there is an appropriate time or a message offensive enough that schools should have the power to override the first amendment and prevent a student from wearing it.

For kids thinking about responding to this contest allow me to share a small bit of information with you, this is the first Amendment:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Pay close attention to the part in bold.  Encouraging the thought that there are forms of speech that should be banned or that schools should have different rules applied to it's following the Constitution then other public locations encourages the weakening of our rights.

The only exception to this would be a private school which by the sole fact they are private gives them the rights to create any rules they wish for the students who choose to go there.  But I would argue that even that should be heavily discouraged.

It is this mindset, that we should have places were speech or other rights can be limited that opens the doors to other violations and helps support the mindset that these violations are acceptable.  Free speech zones when protesting politicians for instance.  Or smoking bans which create limits of what legal activities a private business can have going on within it's doors.

We shouldn't be teaching our children through biased questions to think that such violations are acceptable.  Government should not be allowed to take away our rights under any circumstances period.

School Morals

I think all school children should be required as part of their lessen plans to read the new testiment.  They should all be required to learn about Jesus and the morals he preached.

Before reading any further take a moment to think about this above statement and see how you really feel about it.

Formed an opinion?  Good...

The above situation is of course not a true statement as I do not feel morality of any level is a subject for public schools to teach.  That is something better left for parents as we each have our own morality beliefs.

The reason I gave that example and asked you to form an opinion on it is so I can give a true example which you can now look at with the same view you took on the above example.

In Chicago, high schools have a book on their reading list titled "The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian" which has crude language and a detailed scene involving masturbation.

The school district feels that since they are ok with children reading and learning about graphic sexual acts that everyone else should as well.  Its a question of morality here and who should have final say on what is best in any child's interest.

The only defense I've seen so far back is that they are likely to learn about this stuff from other kids or on the streets anyway or that they hear worse listening to Lady Gaga CDs.  Is that really a defense?  If so then clearly you don't have a problem with the morality of Jesus taught in schools either since kids might hear about it from friends in school or if they listen to a Stryper CD.