Aunt Spiker

Yeah - it's sad that it took this type of political-brooha to get people to care, again, and try to encourage the students.

Imagine if they had been trying to boost their confidence (minus the propoganda) all this time, how much better off we'd be.

Sadly - this newfound interest is only because of a man - if it came around so quickly then will it go away quickly, too, whne he's no longer president - that worries me.

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MrVicchio

How does one "boost confidence" in a system where you know you cannot fail, the grades are inflated, and the course dumbed down... where the most achieving students are no longer honored because "It might hurt the feelings of those who don't succeed"?

The school system is completely FUBAR.

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Both of our PC's died. I am using a 2004-5 era Mac. It's SLOW. So if you see a TYPO in my posts, forgive it.
Cause this stupid POS sux.

1069

...


I don't think white males can possibly have any conception of what an enormous, life-altering deal it has been for everybody except white males to have someone who isn't a white male elected president.
I'm sure that for minorities, it's an even bigger deal, but even for me, as a white female, it's enormously exciting.
I thought for sure the white men had a clinch on the presidency that would certainly not be broken within my lifetime.
Racism is far from dead; the power structure is still white and male, Obama notwithstanding.
I can't believe he pulled it off.
If somebody like him can do it, then that means that someday- within my lifetime- somebody like me will be able to do it.
And that's not something I grew up being able to believe.
I've lived 35 years, and it's only in the past year that I've been able to believe that, and it's a good thing to believe and to know.
Although we all try not to think about it, it is not a good feeling to be aware that you could never realistically aspire to high office because of your race or sex. You internalize it, and it makes you feel bad about yourself, or else you externalize it, and it makes you feel bad about the power structure and the ruling sex and race.
Obama took that bad feeling away, for a lot of people.
Regardless of what else he does, he did that.
It matters, and it will always matter.
It changes everything.

Aunt Spiker

I meant that instead of doing all that to push kids through, etc - if they tried to just seriously encourage them and give them a (non-political) but very positive role model none of the crap that HAS happened WOULD have happened.
(maybe, anyway).

Before this - I never heard of any songs from any school kids about them achieving and doing something with themselves - so though the songs are skewed with their political-focus, obviously kids are receptive to messages of "yes we can."

On an alternative note - I think that courses aren't being dumbed down as a result of stupidity. I think they expect too much, sometimes, and that leads to a lot of students not being able to keep up.

My daughter is 5 - and already knows how to add. Which is GREAT, she's very smart and loves to do math - but I absolutely know that a lot of other kids just can't grasp the concept so young, and so early on they struggle. (her older brothers, for example)

I was suprised (years ago when my first started school) that they expected kids to already know their phone numbers, address, how to write their name, use scissors, and all sorts of other things that I remmeber learning in Kindergarden.

It seems that, in the effort to push them forward, they ended up holding a lot back - not on purpose, but you get my point.

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chevydriver1123

This why as parents you beat your children. My dad did it to me when I did stupid **** like this or when the school encourages its students to do it.

You say this like this is a new thing.

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Blog: http://libertarianblue.blogspot.com/
Death to Socialist Liberals and Authoritarian Conservatives

1069

Perhaps Obama inspires them in a way Bush didn't. Do you consider this a bad thing?
Before Obama, when we told black children and female children that- at least in theory- the sky was the limit, that they could be anything they wanted, achieve any goal as long as they worked hard enough, it was a lie.
It's hard to muster much enthusiasm for telling lies to children about their futures.
I'm not surprised that Obama's election has put a little zing back in the step of jaded and disheartened educators.

Aunt Spiker

It was a lie?

Obviously NOT because Obama didn't believe it and neither have a lot of blacks, women, Native Americans and so on ... so forth.

So what would have been the truth before he was elected? That "no matter how hard you achieve you will never make it to Congress, or onstage" - eventhough COUNTLESS others had done exactly that - because they wanted to.

Perhaps the attitude you're portraying: believing that they *couldn't make it* was part of the problem?
It's hard to believe someone when they say "you're pretty" - when they turn around and say you're not behind your back.

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1069

Barack Obama is a special and unique and gifted leader, to be sure; but nevertheless, until now conditions in America would never have allowed for him to become president. Social conditions changed within the past five years or so that made this a possibility.
Before that it would not have been a possibility, even if he were ten times as great as he actually is.
A lot of it has to do with the current racial demographics in the US and the numbers of minority Americans now eligible to vote... and the number of white voters now willing to vote for a person of color.
Not before now could this have happened; it doesn't matter whether children believed it could or not. It couldn't have. They could believe it all they wanted, but they would've been deluded, mistaken. It could not have happened prior to now.
Now it can.

Aunt Spiker

Just in the last 5 years? Maybe - busing to integrate schools was only officially ended in 1995 so that's probably a fair assessment.

I somehow grew up in a variety of states blessedly ignorant about race and other such issues - I was truly shocked to find that in our recent history we weren't really considered equal. The more i learned about our very recent past the more depressing our country became and the more I started to think that we really couldn't be anything we wanted to be.

I think that awareness happens to most at some point and it's a shocking realization - brings you down to size. You somewhat loose the innocents that's required to believe in fairy tales and Santa Clause. . . and equality.

So, though I don't like Obama, I feel that some people need to be energized. There's so much negative **** in this country's past it's enough to drive someone insane.

Likewise for Palin - I don't like her, either, for other reasons, but she did the same for a lot of women.

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American

Teacher World Teacher’s Song to Praise Obama Earns No Praise

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"Laws are made for men of ordinary understanding and should, therefore, be construed by the ordinary rules of common sense. Their meaning is not to be sought for in metaphysical subtleties which may make anything mean everything or nothing at pleasure." -- Thomas Jefferson יהוה