I was just thinking about the liberals calling themselves progressives. What does that make everyone who disagrees with them- regressive? Are you tired of the liberals deciding words and terminology? I sure am. What's progressive about someone who wants us to give up our cars and go back to the days when the buffalo roamed the plains? The free enterprise system that liberals hate so much is where all the progress comes from. From new drugs and medical treatments to new technology, our future is made in the free enterprise system. So I have to wonder what is in store for our students under the new NATIONAL CURRICULUM designed by "progressives". I doubt it's going to teach real science and the free enterprise system (and yes, they are developing Science standards). It's very concerning that David Coleman, the supposed architect of the Common Core Standards, just got himself appointed as president of the Scholastic Achievement Test (SAT) board. The "progressives", with their new NATIONAL CURRICULUM, now want to control who goes to college. Apparently if a state is not on board with the NATIONAL CURRICULUM, David Coleman will try to keep their students out of colleges by making the college entrance exams specific to his NATIONAL CURRICULUM!! Add to this Obama's new Federal Control over student loans and you can see where this is all headed. Is the centralized government going to decide careers now too? Will they decide who can go to college and what courses of study are available to them? The centralized power is certainly structuring itself to be able to do just that.
A centralized government that indoctrinates students attitudes in school and then determines who will go to college based on what they want them to think sounds REPRESSIVE to me, definitely not PROGRESSIVE, as they call themselves in their little dream world. I don't have children in school anymore but it's sure frightening to me to see our schools move to SOVIET STYLE CENTRALIZED CONTROL. I'm sure our "progressive" friends would be shocked that I would think this! Just TRUST them, they only want a more rigorous curriculum! Yeah right, and I believe in the tooth fairy too.
From time immemorial free republics have turned to serfdoms as the people were pacified by government promises and propaganda. Will America be any different? Will we stand up to this massive USURPATION OF POWER? One can only hope so. Our founding father's made us unique when they gave us our wonderful CONSTITUTION. If anything will save us, this is the document that will. Today I gave out awards for the Big Sky Tea Party. They had a contest asking students to write an essay on "What the Constitution means to me". The students wrote about all these rights of freedom of religion and freedom of speech, all these rights that are under attack today by those among us who think they are smarter than the rest of us, certainly smarter than our founding fathers whom they demonize. Why do the "progressives" demonize people, including our NATIONAL HEROES? They demonize because they can't win in the arena of ideas. It's easier to say Lincoln had mental illness, George Washington really did tell a lie and he had slaves, Thomas Jefferson was an atheist and impregnated a slave, and the conservatives are all regressive ignorant racists, than to actually stand up and defend their ideas against the genius of our founding fathers, facts, history and the character, intelligence and ideas of people who disagree with them.
Maybe that's why the centralized government is using the Delphi method in all these forums now. Have you noticed that when you try to participate in the government process lately that you might as well have just stayed home? No matter how many people stand and speak, hundreds in the case of the recent school board sex education fight, the board, be it the school board, city council or county commission, just waits until you're finished and then votes against you ? Have you noticed that all these listening sessions just somehow come out with a consensus of the latest "progressive" agenda ? In a way it's like gambling, only the odds are worse, the house holds the cards and the house always wins. The moderators sum up what everyone thinks and it always goes the way they planned.
The Helena School District planning meetings are all like this. First they establish what you think by having groups, comprised primarily of people they have called and preselected, answer questions made up by them. Low and behold, the whole community wants their agenda! When they listed survey results at the last planning meeting, low and behold, we all supposedly wanted a Community Resource Center as our first priority!! More than repairing our schools!! Repairing our schools was about the fifth priority!!The purpose of the Community Resource Center is to give free space for nonprofits in the community such as Youth Connections. This center will expand school way beyond the school day and beyond school responsibilities of educating our youth. These socialist hubs will provide everything from mental health services to recreation and food. Who signed up for this? Apparently you did. Do you see how the Delphi method works?
Part of the Delphi method is not to give you complete information- that's where the puzzle comes in- literally. At the planning meeting we were given schematics and then puzzle pieces to place. Supposedly we ALL wanted collaboration centers, open school concept, small group rooms, kitchen tables, outdoor spaces and on and on - you get the idea, so those were the names on the puzzle pieces to go into our school( each table had a schematic of a particular school). Where was the curriculum that went with this? How do we know what we want in a school when we don't even know the curriculum? Wouldn't you want to know what you were going to teach before you decided what spaces you needed? One of the spaces was for an art and science lab- hmmm- who will use this lab and how often? Why do we need it? What do we know about the structure of the building and the lot it is on? NOTHING. So--we're making planning decisions and we don't even know where the bearing walls are or how much space is available on the lot, what code is or what sewer or septic problem there may be. We don't even have any idea what things cost or how much money we have available to spend. Does this whole thing seem like a manipulated farce to you? They took pictures of all the completed puzzles. You see? Now they can tell us at the next meeting what we said we wanted-BUT WAIT A MINUTE ! I DIDN'T WANT THAT!!
Whether you have children or grandchildren in school or not you need to get involved, these people are eating your lunch, serving up your property taxes, and setting you up for a new socialist tomorrow. As I've said on this blog before, this fight has only just begun,and I'll add one more quote from Yogi Bera, "It ain't over until it's over.", and it AIN'T over!!
Friday, 18 May 2012
Monday, 14 May 2012
ARE PUBLIC SCHOOLS HARMING OUR CHILDREN?
I guess the quick answer for parents of over a thousand children, just from the Helena schools area, to the question of whether public schools would be harmful to their children, would be yes. These parents are paying more than $300 a month per child to get their children educated in private education even though they already are forced to pay property and income taxes for the state schools. They are paying even more than the more than $300.00 a month, by having one of the parents stay home, if they are doing homeschooling.
Why would parents feel they could not trust the Helena Public Schools? In all my dealings with the Helena Public Schools in the last two years, I've had two really heart rending moments. One was at the end of a VERY LONG public hearing about teaching sex to little children. It was late and I thought I'd heard it all and nothing at all could move me, but I waited for the last speaker. His voice was just a little broken as he spoke. He said "I used to be over on that side" and he pointed to the microphone which had long gone silent, the microphone where Planned Parenthood and all their supporters for this sex program had run out of speakers more than an hour earlier , "But now I'm on this side". He said ,"I'm 35 years old now and my daughter is 19. I will never get over the regret that I have because I did not get to be a part of her life growing up. I realize now that programs like this sex education influenced me to be sexually promiscuous at the age of 16 . I don't want this to happen to anymore children, and that is why I am here tonight." His testimony was compelling. I felt so bad for him, and I knew he was right. Sexualizing children early with too much information is harmful to them.
The second most heart rending moment was at the school board meeting on Tuesday night. It came at the end of the meeting when a lady got up to speak during public comment. She got up to speak, and then she was crying so hard she could hardly speak.Her daughter is only 14 years old and she found drugs in her locker.Her daughter is being influenced by friends who do drugs.She wanted to know why the school wasn't doing searches of lockers. I want to know where these drugs are coming from and why our public schools seem to have these problems and our private schools don't. One of the student board members confirmed the culture of smoking and drugs on campus at Helena High. I got up once again to point out the obvious, DARE is not an effective program. Familiarizing our students with drugs does not discourage the use, it encourages it by making it more common and almost a challenge for some. If you don't want young children to play with your very sharp knives, you don't take them all out and show them to the child, this would only give him/her the idea. You put them away.
So, yes, sadly I would have to say I think public schools today can be harmful to children, but it's not just the sex and drugs. Do parents send their precious children to school to advocate for special interest groups? As I was passing by the reader board at Four Georgians Elementary School the other day they were advocating to "wear pink" for breast cancer. I know the children train for the Governors Cup Run every year. Maybe this is just for exercise, but there are many other runs and they don't train for them. Should kids have to worry about cancer? Sadly some young lives are impacted by this, they or their parents get cancer, but this is rare. I grew up in a time when many children were getting polio, I hardly knew about it. I went out and played and didn't have to carry this burden. It's only now that I realize it could have happened to me. I'm so glad I grew up in a time when children were allowed to be kids. You didn't have to worry about all these grown-up things. Now advocacy seems almost constant. Every fall the football players and all the kids are pressured to wear pink advocacy T shirts for breast cancer awareness or just to wear pink, now it's in the spring too. Let's be honest, this isn't about raising awareness, this is about raising money, and the schools are allowing our children and our public facilities to be used for this purpose.Should schools have the right to decide what we advocate for or is this a personal matter?
Are there other advocacies in our schools?You bet there are. How about animal rights? One year the elementary school I worked at had the white tailed dear as our school animal. Children whose parents hunted deer were confused by that. How about rain forests, recycling and global warming? Should children have to worry about environmental crisis that probably don't even exist or are exaggerated?
How about mental health? Should elementary students have to worry about schizophrenia ,paranoia and bipolar personalities? It's in their new health curriculum. How about starvation? Should children be constantly collecting food for food share as if the population around them were all dying of hunger?
Not only are all these advocacies stressors on our youngsters, they take away the time they need for a full and rigorous education. When the president from Montana State University Bozeman came to my daughters campus to speak to the professors his talk was on holding the line. That's right, our colleges have had to dumb down there curriculums and relax their standards over and over again to accommodate all the barely educated students they are getting from the public schools. The president of MSU says they just have to hold the line- they can't continue relaxing their standards. Are public schools harming our children? When they don't give them an adequate education and instead use them for advocacy they surely are.
Why would parents feel they could not trust the Helena Public Schools? In all my dealings with the Helena Public Schools in the last two years, I've had two really heart rending moments. One was at the end of a VERY LONG public hearing about teaching sex to little children. It was late and I thought I'd heard it all and nothing at all could move me, but I waited for the last speaker. His voice was just a little broken as he spoke. He said "I used to be over on that side" and he pointed to the microphone which had long gone silent, the microphone where Planned Parenthood and all their supporters for this sex program had run out of speakers more than an hour earlier , "But now I'm on this side". He said ,"I'm 35 years old now and my daughter is 19. I will never get over the regret that I have because I did not get to be a part of her life growing up. I realize now that programs like this sex education influenced me to be sexually promiscuous at the age of 16 . I don't want this to happen to anymore children, and that is why I am here tonight." His testimony was compelling. I felt so bad for him, and I knew he was right. Sexualizing children early with too much information is harmful to them.
The second most heart rending moment was at the school board meeting on Tuesday night. It came at the end of the meeting when a lady got up to speak during public comment. She got up to speak, and then she was crying so hard she could hardly speak.Her daughter is only 14 years old and she found drugs in her locker.Her daughter is being influenced by friends who do drugs.She wanted to know why the school wasn't doing searches of lockers. I want to know where these drugs are coming from and why our public schools seem to have these problems and our private schools don't. One of the student board members confirmed the culture of smoking and drugs on campus at Helena High. I got up once again to point out the obvious, DARE is not an effective program. Familiarizing our students with drugs does not discourage the use, it encourages it by making it more common and almost a challenge for some. If you don't want young children to play with your very sharp knives, you don't take them all out and show them to the child, this would only give him/her the idea. You put them away.
So, yes, sadly I would have to say I think public schools today can be harmful to children, but it's not just the sex and drugs. Do parents send their precious children to school to advocate for special interest groups? As I was passing by the reader board at Four Georgians Elementary School the other day they were advocating to "wear pink" for breast cancer. I know the children train for the Governors Cup Run every year. Maybe this is just for exercise, but there are many other runs and they don't train for them. Should kids have to worry about cancer? Sadly some young lives are impacted by this, they or their parents get cancer, but this is rare. I grew up in a time when many children were getting polio, I hardly knew about it. I went out and played and didn't have to carry this burden. It's only now that I realize it could have happened to me. I'm so glad I grew up in a time when children were allowed to be kids. You didn't have to worry about all these grown-up things. Now advocacy seems almost constant. Every fall the football players and all the kids are pressured to wear pink advocacy T shirts for breast cancer awareness or just to wear pink, now it's in the spring too. Let's be honest, this isn't about raising awareness, this is about raising money, and the schools are allowing our children and our public facilities to be used for this purpose.Should schools have the right to decide what we advocate for or is this a personal matter?
Are there other advocacies in our schools?You bet there are. How about animal rights? One year the elementary school I worked at had the white tailed dear as our school animal. Children whose parents hunted deer were confused by that. How about rain forests, recycling and global warming? Should children have to worry about environmental crisis that probably don't even exist or are exaggerated?
How about mental health? Should elementary students have to worry about schizophrenia ,paranoia and bipolar personalities? It's in their new health curriculum. How about starvation? Should children be constantly collecting food for food share as if the population around them were all dying of hunger?
Not only are all these advocacies stressors on our youngsters, they take away the time they need for a full and rigorous education. When the president from Montana State University Bozeman came to my daughters campus to speak to the professors his talk was on holding the line. That's right, our colleges have had to dumb down there curriculums and relax their standards over and over again to accommodate all the barely educated students they are getting from the public schools. The president of MSU says they just have to hold the line- they can't continue relaxing their standards. Are public schools harming our children? When they don't give them an adequate education and instead use them for advocacy they surely are.
Monday, 7 May 2012
THE GLOBAL ECONOMY AND OUR SCHOOLS
I have some news for the big industrialists who are behind the new national curriculum, the "Common Core Standards", American values are good the world over and for all time. They (the industrialists) not only don't know education, like the rest of us, they don't know what the future will bring. No matter how much they profess to know the 21st century they don't know. Remember when they wanted all the kids to learn Japanese? The Japanese were going to take over the world economically and we better get on the bandwagon. Yeah right . Japan's economy has been in the pit of despair for at least 20 years!!
Sure, technology has opened up communications the world wide, all the more reason to know what your national values are so as not to get confused. Good values, a good mind and the ability to read will take our students into the 21st century, whatever it may bring. I always go back to Apollo 13 when those men had to get their friends home. No one gave them lessons on perseverance and taking leadership in an emergency but they had the values they needed when the emergency occurred. They didn't have the technology we use today, they brought their friends home using a slide rule.
A few people in a room do not have the keys to our future in America. They don't know what the future is, only what they want it to be. This nation will not be changed to reflect their ideological biases. Sorry boys and girls, this trick has been tried many times before, and as the Catholic Bishop says, you lose.The enduring truths in our Declaration of Independence,"We hold these truths to be SELF- EVIDENT that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness---"will prevail. No small group of individuals will decide what Americans will believe, now or in the future. They may make a good run at destroying public education, but they will not determine the future of this country.
I notice all the liberal groups that name themselves as the "American Way". No one is fooled, the American way is not socialism. Pursuit of Happiness means your right to your private property , the General Welfare Clause in the constitution restricts the Federal Government from treating one state or region differently from another( IT DOES NOT GIVE THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT THE RIGHT TO COLLECT PEOPLES PROPERTY AND REDISTRIBUTE IT), and Justice means simply fairness under the law, there is no Social Justice. And for the people doing the planning survey here in Helena, I feel I must inform you that there is no GLOBAL LANGUAGE or GLOBAL CULTURE ! Countless dictatorships from the Communists to the Nazis have tried to change culture and enduring truths with their own form of propaganda, it has never worked and it won't work this time either.
A national curriculum such as the Common Core is a national disaster. It is a huge and shameful, to say nothing of UNLAWFUL, usurpation of power from the states and local school districts. The ideas in it up to this point, are pretty bad. Seriously, reading Martin Luther King's letter from the jail in Birmingham (which is a beautiful piece of literature) in an inner city classroom and asking the teacher to get the kids to concentrate on what the word tension means in this letter for a week, and then to discuss the points in it as Socrates would, are not going to happen. Frankly, most teachers are not versed in teaching Socratic thought. Taking all pre-reading skills away is a big jump, a big risk with no proven results. Combining Algebra and Geometry is also a big gamble. Where are the pretrials on all these things? The liberals have wanted a national curriculum almost as bad as national healthcare for a long time- all tenets of Marx and the centralized state.They want it, as Marx wanted it, to propagandize for their wonderful "new world order", so they think. What they are really doing is taking away the rights of local school districts to educate and creating a national disaster.
The industrialists such as Bill Gates who have been led down this primrose path will soon realize that they have not created a panacea in our schools that will give them the workers of tomorrow. Strong societal values and respect for this country as it was founded is what will allow America to build a strong economy that will give everyone a chance. Teachers in classrooms and local schools are the place to build curriculums that will work, not centralized wizards who think they (for some reason) are smarter than the rest of us and have an inside track on the future. God Bless America, and this fight, as our great Naval hero John Paul Jones declared, has only just begun!
Sure, technology has opened up communications the world wide, all the more reason to know what your national values are so as not to get confused. Good values, a good mind and the ability to read will take our students into the 21st century, whatever it may bring. I always go back to Apollo 13 when those men had to get their friends home. No one gave them lessons on perseverance and taking leadership in an emergency but they had the values they needed when the emergency occurred. They didn't have the technology we use today, they brought their friends home using a slide rule.
A few people in a room do not have the keys to our future in America. They don't know what the future is, only what they want it to be. This nation will not be changed to reflect their ideological biases. Sorry boys and girls, this trick has been tried many times before, and as the Catholic Bishop says, you lose.The enduring truths in our Declaration of Independence,"We hold these truths to be SELF- EVIDENT that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness---"will prevail. No small group of individuals will decide what Americans will believe, now or in the future. They may make a good run at destroying public education, but they will not determine the future of this country.
I notice all the liberal groups that name themselves as the "American Way". No one is fooled, the American way is not socialism. Pursuit of Happiness means your right to your private property , the General Welfare Clause in the constitution restricts the Federal Government from treating one state or region differently from another( IT DOES NOT GIVE THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT THE RIGHT TO COLLECT PEOPLES PROPERTY AND REDISTRIBUTE IT), and Justice means simply fairness under the law, there is no Social Justice. And for the people doing the planning survey here in Helena, I feel I must inform you that there is no GLOBAL LANGUAGE or GLOBAL CULTURE ! Countless dictatorships from the Communists to the Nazis have tried to change culture and enduring truths with their own form of propaganda, it has never worked and it won't work this time either.
A national curriculum such as the Common Core is a national disaster. It is a huge and shameful, to say nothing of UNLAWFUL, usurpation of power from the states and local school districts. The ideas in it up to this point, are pretty bad. Seriously, reading Martin Luther King's letter from the jail in Birmingham (which is a beautiful piece of literature) in an inner city classroom and asking the teacher to get the kids to concentrate on what the word tension means in this letter for a week, and then to discuss the points in it as Socrates would, are not going to happen. Frankly, most teachers are not versed in teaching Socratic thought. Taking all pre-reading skills away is a big jump, a big risk with no proven results. Combining Algebra and Geometry is also a big gamble. Where are the pretrials on all these things? The liberals have wanted a national curriculum almost as bad as national healthcare for a long time- all tenets of Marx and the centralized state.They want it, as Marx wanted it, to propagandize for their wonderful "new world order", so they think. What they are really doing is taking away the rights of local school districts to educate and creating a national disaster.
The industrialists such as Bill Gates who have been led down this primrose path will soon realize that they have not created a panacea in our schools that will give them the workers of tomorrow. Strong societal values and respect for this country as it was founded is what will allow America to build a strong economy that will give everyone a chance. Teachers in classrooms and local schools are the place to build curriculums that will work, not centralized wizards who think they (for some reason) are smarter than the rest of us and have an inside track on the future. God Bless America, and this fight, as our great Naval hero John Paul Jones declared, has only just begun!
Tuesday, 1 May 2012
ANOTHER ROLE TAKEN ON BY THE SCHOOLS
Did you know that the schools are now responsible for determining if your children are mentally ill? Yes, and lo and behold, they're finding quite a few children that are "mentally ill"!Several "non profits" are busy doing behavior modification in our schools and determining which children they deem to be "mentally ill". "Non profits" are businesses and they seek to grow just like any business does. Just look at the hot lunch program. They started with lunch, moved to lunch and breakfast, then to snacks and barbecues, then to summer lunch programs, then to giving all kids breakfast,lunch and snacks with no income requirement. Who knows where it's going next??So are the "non profits" in the "mental health" business going to seek to grow like the free food programs? Are we going to see the number of children labeled as "mentally ill" skyrocket?!!
The principal at Rossiter School disclosed at the April 24th board meeting that they now have 46 mentally ill students as identified by the "non profit" Intermountain which is working in the school. She reported 485 students total at Rossiter, so that would mean that close to 10% of her students are identified as "mentally ill"!! She did report that she was having some trouble convincing at least some of the parents that their children were "mentally ill"!!
I taught in the public schools for 30 years, including 9 years in Special Education, and I will tell you that I did come across my share of "brats". These are kids that act up in class. They're not mentally ill. They may need some discipline or to straighten out their attitude. Mental illness is things like paranoid-schizophrenia and psychosis. I'm not a Psychiatrist, but then again, neither are the people doing all of this diagnosing! I don't like labeling kids-not even as a brat- sometimes you get frustrated for a moment. But seriously- mentally ill? This is serious stuff. I had kids with some pretty good emotional problems, but I never had a mentally ill student. As mentioned on this blog earlier, Youth Connections, another "non profit" is surveying kids at the high schools and determined last year that 27% of the kids they surveyed had "mental health" issues.
The number of behavior programs in school has now reached critical mass, let's see, there is the Montana Behavior Initiative which has everyone going to workshops and assemblies, putting signs up everywhere and chanting, the Bully program which tries to keep everyone in a politically correct box, Youth Connections which behavior modifies for all students in kindergarten- I'm guessing they'll want to be moving on up, growing their program for all, counseling programs during class time, for all sutdents at every grade level in the elementary, Dare programs, Resource Officer programs, Power programs which track every single thing a child does in his school career from bus behavior to attendance, mental health "surveys", health teachers coming in to teach about contraception and barriers for all kinds of bizarre sexual acts, I'm probably missing some things but you get the idea.
We were sitting at Hardees the other night and two families with young children came in. The first family had two three year olds, mom was ordering and holding one of them, Dad put one in a booth and went to fill up their drink. We looked over and the little one in the booth smiled and said hello to us! Then another mom came in with two little ones about the same age and everything was crazy. They were yelling, climbing and running everywhere. She was trying to talk to them, trying to get them to be quiet, trying to get them to sit down, etc. etc. You get the idea? When you parent right it doesn't take so much. Do you think maybe our schools are expending more now and getting a lot less? Have you seen the garbage in the parking lot at Capital High School lately? Have you heard the statistics about 25% drop out rates and 25% of the kids being on marijuana? How about premarital sex and babies born out of wedlock? With all the behavior programs things have gotten worse. So what's the answer?
Not everything that was done in the past was right or perfect but they seem to have done a much better job with students than what is happening today with gobs of money and a seemingly unlimited amount of programs put in place at the expense of classroom academic time. I think that the answer is that there is no replacement for societal rules. Rules that come from home and are not challenged by social engineers at school, but instead, are reinforced. Like the first family at Hardees, it's not that hard when society has universal rules. You don't have to have chants, assemblies and posters everywhere. The children know what the expectations are and they meet those goals. It's just the way it is. When I was in school we had one film on drugs. It was in black and white and it showed these creeps hanging out outside the school chain link fence. The message was clear. People that take drugs are frightening losers, run away and call the police, period. There was no question about it, no relativity. No one would do it. Drug users were criminals and social outcasts. The same with sex. You could enjoy dating because premarital sex was a taboo. Girls who did it were sluts, and no one wanted to be talked about as a slut. No relativity.
Our children are not mentally ill, they are growing up in a society that has allowed politically correct social engineers with a profit motive to destroy the morals and ethics that built a strong America. We need to send these people packing and raise our own children with the enduring values of all time. Schools are for educating and that's all, once they realize that, our academic scores will improve too. Parents need to see to it that the schools are put back in their place as educators and leave the child rearing to the families! No more new roles for the schools, just educate and that's it!
The principal at Rossiter School disclosed at the April 24th board meeting that they now have 46 mentally ill students as identified by the "non profit" Intermountain which is working in the school. She reported 485 students total at Rossiter, so that would mean that close to 10% of her students are identified as "mentally ill"!! She did report that she was having some trouble convincing at least some of the parents that their children were "mentally ill"!!
I taught in the public schools for 30 years, including 9 years in Special Education, and I will tell you that I did come across my share of "brats". These are kids that act up in class. They're not mentally ill. They may need some discipline or to straighten out their attitude. Mental illness is things like paranoid-schizophrenia and psychosis. I'm not a Psychiatrist, but then again, neither are the people doing all of this diagnosing! I don't like labeling kids-not even as a brat- sometimes you get frustrated for a moment. But seriously- mentally ill? This is serious stuff. I had kids with some pretty good emotional problems, but I never had a mentally ill student. As mentioned on this blog earlier, Youth Connections, another "non profit" is surveying kids at the high schools and determined last year that 27% of the kids they surveyed had "mental health" issues.
The number of behavior programs in school has now reached critical mass, let's see, there is the Montana Behavior Initiative which has everyone going to workshops and assemblies, putting signs up everywhere and chanting, the Bully program which tries to keep everyone in a politically correct box, Youth Connections which behavior modifies for all students in kindergarten- I'm guessing they'll want to be moving on up, growing their program for all, counseling programs during class time, for all sutdents at every grade level in the elementary, Dare programs, Resource Officer programs, Power programs which track every single thing a child does in his school career from bus behavior to attendance, mental health "surveys", health teachers coming in to teach about contraception and barriers for all kinds of bizarre sexual acts, I'm probably missing some things but you get the idea.
We were sitting at Hardees the other night and two families with young children came in. The first family had two three year olds, mom was ordering and holding one of them, Dad put one in a booth and went to fill up their drink. We looked over and the little one in the booth smiled and said hello to us! Then another mom came in with two little ones about the same age and everything was crazy. They were yelling, climbing and running everywhere. She was trying to talk to them, trying to get them to be quiet, trying to get them to sit down, etc. etc. You get the idea? When you parent right it doesn't take so much. Do you think maybe our schools are expending more now and getting a lot less? Have you seen the garbage in the parking lot at Capital High School lately? Have you heard the statistics about 25% drop out rates and 25% of the kids being on marijuana? How about premarital sex and babies born out of wedlock? With all the behavior programs things have gotten worse. So what's the answer?
Not everything that was done in the past was right or perfect but they seem to have done a much better job with students than what is happening today with gobs of money and a seemingly unlimited amount of programs put in place at the expense of classroom academic time. I think that the answer is that there is no replacement for societal rules. Rules that come from home and are not challenged by social engineers at school, but instead, are reinforced. Like the first family at Hardees, it's not that hard when society has universal rules. You don't have to have chants, assemblies and posters everywhere. The children know what the expectations are and they meet those goals. It's just the way it is. When I was in school we had one film on drugs. It was in black and white and it showed these creeps hanging out outside the school chain link fence. The message was clear. People that take drugs are frightening losers, run away and call the police, period. There was no question about it, no relativity. No one would do it. Drug users were criminals and social outcasts. The same with sex. You could enjoy dating because premarital sex was a taboo. Girls who did it were sluts, and no one wanted to be talked about as a slut. No relativity.
Our children are not mentally ill, they are growing up in a society that has allowed politically correct social engineers with a profit motive to destroy the morals and ethics that built a strong America. We need to send these people packing and raise our own children with the enduring values of all time. Schools are for educating and that's all, once they realize that, our academic scores will improve too. Parents need to see to it that the schools are put back in their place as educators and leave the child rearing to the families! No more new roles for the schools, just educate and that's it!
Monday, 23 April 2012
WHAT WILL OUR FUTURE BE???
The supposed experts in the school district, and the planners they hire, like to talk a lot about 21st century skills, as if they knew what the future was going to be. That makes you feel kind of ham strung, until you realize that no one knows what the future will be, not even the school district "experts" and hired "experts".
The only thing we really know about the future is that if our country is to remain great, our citizens will need a whole lot of character. My daughter teaches in college and she had some students that didn't turn in their assignments. She told me "These are good students mom, but they got a zero. They know what the rules are in my class and I wouldn't be preparing them for their future in the work world if I didn't teach them the discipline of following rules and meeting deadlines." She's a first year teacher but she gets it. School is not just about the subject you are learning, it's about the character that gets you there.
When I started teaching in 1975, and throughout my career as a student, schools taught the character that is required to succeed. When I was a girl, if you had hot lunch(most kids brought a sack), you got meat, potatoes, fruit, a vegetable, a cookie and a milk. You didn't get to throw food away, the teachers made you eat what you had. What did I learn from this? I learned that I didn't always get what I wanted (like cheese pizza everyday and salad bar like kids get today), I learned to be frugal, you don't waste things. What are kids learning today at school? Just ask any cafeteria worker or teacher, food is thrown away by the bucketfuls, as if it had no value at all.
Everyday we saluted the flag and sang "My Country Tis Of Thee". We had Washington's birthday and Lincoln's birthday off of school. We made American flags for Washington's birthday and our teachers read us stories about this great man. On Lincoln's birthday we made stove pipe hats and read about this great president. What did I learn from this? I learned to love my country and I learned to respect the character of these great men. I learned what it took to be a great American. What do our kids learn in school today? If they have a good teacher they may learn that Washington refused to be a king when the people asked. They may learn that Lincoln was a poor child that worked hard and taught himself to read. But, too often, these stories are lost. President Washington, our first president, isn't even honored anymore with a holiday, no wonder some kids leave school not even knowing who our first president was!! The "realists" insist that George Washington didn't cut down a cherry tree and refuse to tell a lie.
Abraham Lincoln, the great president that saved the union, isn't honored by having his birthday remembered either. The mental health advocates are sure Lincoln was mentally ill!! So instead of learning character through these great statesmen, our students are learning the values of special interest advocates. Maybe some of these advocates have a good message, but does it replace the love and respect of national heroes that teach us to be honest, strong and persevering?
At the last planning meeting here in Helena the experts arranged focus group discussions on "the big idea". They invited every special interest group they could think of from Food Share to preschool advocates. Our school plan is not about a "big idea", it's about special interest advocates and meeting their goals in our schools!! The first question, believe it or not, was "What is your mission? What brings you to the table?"This kind of question always seems so ridiculous to me. What would your mission be at school? Wouldn't it be to educate the children? Apparently not. One of the tables blathered on about how school is there to provide food, clothing and shelter!! You might ask " Is this for everyone or just the students?" I believe the answer would be everyone as they advocated for a community breakfast! So, what character are they advocating to teach the children? They want to teach the children that people can not make it on their own. Don't expect to make it on your own or for your parents to take care of you. Turn to the government for every need. They mentioned " children should never feel ashamed to ask for a clothing voucher". Our children come to school well clothed and with coats. They are fortunate to live in a country with a free enterprise system that makes our citizenry the wealthiest in the world. Our poor have more than poor people the world over. So why do we want to teach values that will destroy the entrepreneurial spirit of this nation when our children aren't even in that kind of need? This is a socialist world view that is destroying the character of our people and bankrupting our nation.
Have you noticed that we are starting to see trash just thrown on the ground now? We never had that before. People had responsibility, integrity and pride. Not the kind of pride that you get from a clothing voucher, the pride that comes from self discipline. The self discipline that you learn in school from the stories about the honor and self sacrifice of our national heroes. This is national pride, Americans don't throw garbage. They don't take drugs. They are not sexually promiscuous. They stand for honor, hard work and American know how. They don't borrow irresponsibly either. They are not victims.
If we want a future that is bright with honor, respect and self sacrifice we need to start teaching it to our children again. We need to teach them that they and their families CAN TAKE CARE OF THEMSELVES! If they can't afford something maybe they don't need it. Maybe they'll be rich someday if they work hard enough and are careful with what they earn. Poor people in America become rich everyday. Most of us have more than our parents had. Our government needs to set the example by paying off its debts so these kids won't be overburdened with taxes and they'll have a chance to make it. The "big idea" should be to save America from this sorry pit of Socialist despair and debt. The truth is we can determine what our own future will be if we decide to teach character again instead of victimization. I was poor once. No one helped me. I worked, I planned and I dreamed. I had the values and ethics to set goals and endure self sacrifice. I was only 17 years old, but school and my parents had taught me that I could take care of myself, and I did. I'm not poor anymore. That's what we want for all of our children, that's the big idea. Teach children to be self sufficient. A good education and the values that built a nation will bring them and all of us to a brighter tomorrow. This is a future we know about. We've seen state run economies and socialist countries, THEY DON'T WORK!!! THEY LEAD TO CORRUPTION AND ECONOMIC COLLAPSE!! We don't need to guess about 21st century skills if we continue down this socialist road. History clearly tells us where we're heading. The national debt and deficit tell us where we are heading. We don't know what our future will be, but we know how to work toward a good future for all, by teaching our children the values that built the greatest nation on this earth.
The only thing we really know about the future is that if our country is to remain great, our citizens will need a whole lot of character. My daughter teaches in college and she had some students that didn't turn in their assignments. She told me "These are good students mom, but they got a zero. They know what the rules are in my class and I wouldn't be preparing them for their future in the work world if I didn't teach them the discipline of following rules and meeting deadlines." She's a first year teacher but she gets it. School is not just about the subject you are learning, it's about the character that gets you there.
When I started teaching in 1975, and throughout my career as a student, schools taught the character that is required to succeed. When I was a girl, if you had hot lunch(most kids brought a sack), you got meat, potatoes, fruit, a vegetable, a cookie and a milk. You didn't get to throw food away, the teachers made you eat what you had. What did I learn from this? I learned that I didn't always get what I wanted (like cheese pizza everyday and salad bar like kids get today), I learned to be frugal, you don't waste things. What are kids learning today at school? Just ask any cafeteria worker or teacher, food is thrown away by the bucketfuls, as if it had no value at all.
Everyday we saluted the flag and sang "My Country Tis Of Thee". We had Washington's birthday and Lincoln's birthday off of school. We made American flags for Washington's birthday and our teachers read us stories about this great man. On Lincoln's birthday we made stove pipe hats and read about this great president. What did I learn from this? I learned to love my country and I learned to respect the character of these great men. I learned what it took to be a great American. What do our kids learn in school today? If they have a good teacher they may learn that Washington refused to be a king when the people asked. They may learn that Lincoln was a poor child that worked hard and taught himself to read. But, too often, these stories are lost. President Washington, our first president, isn't even honored anymore with a holiday, no wonder some kids leave school not even knowing who our first president was!! The "realists" insist that George Washington didn't cut down a cherry tree and refuse to tell a lie.
Abraham Lincoln, the great president that saved the union, isn't honored by having his birthday remembered either. The mental health advocates are sure Lincoln was mentally ill!! So instead of learning character through these great statesmen, our students are learning the values of special interest advocates. Maybe some of these advocates have a good message, but does it replace the love and respect of national heroes that teach us to be honest, strong and persevering?
At the last planning meeting here in Helena the experts arranged focus group discussions on "the big idea". They invited every special interest group they could think of from Food Share to preschool advocates. Our school plan is not about a "big idea", it's about special interest advocates and meeting their goals in our schools!! The first question, believe it or not, was "What is your mission? What brings you to the table?"This kind of question always seems so ridiculous to me. What would your mission be at school? Wouldn't it be to educate the children? Apparently not. One of the tables blathered on about how school is there to provide food, clothing and shelter!! You might ask " Is this for everyone or just the students?" I believe the answer would be everyone as they advocated for a community breakfast! So, what character are they advocating to teach the children? They want to teach the children that people can not make it on their own. Don't expect to make it on your own or for your parents to take care of you. Turn to the government for every need. They mentioned " children should never feel ashamed to ask for a clothing voucher". Our children come to school well clothed and with coats. They are fortunate to live in a country with a free enterprise system that makes our citizenry the wealthiest in the world. Our poor have more than poor people the world over. So why do we want to teach values that will destroy the entrepreneurial spirit of this nation when our children aren't even in that kind of need? This is a socialist world view that is destroying the character of our people and bankrupting our nation.
Have you noticed that we are starting to see trash just thrown on the ground now? We never had that before. People had responsibility, integrity and pride. Not the kind of pride that you get from a clothing voucher, the pride that comes from self discipline. The self discipline that you learn in school from the stories about the honor and self sacrifice of our national heroes. This is national pride, Americans don't throw garbage. They don't take drugs. They are not sexually promiscuous. They stand for honor, hard work and American know how. They don't borrow irresponsibly either. They are not victims.
If we want a future that is bright with honor, respect and self sacrifice we need to start teaching it to our children again. We need to teach them that they and their families CAN TAKE CARE OF THEMSELVES! If they can't afford something maybe they don't need it. Maybe they'll be rich someday if they work hard enough and are careful with what they earn. Poor people in America become rich everyday. Most of us have more than our parents had. Our government needs to set the example by paying off its debts so these kids won't be overburdened with taxes and they'll have a chance to make it. The "big idea" should be to save America from this sorry pit of Socialist despair and debt. The truth is we can determine what our own future will be if we decide to teach character again instead of victimization. I was poor once. No one helped me. I worked, I planned and I dreamed. I had the values and ethics to set goals and endure self sacrifice. I was only 17 years old, but school and my parents had taught me that I could take care of myself, and I did. I'm not poor anymore. That's what we want for all of our children, that's the big idea. Teach children to be self sufficient. A good education and the values that built a nation will bring them and all of us to a brighter tomorrow. This is a future we know about. We've seen state run economies and socialist countries, THEY DON'T WORK!!! THEY LEAD TO CORRUPTION AND ECONOMIC COLLAPSE!! We don't need to guess about 21st century skills if we continue down this socialist road. History clearly tells us where we're heading. The national debt and deficit tell us where we are heading. We don't know what our future will be, but we know how to work toward a good future for all, by teaching our children the values that built the greatest nation on this earth.
Thursday, 12 April 2012
BELLY OF THE BEAST
We saw another non-budget budget last night at the board meeting. Oh, they showed a salary amount and a few reductions called programmatic changes, even the projected deficit ( after the levy!) of about $251,000 - but where is the money spent? How many federal grants are being served by our district? How much cost does the district assume for these grants? We see a utility savings of $75,000.00 (warm winter) but how much are we paying in additional utilities for Lincoln and Ray Bjork that house only programs on Federal Grants (PAL, Head Start, PEAK, Special Education preschool)? I've seen budgets down to paper clips with no mention of where the $250,000.00 fee for MOSAIC (the planning firm) came from. Just a vague reference to "Contingency funds" when I asked. Does the board even know where they are spending our money? Do they care? I mentioned that DARE has not reduced drug usage for 30 years and a board member told me- astonishingly- that there's other things to look at than effectiveness.
SERIOUSLY? WHAT WOULD THAT BE ??
I have never seen a budget that shows where all the district dollars are being spent. I have never seen a breakdown in school costs versus program costs. I know all these programs think they're basic academics- BUT THEY ARE NOT!! Sadly I have never seen a grant, the cost of or the effectiveness of it, ever discussed by the board. In fact, I don't think the board is consulted before a grant is applied for. The budget is just up in the air it seems. The board voted for the most expensive option in voting for busses with seat belts, with no discussion of the districts looming deficits. I believe what we are seeing here in Helena is a microcosm of exactly what is going on in our nations capital-THE BELLY OF THE BEAST!! They did have a presentation from PEAK, and asked some questions, but PEAK isn't going anywhere apparently. I don't know about you folks but when we make a big purchase at our house we look at all our costs before deciding to go ahead with it. If we don't have the money we don't make the purchase. The way budgets are presented the board doesn't really know what they can afford. I guess that's why they go for the most expensive options and never question new programs- only praise them.
The schools in Helena are a soft hit for every radical group out there, especially since they passed the "Comprehensive Health" plan and got away with it. Things are so corrupt that the wife of the president of the union is running for the school board- legally!! I have no doubt that she will win and then not recuse herself from the union contract negotiations!! Wow. The democrats are running three candidates for two seats- interesting. Are they trying to get rid of a particular board member who voted against the Comprehensive Health? They are very brazen now- you better be with them on everything or your out!!
THE BELLY OF THE BEAST becomes more corrupt and irresponsible all the time. The name of the game is to go along with and praise every federal program, especially "Comprehensive Health". Surprise surprise- did you know a Comprehensive Health teacher is getting an award as an outstanding educator?? Yes, if you want to be an outstanding educator just learn how to teach "barriers to oral and anal sex" to 5th graders!!How long have the liberals been playing this awards game? Has anyone besides me woken up to it? The liberals sure hope not- if you wake up to it there goes one big crack in their public relations game.
The board is so bowled over and insecure that they have been talked into believing they can't even run the school district without firms (like we did in the old days when we had more students, more elementary schools, and better scores). They needed a firm to find five people to interview for the superintendents job and to choose one. Now they think they may need that same firm to help them decide how to evaluate the superintendent and to set goals (even though they hired this superintendent because strategic planning was his area of expertise!)Three more expensive workshops- and remember the budget is in a $250,000.00 deficit. The workshops also include costs for travel, lodging and meals for the consultants!Wow- they just spend money as if it just keeps coming from SOMEWHERE. I guess they don't run out of money as we do in our own household budgets.
Our board members are educated individuals but they don't think they can decide to have their professionals write a good curriculum, choose good curriculum materials, and teach in a challenging, competitive and comprehensive way. Essentially, they think they need a firm to get them on board with NATIONAL objectives. Common Core gives them a ready made curriculum, so I guess the STRATEGIC PLAN is just to get in line with all the FEDERAL PROGRAMS.
THE BELLY OF THE BEAST is an ugly place. It's a place where schools aren't run locally anymore and school board members don't even have control of their budget,much less,know what programs are coming and going in their schools. A place where board members don't dare to evaluate programs and choose the ones they want and the ones they don't want. A place where nepotism, like the board chair advocating for programs that are under his umbrella as state chair of AWARE, or the union president's wife running for the school board, is accepted with a nod and a yawn. I yearn for the day when the public will wake up and limited government,common sense and school vouchers will run a dagger through the BELLY OF THE BEAST!!
SERIOUSLY? WHAT WOULD THAT BE ??
I have never seen a budget that shows where all the district dollars are being spent. I have never seen a breakdown in school costs versus program costs. I know all these programs think they're basic academics- BUT THEY ARE NOT!! Sadly I have never seen a grant, the cost of or the effectiveness of it, ever discussed by the board. In fact, I don't think the board is consulted before a grant is applied for. The budget is just up in the air it seems. The board voted for the most expensive option in voting for busses with seat belts, with no discussion of the districts looming deficits. I believe what we are seeing here in Helena is a microcosm of exactly what is going on in our nations capital-THE BELLY OF THE BEAST!! They did have a presentation from PEAK, and asked some questions, but PEAK isn't going anywhere apparently. I don't know about you folks but when we make a big purchase at our house we look at all our costs before deciding to go ahead with it. If we don't have the money we don't make the purchase. The way budgets are presented the board doesn't really know what they can afford. I guess that's why they go for the most expensive options and never question new programs- only praise them.
The schools in Helena are a soft hit for every radical group out there, especially since they passed the "Comprehensive Health" plan and got away with it. Things are so corrupt that the wife of the president of the union is running for the school board- legally!! I have no doubt that she will win and then not recuse herself from the union contract negotiations!! Wow. The democrats are running three candidates for two seats- interesting. Are they trying to get rid of a particular board member who voted against the Comprehensive Health? They are very brazen now- you better be with them on everything or your out!!
THE BELLY OF THE BEAST becomes more corrupt and irresponsible all the time. The name of the game is to go along with and praise every federal program, especially "Comprehensive Health". Surprise surprise- did you know a Comprehensive Health teacher is getting an award as an outstanding educator?? Yes, if you want to be an outstanding educator just learn how to teach "barriers to oral and anal sex" to 5th graders!!How long have the liberals been playing this awards game? Has anyone besides me woken up to it? The liberals sure hope not- if you wake up to it there goes one big crack in their public relations game.
The board is so bowled over and insecure that they have been talked into believing they can't even run the school district without firms (like we did in the old days when we had more students, more elementary schools, and better scores). They needed a firm to find five people to interview for the superintendents job and to choose one. Now they think they may need that same firm to help them decide how to evaluate the superintendent and to set goals (even though they hired this superintendent because strategic planning was his area of expertise!)Three more expensive workshops- and remember the budget is in a $250,000.00 deficit. The workshops also include costs for travel, lodging and meals for the consultants!Wow- they just spend money as if it just keeps coming from SOMEWHERE. I guess they don't run out of money as we do in our own household budgets.
Our board members are educated individuals but they don't think they can decide to have their professionals write a good curriculum, choose good curriculum materials, and teach in a challenging, competitive and comprehensive way. Essentially, they think they need a firm to get them on board with NATIONAL objectives. Common Core gives them a ready made curriculum, so I guess the STRATEGIC PLAN is just to get in line with all the FEDERAL PROGRAMS.
THE BELLY OF THE BEAST is an ugly place. It's a place where schools aren't run locally anymore and school board members don't even have control of their budget,much less,know what programs are coming and going in their schools. A place where board members don't dare to evaluate programs and choose the ones they want and the ones they don't want. A place where nepotism, like the board chair advocating for programs that are under his umbrella as state chair of AWARE, or the union president's wife running for the school board, is accepted with a nod and a yawn. I yearn for the day when the public will wake up and limited government,common sense and school vouchers will run a dagger through the BELLY OF THE BEAST!!
Friday, 30 March 2012
MONKEY BUSINESS...
I don't read liberal comments on my blog much. The commenters have so little to say beyond name calling. I did hear from a friend that a comment about my blog was that I can't write - they were dismayed- a school teacher and I can't write! Hmmmm- and their proof is??? Maybe I'll just bumble along anyway-- do you think I should? If I don't MONKEY BUSINESS wins. MONKEY BUSINESS is the left's attempt to control what you think. For a long time they got away with this- people accepted what they said and didn't demand any proof (including yours truly here). But it must be frustrating for them now because- we're on to their MONKEY BUSINESS!!
Have any of you been to any of the Helena School District planning meetings? The planners are working on a survey- coincidentally called.... THE SURVEY MONKEY!! Well, there's lots of MONKEY BUSINESS on the SURVEY MONKEY and at the planning meetings. Everyone is invited to the meetings and to do the survey. Just go to the Helena School District web site and click on planning- you should find the SURVEY MONKEY there for you to click on and you can take the survey. It's interesting to be in a box that someone else has constructed for you and then to be told that they are collecting your ideas. REALLY?? I remember the life boat scenario from the old "Strategic Plan" fight here in Helena. You see- if someone tells you there are certain people on a life boat and it is sinking so someone has to get out and they ask you who should be thrown over board- they have put you in a box of their world view. Maybe you should have the option of each person swimming for a bit- or floating someone off the back etc.This is all symbolic of course but you get the idea- if someone else makes up the rules and the agenda you aren't really expressing your opinion or your ideas- you're responding to theirs.
Here's how the SURVEY MONKEY goes- would you like a traditional school that impedes learning or an open concept school where all the students are happy and getting a good education? Gee- are you sure all traditional schools like the KIP academy ( which has the best academic achievement in the nation) are impeding academic progress? Are you sure all open schools are wonderful? After all, we built open schools at Rossiter and Four Georgians and we had to put in temporary walls that have been permanent since the schools were built. But, I don't want to be a trouble maker and mention all this. I don't want to appear ignorant so I guess I just better go along with this program. After all, I sure don't want to impede academic progress in Helena. Yeah right.
Here's another one- do you like our schools the way they are today where children and family needs are not met, or schools where there are places for all people in the "community" to meet and get their needs met (think- Federal Grant family resource centers that teach people how to fill out a job application and get gas for their car etc.) Wow- but I thought schools were for children to get an education? Are you duplicating any services here? How will this impact a competitive education that is academically focused? Gee- I guess everybody needs these services and there's no other option to choose here unless I don't want kids needs to be met. But wait a minute- aren't children's needs at school to learn math and reading?
And so it goes- these gurus know the future (actually someone in Washington D.C. gave them that secret). They know everything, and if you don't agree you're just backward and ignorant. They now know how to make kids graduation and career ready too, thank goodness, they've done a very poor job up to now. But wait a minute, let's explore some of these ideas. Connectedness-hmmm- sounds kind of like whole language which has been a whole failure for 30 years. Project learning- hmmm- sounds a lot like cooperative learning which never worked and was a fiasco. Oh my- collaboration? See cooperative learning again. You mean this whole thing could be a huge experiment with our education system that becomes a huge failure? Yes, indeed.
I'm reading Victor Hugo's Les Miserables. This is an interesting book if you're interested in French history. It's always eye opening to read history and find that what is happening where you are today is often not new at all, but something that happened the same way many times before. Here's a quote I loved "The counterfeits of the past take assumed names, and are fond of calling themselves the future." Right on Victor!! How COULD you have known the people doing our school planning??
Seriously, beware of all of this. Good change comes incrementally and locally. Common Core Standards are truly another well intentioned fiasco. Our teachers and students have been pulled hither and yon with all this CENTRAL PLANNING. Let's stop all the MONKEY BUSINESS and get back to good, competitive academic education, MONTANA STYLE!!
Have any of you been to any of the Helena School District planning meetings? The planners are working on a survey- coincidentally called.... THE SURVEY MONKEY!! Well, there's lots of MONKEY BUSINESS on the SURVEY MONKEY and at the planning meetings. Everyone is invited to the meetings and to do the survey. Just go to the Helena School District web site and click on planning- you should find the SURVEY MONKEY there for you to click on and you can take the survey. It's interesting to be in a box that someone else has constructed for you and then to be told that they are collecting your ideas. REALLY?? I remember the life boat scenario from the old "Strategic Plan" fight here in Helena. You see- if someone tells you there are certain people on a life boat and it is sinking so someone has to get out and they ask you who should be thrown over board- they have put you in a box of their world view. Maybe you should have the option of each person swimming for a bit- or floating someone off the back etc.This is all symbolic of course but you get the idea- if someone else makes up the rules and the agenda you aren't really expressing your opinion or your ideas- you're responding to theirs.
Here's how the SURVEY MONKEY goes- would you like a traditional school that impedes learning or an open concept school where all the students are happy and getting a good education? Gee- are you sure all traditional schools like the KIP academy ( which has the best academic achievement in the nation) are impeding academic progress? Are you sure all open schools are wonderful? After all, we built open schools at Rossiter and Four Georgians and we had to put in temporary walls that have been permanent since the schools were built. But, I don't want to be a trouble maker and mention all this. I don't want to appear ignorant so I guess I just better go along with this program. After all, I sure don't want to impede academic progress in Helena. Yeah right.
Here's another one- do you like our schools the way they are today where children and family needs are not met, or schools where there are places for all people in the "community" to meet and get their needs met (think- Federal Grant family resource centers that teach people how to fill out a job application and get gas for their car etc.) Wow- but I thought schools were for children to get an education? Are you duplicating any services here? How will this impact a competitive education that is academically focused? Gee- I guess everybody needs these services and there's no other option to choose here unless I don't want kids needs to be met. But wait a minute- aren't children's needs at school to learn math and reading?
And so it goes- these gurus know the future (actually someone in Washington D.C. gave them that secret). They know everything, and if you don't agree you're just backward and ignorant. They now know how to make kids graduation and career ready too, thank goodness, they've done a very poor job up to now. But wait a minute, let's explore some of these ideas. Connectedness-hmmm- sounds kind of like whole language which has been a whole failure for 30 years. Project learning- hmmm- sounds a lot like cooperative learning which never worked and was a fiasco. Oh my- collaboration? See cooperative learning again. You mean this whole thing could be a huge experiment with our education system that becomes a huge failure? Yes, indeed.
I'm reading Victor Hugo's Les Miserables. This is an interesting book if you're interested in French history. It's always eye opening to read history and find that what is happening where you are today is often not new at all, but something that happened the same way many times before. Here's a quote I loved "The counterfeits of the past take assumed names, and are fond of calling themselves the future." Right on Victor!! How COULD you have known the people doing our school planning??
Seriously, beware of all of this. Good change comes incrementally and locally. Common Core Standards are truly another well intentioned fiasco. Our teachers and students have been pulled hither and yon with all this CENTRAL PLANNING. Let's stop all the MONKEY BUSINESS and get back to good, competitive academic education, MONTANA STYLE!!
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