I never liked group work as a child.  The same few people always did all the work, and the same few people always sat around, goofed off, “forgot,” turned in nothing, and got the same grade as the rest of us.  Everyone in the group got the same grade, regardless of contribution.  Whenever the teacher started to divide us into groups, half the class would groan and the other half would grin.

It was unfair then and it’s unfair now.  I can still remember the feeling of outrage when this would happen.  I still feel outraged.

Why should good, hardworking students have to support lazy, non-contributing students?  Why should lazy, non-contributing students get the same grade as the students who actually did the work?

One group grade indeed.  Hong Kong Phooey.*

Unfair.  Unfair to the max.

And I may have just described our economic system.  Sigh.

Oh, and as far as the grasshopper and the ant are concerned:  why in the world should we pity the grasshopper?  He chose his way of life.  Let him reap the consequences.

*Bonus points if you know what that means.

P.S.  I wanted to insert a cool picture of Hamlet telling the skull he knew it well, but my blog will not let me upload pictures any more.  Are you an expert?  I need help here.

P.P.S.  My blog won’t show tags now, either.  Is it haunted?

Photoshop faces or abilities or personalities all you want: if you throw glitter on a dungheap, it’s still going to stink.

Before some of you arm yourselves and advance upon my home with lit torches, please be aware that I am in NO WAY discussing SPED.

I am, however, talking about students who refuse to work and parents who still expect them to be promoted, play sports, go to the prom, and wander the halls if they so desire because after all, Billy knows best about what he wants when he goes to school, and that hateful Ms. SkullDroppings has had it in for him ever since he accessed all that porn on her computer during lunch that time.  She didn’t even appreciate his expertise  in picking her lock, or in his mad computer skillz.  I mean, reallllllly.  (Bitch)  (It’s all right, Billy, Mommy understands you.)

Ahem.

A photoshopped picture isn’t really a picture of someone.  It’s only a picture of what that someone wished he/she looked like.  It’s a facade, with all the reality removed.

And any grade, privilege, promotion, award, etc, is. . . well, it’s a facade, too.  It’s fake.  It’s a facade, with all the reality removed.

Ooooh, shiny!  Pretty!

What stinks?

Mamacita says:  Back in the day, all middle school/junior high students had to take shop and home ec. They entered high school, and life, knowing how to use a hammer and nails, how to put together a simple meal, how to sew a straight seam, how to take a few simple tools and create something new or improved with them. These are life skills, not frills.

There are all kinds of creation, and an essay or mathematical equation or scientific proof are only some of them, and not necessarily the most important ones, either.

Back in the day, all elementary students were taught about basic musical and artistic base-line skills. Students were taught to read music, and to mix colors together to make new colors. Students were taught the lyrics to hundreds of songs, and how to sing harmony, and they were also taught how to recognize different artists by their personal styles and quirky signatures.

Schools used to require the students to memorize poems, and stories, and to write original ones, too.

Students entered high school knowing the rules for games, and about sportsmanship.

Cheaters were the lowest of the low, the scum of the earth.

They still are, but public opinion has changed quite a lot, and sometimes cheaters are exalted. This must cease. (insert smirk here, for who is going to stop it? Those with the power to do so are the same ones who often exalt it. Those with the power are sometimes the cheaters.) (Principal who insisted that plagiarists retain valedictory position, for example.) (Superintendents with no internet knowledge who make judgment calls based on. . . well, nothing.)

Cheaters are the lowest of the low, the scum of the earth. They may have achieved a victory now, but the wheel of life keeps turning, and the fly on the top will be the fly on the bottom eventually. And vice versa.

Ahem.

Doing away with woodshop and home ec and music and art, to make room for more and more practice sessions of ISTEP and review sessions for those subject areas that are covered in the mandated standardized tests, has done nothing but remove a few areas wherein some students found success, and replaced them with more areas wherein these students will certainly fail.

Not everybody is a rocket scientist or a writer or a mathematician. Some people are musicians and artists and craftsmen and carpenters and chefs.

And what is a rocket scientist’s or a writer’s or a mathematician’s life without music and art and furniture and food?

I firmly believe that every student should be exposed to as much and as many diverse areas of curriculum as is humanly possible according to the limiting laws of physics. Every person should know how to cook, and sew, and use simple tools, and recognize good music from bad, and look at a piece of art and see beyond the lines and borders.

Why are our schools casting the artistic and hands-on students aside in full favor of the academic students? Yes, schools ARE academic, but schools are also the institution that is supposed to prepare our students for the future, and the future depends on people who can read, write, do the math, understand basic scientific functions. . . . and feed themselves and others, and create beautiful objects for practical and impractical use, and nourish the soul and heart as well as the brain.

Only the finite can be ‘tested;’ therefore, only the finite is stressed and even allowed in our schools, these sad, sad days.

Maybe this is why so many of our young people drop out; the schools are offering nothing for them, only for those whose talents lie within the very limited boundaries of the ISTEP test.

Maybe this is why so many of our young people vandalize; they were taught nothing about what real art is, or even respect for it.

Maybe this is why so many of our young people listen to music that isn’t really music; they’ve never heard real music. It’s a fact that when the schools dropped music as a required subject, the recording industry took up the slack, and which of these has our kids’ loyalty now, hmmm?

Maybe this is why so many of our young people associate a song with a video; they’ve never experienced the joy and wonder of learning a song within a group and having it branded on the memory like a wonderful dream, and associating it with an experience rather than a television program..

Maybe this is why so many of our young people disrespect those who make their living with their hands; the school wherein they sat for years and years never emphasized it or showed them the importance of it. On Honor Day, the prizes for those who did well in ‘those’ kinds of classes were smaller and less shiny than the big trophies for “Most Improved Math Student,” or the many “Way To Show Up, Kid” self-esteem awards.

Maybe this is why so many of our young people are anorexic and bulemic and obese and existing on lard and salt and cholesterol; they were never taught the essentials of human nutrition and how to create it themselves.

Maybe I’m being too judgmental; it wouldn’t be the first time. Maybe I’m being too simplistic; well, of course I am. But even in a judgmental and overly simplistic mindset, I still think maybe I’m on to something here.

My dulcimer was created for me by a student named Rusty, who was pretty much nothing but a big illiterate hood, by academic and behavioral standards. He failed everything but woodshop, but in the woodshop he shone like a star. Put a pencil in his hand and he could do nothing but break it in two and throw the pieces at someone. Put a piece of paper in front of him and he would probably wad it up and spit it across the room. Ask him to spell a word and he would stare helplessly. But put him in a room full of hammers and nails and glue and pliers and saws and complicated directions, and he became a genius, a maestro wielding a screwdriver, and making beauty out of a piece of raw wood.

Our shop kids used to make dulcimers; it was their big project. Beautiful musical instruments, fashioned by the hoody crud of the student body. The kids were then taught to play them, and taken around to nursing homes and business clubs to perform.

No more, of course. The woodshop has been closed and locked for many years now. There just isn’t time for it any more, what with computer tech and ISTEP prep. Besides, all field trips have been done away with. (Except for athletics, of course. You really don’t want to get me started on THAT one. . . .)

Students like Rusty, who shone at nothing but hands-on, now shine at nothing. This isn’t right.

In our schools, we have fantastic musicians and artists. Back in the day, we cherished and nurtured these incredible talents. Now, we brush them aside and pull these kids from the studios and make them study only academics, because the arts aren’t tested. And if a subject isn’t on the test, it won’t be offered; at the very least, it won’t be taken seriously.

There are six or seven periods in the school day. Three or four subjects are ‘tested.’ The State has mandated “Advisor/Advisee” time, daily; that means our kids will get some serious counseling by some seriously untrained non-counselors. Some students will have as many as three study halls every day. This is inexcusable.

Of course, to do it all up properly would require the hiring of a few more teachers. We can’t DO that; those athletic buses and the athletic director’s five full-time assistants and the superintendent’s company car and $100,000+ salary take a lot of money.

And in many schools, the ’special’ teachers (art, music, etc) are shared by several buildings. Ask my Tumorless Sister about her schedule back when she taught at the elementary level, why don’tcha. It’s a moral disgrace. As parents, and as citizens, we should make our outrage at this misuse of talent known, with our voices and our votes.

Our children are more than a piece of paper with a few numbers on it.

I know first-hand what kind of travesties can occur when an administrator doesn’t know anything about a computer, and I think it’s disgraceful to be in this business and not know what the students have known for years, even the tiny ones. It would be difficult to respect an “educator” who was, himself/herself, not educated in the very necessary “today” and “tomorrow” skill of simple computer literacy. Holy scheisse, what are some of these people THINKING?

They’re NOT thinking; they’re quite content to keep on doing what they’ve always done, in the way they’ve always done it.  That’s the problem.  The world has changed and they have not.

“The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.” –Alvin Toffler

“It is, in fact, nothing short of a miracle that the modern methods of instruction have not entirely strangled the holy curiosity of inquiry.” –Albert Einstein

“Prejudices, it is well known, are most difficult to eradicate from the heart whose soil has never been loosened or fertilized by education; they grow there, firm as weeds among rocks.” –Charlotte Bronte

“In times of change, learners inherit the Earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.” –Eric Hoffer

“There is no greater crime than to stand between a man and his development; to take any law or institution and put it around him like a collar, and fasten it there, so that as he grows and enlarges, he presses against it till he suffocates and dies.” –Henry Ward Beecher

“Establishing lasting peace is the work of education; all politics can do is keep us out of war.” –Maria Montessori

“Too often we give our children answers to remember rather than problems to solve.” –Roger Lewin

“The joy of learning is as indispensable in study as breathing is in running. Where it is lacking there are no real students, but only poor caricatures of apprentices who, at the end of their apprenticeship, will not even have a trade.” –Simone Weil

Oh, and by the way, don’t try to use the excuse that you’re “too old to learn new tricks.” If that is really true, get out of our schools NOW. You are no longer needed there.

Mamacita, Scheiss Weekly

Mamacita says:  There are many things that are wrong with and in this country – many, many things. Open a newspaper, watch television, listen to the radio, surf around the blogosphere, pretty much all we hear about are the things that are wrong.

We SHOULD be hearing about them, too; if we don’t hear about them, we can’t work to make them right. One of the many things this country does do right is allow its citizens to talk about what it does wrong.

Making wrong things right is what we do here. It’s what this country was founded for. We’d still be a British colony if it wasn’t important for us to work hard to make wrong things right.

Any time more than four people get together for anything, one of them is going to want to do wrong. The other three have to help that one wrong person do right, but it actually goes deeper than that.

It has, sadly, become the responsibility of the other three to help that one person WANT to do right. Doing anything without understanding, and against one’s will, isn’t progress of any kind; doing anything without understanding, and against one’s will, is a kind of slavery. Uneducated people sometimes have to be dealt with in this way, and that is a shame, and that is also entirely their own fault.  Everyone has access to education in this country. Some schools are better than others, but any of them will at least teach a child to read if that child lets it. and whether or not a child lets it is the responsibility of the child and the child’s family. A family that does not allow the school to teach its child to read is a bad, bad family.

This country has always valued education as the means to promote the understanding that would help a person realize that. It used to work, too, until education was forced to include things that the family unit is supposed to teach and provide, as well. We are fast becoming a welfare state, and that is a definite downgrade from being an education state.

And why is the family unit not providing and teaching what it’s supposed to provide and teach, these days? Most family still are, but many families prefer to mooch off the government rolls. They have chosen to give up their independence and become the permanent poor relations, supported by those citizens who do still work. This was supposed to be a temporary fix, and people are supposed to be just a little big ashamed of being in this position. Welfare is supposed to be a somewhat embarrassing short-term episode in a person’s life, preceding a wage-earning job and giving a worker some income while he/she is seeking full-time work. We’ve removed all the embarrassment in the name of self esteem, and that was a mistake.

But you really don’t want to get me started about the self-esteem movement. I consider it to be like most other movements: full of the same sort of fecal matter.

Every day, more and more people join the welfare rolls, and for many it’s not the temporary helping hand it was meant to be. For many, it’s now a way of life. Some people believe that the welfare way is a right, and other people SHOULD be supporting them, sometimes forever. This was not the intention of welfare. It was intended to be temporary. It was never meant to be permanent.

An uneducated, or undereducated population is a dangerous thing. It quickly becomes a parasite, not an asset, sucking the lifeblood out of resources that really ought to be aimed elsewhere.

Ronald Reagan, who was not perfect, but then, neither are any of us, said “We should measure welfare’s success by how many people leave welfare, not by how many are added.”  In this, he  was right.

This country was founded by hard workers. This country has, as one of its foundations, education for the masses. It’s there, for free, for anybody who lives here to take full advantage of. To become an adult in this country and still not know how to read and write and support oneself is a disgrace, and that disgrace is not the country’s disgrace; it is a personal disgrace. In other words, if you do/did not take advantage of the opportunity to go to school; if you let yourself grow up without acquiring a single useful skill; if you allowed yourself to become an adult and did not learn how to support yourself, shame on you. I can’t think of a worse epithet for you than that. I know that shame is now politically incorrect, but that’s ridiculous, as are most political correctness attempts. Without shame, many people will never make themselves get up, walk out the door, and start earning their living themselves. Parasites are ugly. Parasites add nothing; they only subtract. Parasites destroy beauty. Parasites steal from others to enhance themselves without effort.

Those who are able-bodied and able to work, should work, for to take charity when one is fully able to do without it is a shameful thing. NO job is too menial if you don’t have one. No job is too menial if one is truly determined to do what is right. And what is right is to support oneself and any dependents one has acquired along the way.

Some of our immigrant ancestors were doctors and lawyers and professors back in the old country; they came here and took jobs as janitors and scrubwomen so their children could have the benefits this country offered. And since their children learned to speak the language, their job horizons were brighter than those of their parents. It is still so, today. Those who are educated have more options. They deserve more, too.

People who choose to take charity when they are perfectly capable of getting up and getting a job are to be despised for the societal leeches that that are. For every adult who uses welfare money to buy cigarettes, there is a little child somewhere NOT getting milk because there wasn’t any more money. The degradation of these adults is earned, of their own free will and decisions, and they deserve every bit of the disgust they receive.

The people who are the true citizens of this country, the true patriots, are those who made sure they had marketable skills and the ability to read, write, and generally take care of themselves and of others.

There are many people living here who claim to hate this country, and who work to bring it further down. There are people living here who rejoice in the streets when bad things happen to this country. I suggest that these people leave and leave now, and live elsewhere and see if any other country would put up with their whines and violence and gleeful reactions when others get hurt.

Those who insist on living here, yet reject the education, the opportunities for supporting themselves, and who feel justified in spending other people’s hard-earned money, are not the true Americans. They are parasites, and they are killing the rest of us.

Yes, this country has many faults. I defy anyone to name any other country that would put up with some of yours, or mine.

Freedom. Independence. Education for the masses. Rights. Responsibilities.

That is what we are. Take advantage of these things, if you have the guts and the brains and the heart and the decency. Ignore them if you don’t. That’s the freedom part.

Understand, though, that the hardworking educated population is getting very tired of supporting those who choose not to work, choose not to be educated, and choose not to behave themselves properly. We are also very tired of supporting anyone who does not understand that the right to swing his fist ends where the other person’s nose begins.

And those who claim their rights had better be prepared to stand up to their responsibilities as well. You can’t have one without the other, and keep either for long.

This country has learned many lessons: slavery is gone, discrimination is legally gone, although many people still have some lessons to learn (EDUCATION! DECENT FAMILIES!) Europeans came here to an already populated country and took over, without regard for people who had lived here for hundreds of years and already had well-established civilizations. Think how you would feel if aliens landed in spaceships and took over this country, completely disregarding your prior claim to your home and demanding that you leave immediately so they might build their culture on top of yours, and labeling and treating you as some kind of violent savage if you protested and tried to defend your property?

The point is – and I do tend to ramble late at night and other times as well – we made, and make, mistakes. Big ones. We must use our education to help right those wrongs, and help the nation aim for other and better goals. Learning from the past is what educated people do; dwelling on the past, not so much.

Aristotle said, “Educated men are as much superior to uneducated men, as the living are to the dead.” He was right.

Those who care only about themselves are not much good in any other circumstance. People who become accustomed to getting something for nothing become pretty much useless, too.

We must all get up, get to work, get cracking, get learning, get smarter every day. When we stop learning, they might as well bury us, as Lucy Maude Montgomery once said. (Quick! What did she write?)

Nowhere in the world is there any other country as free as ours. Nowhere else can everybody be educated. Nowhere else can we all go where we want, when we want, wear what we want, say what we want. . . .

In some countries, even if you have the money you still can’t have some things or go some places; it’s all about social levels.

If I said we didn’t have social levels here, it would be a joke because everybody knows that we do, even though we’re not supposed to. But here, our social levels are pretty much determined and evaluated by our education and behavior, not who your daddy was, or wasn’t.

In this country, we have equality of opportunity. If you think we don’t, you aren’t looking hard enough. Opportunity does knock, but you have to be smart enough to answer the door when it does, and to recognize it for what it is when you see it. That’s the education part.

Edison nailed it when he said that “Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work. ”

Everybody gripes about the state of the nation. You do; I do; everybody does. There’s a lot to gripe about. But I honestly believe that there is even more to rejoice about, and to be grateful for, and to appreciate.

If everybody swept their own front steps, the whole world would be clean.

I don’t mind loaning someone my broom, but I do expect him/her to do his/her own sweeping.

I’m glad I live here. I’m glad you do, too.

But it is a crying shame that so many people don’t do their fair share and expect us to do it for them. Sweep your own steps. It’s not rocket science.

Have a safe and enjoyable Independence Day. Watch out for aliens; they shoot to kill. I seen it in a movie oncet, with Will Smith. It were cul.

I do not believe that a student who can’t pass a simple test of basic skills should be graduated from high school. I do not believe that a student who can’t pass a simple test of basic skills should be promoted at all, in fact.

There are certain basic skills that all people simply must have in order to care for themselves, and for others, in this life. Those who allow themselves to become adults, yet do not have these basic skills, are potentially. . . societal leeches. It is just simply a disgrace to become an adult and not have the ability to support oneself. Perhaps my point of view differs only in the direction of the Pointing Finger of Blame.

I blame the student, with a hefty amount of blame for the family, as well. A little blame for the teacher, and a big pointy middle finger at administration. But mostly? I blame the student.

Yes, we have some pretty lousy schools. Some of them are lousy because they hired lousy teachers. However, I believe that many of our “lousy” schools are bad because of the political pressure of certain families who WILL NOT ALLOW their kids to be challenged, punished, or in any way whatsoever held responsible for their own actions, and by a society that insists that it is not a kid’s fault if he/she behaves badly: it’s SOCIETY’S fault, poor kids, poor poor kids, and they crush, kill, destroy, disrupt, vandalize, talk back, threaten, bully, sleep, sell drugs, take drugs, rape, harass, street-talk, mug, skip, and otherwise renege on the unwritten school/society/student contract because of somebody else, not themselves. The poor things can’t help it. It’s not their fault. They’re victims of the system. It is this lack of backup from families, and administrators who are unwilling to buck the political system of a community and crack down HARD on offenders, that are our worst problem.

And yet, there have always been students who spit in the eye of circumstance and defy the statistics, kids who learn in these environments, in spite of the odds, in spite of the environment, in spite of everything.  What do these kids have that others don’t have?

Parents are busy. They’re working. Daycare is eating up their money and they NEED the school to keep their kids. I’ve been there; I know.

But hey. Our schools are already feeding the kids breakfast, lunch, and supper, and staying open till after dark to accommodate working parents. We are expected to not only teach the kids how to read, but also how to treat others, feel good about themselves, behave, and many other things that the family is supposed to do but many times doesn’t, nowadays.

But the school is held accountable for these things the family is supposed to do. When did that happen? I find that reprehensible.

In the ’smart class’ (you will find no PC here; it cheapens us all) you will find a group of kids who all have a background of poems, songs, nursery rhymes, and ‘experiences.’ In the slow class, you will find a group of kids who all have no background in anything at all, for the most part.

I used to give assessment tests at the start of each year. It would blow your mind to bits if you all realized how little some families do for their children, before sending them to school, beyond setting them in front of the tv and walking away.

Our Pre-K’s can tell you all about the latest Jerry Springer guest, but they don’t know what happened to Humpty Dumpty. They can tell you all about Fitty Cent and Lady Gaga, but they don’t know how to say ‘please’ or ‘thank you.’ They see something and they grab for it.

They’re sitting beside your child in school, and they’re stealing erasers, paper, pencils, and money from the teacher’s purse. Some of them don’t even know they’re stealing.  They see it and they want it so they take it.

This same mentality is found in the upper grades, as well. Anything they see that they want, is just grabbed. When the hormones kick in, this becomes an even worse problem.

And if the parent is called, the teacher is either cussed out for waking him/her up, or we are given a tirade about how “that ’s the school’s problem, I sent him to school to be taught, I cain’t do nothing with him, and don’t call me again, dammit.”

Some kids are so far gone that even the knowledge that one more call to mom’s place of employment will result in her being fired doesn’t faze them. They’re entrenched in selfishness to the point that instant gratification in all aspects of life is their daily expectation. They’re entitled to whatever they want.

These behaviors cross all ethnic lines; no one group can be singled out. Some of the very worst are rich white offspring of professionals. (I guess I just singled out a group, huh. Bite me.)

Getting back to the tests. . . . .

Why can’t we just go back to the amazing, off-the-wall concept of LEARNING ? That’s right, a child comes to school, behaves properly, and is exposed to all kinds of awesome concepts and facts and projects and and miracles and outer space and underground and inside a book and imagination and experiments and research and how to care for himself/herself and others so that when the student becomes an adult, he/she will be able to support and care for himself/herself and others, and use any leisure time to cultivate himself/herself culturally and to volunteer to help others?? And the big standardized test at the end of each year would simply cover those things that every person of ‘that age’ or ‘that level’ simply MUST KNOW in order to be a contributing member of society. No pass, no promote.

And music. Oh, the music the schools used to expose us to, and art. I still remember the smell of that pile of clay we all kept in our desks.

I learned dozens of major classical music pieces, in lower elementary school. They were disguised as simple, catchy songs.

But there is no time for the arts any more, or even recess in many schools. Every minute must be devoted to preparing for those tests, and that is wrong.

We are doing our students no favors by passing them along because of their age or their size or their parents’ standing in the community. We are doing them no favors by tailoring their curriculum to a test that doesn’t measure their ability to comprehend that they are in school to learn the things that will help them be the kind of adults that contribute to the world, not take from it.

I believe in testing. I just don’t believe a test is the purpose of education.

In real life, ‘test’ isn’t the final blow. In real life, “this is only a test” means that we shouldn’t worry. We give a test so people will be able to understand and use the concepts in real life. It’s what happens AFTER the test that is important. Those students who pass the test, are ready to move on to the next level, where they might use those skills and apply them to new things. Those who do not yet have the skills, should stay where they are until they have them. What good is it to move them ahead when they do not yet have the skills, ie tools, to comprehend the next level?

Some people are still playing junior varsity their senior year. So what? They weren’t ready to move up. Do people make a big deal out of that? (besides irate parents who know their kid is a superstar in disguise, that is.)

Don’t move ‘em up till they demonstrate that they are ready to move up. That takes work. Some kids don’t know how to work. Keep them back until they learn. We’ve already got enough adults who don’t know how to work; we don’t need any more.

ISTEP is only a test. It’s a piece of paper.

Education isn’t about a standardized test. The test just measures how seriously a student takes that education. It measures who paid attention. It measures who CARES.

Those things are important. The test isn’t the goal. The test is only a test. Don’t panic; it’s only a test. If it had been a real situation, you would be at work, facing a problem that only a person who got number seventeen right on the test would know how to fix.

Sit up straight. Pay attention. If your kid’s teacher calls you, tell her to throw the book at your kid, and do it again when he comes home. Don’t allow any misbehavior at school. I do not advocate corporal punishment, but Annie Sullivan had to put her hands on Helen Keller to get her to calm down and behave; if that is what it takes for your kid, then do it. Some people require a little physical pressure; some don’t.  Annie Sullivan knew that Helen had it in her to be awesome; the awesomeness just had to be mined.  Today, Annie would be in the Rubber Room and Helen would have had a curriculum so tailor-made for her limitations that she would never have been able to go to college, let alone graduate Cum Laude from Radcliffe, go on the vaudeville circuit, write several books, lecture, and be received in the White House by twelve different presidents.  In fact, she’d probably still be running wild and stealing food out of everybody’s plate, with her hands.

Students are SUPPOSED to be challenged in school.  They’re supposed to have to work hard, and some will always have to work harder than others.  Some kids have their homework done before they get off the bus, while others need four hours to get the same assignment half done.  Not fair?  Of course it’s not fair.  It was never supposed to be fair; it’s supposed to challenge students and teach them to work so they won’t be societal leeches when they grow up.

Above all, we must not continue to shy away from our responsibilities as parents. We must not send our kids to school, or anywhere else in public, and not require excellent behavior. We must back up our teachers in the area of discipline; if that means you have to drive thirty-six miles after work to pick up your teen because he got ‘afterschool’ for talking back, then so be it. If you are angry at the school because of that, you’ve got a big, big problem, daddy or mommy, and with that attitude, it’s only going to get worse.  If your kid misbehaves and is bagged for it, be angry with your kid, not the school.  The school has a couple of thousand kids to deal with; if yours doesn’t choose to live with the good manners I’m sure you tried to teach him, that’s his problem.  And yours.  And if your kid got mouthy or violent or whatever, I’m GLAD he got bagged.

Do you know the main reason they used to hang horse thieves back in the day?  That more horses might not be stolen.  Get it?

Educated people are as much superior to uneducated people, as the living are to the dead. —Aristotle.

I know I say that all the time, but it’s absolutely true.

Civilization and sentience. I’m all for ‘em.  Without both, we are lost.

Mamacita says:  When people’s lives are focused primarily on television shows, celebrity antics, pizza delivery, Nascar *, sports, farting, belching, frantic sneaky extra-marital sex, having their own way in everything, leaving work early, going to work late, not going to work at all, gossip, making assumptions, trying to boss people around, yelling as a way of life, hitting when things don’t go their way, and looking after #1, how can they stand themselves and each other? I’m serious. And why would any sentient person even sit by someone like that, let alone marry them and breed with them and be seen in public with them?

I know people who yell a lot and to be perfectly honest, and you know I will be on this blog, nothing they have to say is remotely interesting to me. I don’t do “yelling.” Raise your voice to me and I’m out of there, mentally for sure and physically if at all possible.  Try to boss me around and I tune you out.

I’m a people-watcher, and there are times when I’ve wondered if some peoples’ heads contain anything that doesn’t resemble styrofoam peanuts. Is it really possible to sustain and nurture any kind of relationship based on a mutual love of American Idol and Flamin’ Hot Cheetos? What kind of children will such people bear, and rear? (Wait, I already know the answer to that one. . . .)

I know I’m a bit of a snob – people have been pointing out that little fact for years now so don’t bother – but this kind of life seems really, really, really, really shallow to me. Life without intellect. . . . life without constant intellectual exchange. . . Life without debates and conversations and trivia contests at the dinner table and music and art and knowing how such things are put together and playing 6 Degrees of Separation with all kinds of topics. . .I couldn’t live like that. I couldn’t – and wouldn’t – live without these things.   I wouldn’t want to, either. I’m not saying,of course, that EVERYBODY should know the things I know, but I want to know things others know; shouldn’t everybody want to know everything they can possibly absorb in the short time they’re on this earth? It seems sometimes that some people work hard so they won’t have to learn things, rather than work hard so they can.

Americans know every detail about Britney and Lindsay and Mel and Tom, but how many Americans can name five scientists? Five distinguished politicians – not the overweight pork-bound stupid scandalmongers who drown girlfriends in lakes and get by with it or actually believe blowjobs aren’t sex – but five distinguished, scandal-free, honest, kind, decent politicians?

There are Americans who have Dale Earnhardt up on a pedestal and who lay flowers at his grave and practically revere him as a god, but who have no earthly clue who Clara Barton or Father Flannigan or Virgil Grissom were, and if they did, they wouldn’t care. Beer! Tailgate! Cars all covered with advertising! This was never meant to be a lifestyle.  Most fans don’t even know that “NASCAR” is an acronym.

There is probably not an American alive today who can’t tell you something about Bill Clinton’s sexual antics in the White House, but how many people can tell you a single thing about his actual presidential accomplishments?  There were many.

Kennedy snogged Marilyn Monroe, but what else did he do?

Who’s been to the moon? Who conquered polio? Whose fortune funds your public library? What did Alfred Nobel invent that enabled him to set up the Nobel Prize? Can you name five people who have won the Nobel Prize?

There was a movie about Ghandi. Many people don’t know he was a real person. What did he do?

What’s the address of the White House? Who was the first president to live there? What First Lady instigated the Hot Lunch Program in all American schools?

How many Americans know that George Washington turned down the proposal that he be crowned king, and that it was he who established presidential protocol, ie, we don’t bow to the president, etc.?

What is the name of the janitor who cleans your office? Is he married? Does he have kids? I bet he knows YOUR name.

Why does the Pentagon have so many bathrooms? And no, it’s NOT for your personal convenience.

When you play Jeopardy, do you know at least half of the answers?

Can you make at least one connection between any famous person and something else that affects your daily life? When you read or study anything, ANYTHING, can you connect it with something you already knew? Is your schema constantly activated? Do you have tons of prior knowledge to lay on the table?

What nation launched the first satellite into space? What was the satellite’s name?  Most people know about the most recent volcanic eruption, but where was it?  Pretty much everyone knows about the oil spill, but where was it and why are environmentalists so concerned?

For whom were the planets named? Why? Who named them? Do you know each planet’s similarity to the entity for which it was named?

The first telescope was about as powerful as a child’s binoculars. Who invented that weak little telescope?

Can you think of an invention that was created by accident? Did Columbus really discover America? What are these “microwaves” that heat your oatmeal every morning?

Safety pins are handy little objects. So are zippers. And velcro.  Who invented them?  What was the inspiration for it?  What did people use before they were invented?

Edison invented a lot of things.  Which invention was his favorite?

Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone, but afterwards, he wouldn’t always answer his own phone when it rang.  Why?  What was he actually trying to invent when the telephone “happened?”  Why?

Who was Shakespeare’s favorite actress?  What was the first “peeping Tom” peeping at?

Most Americans can recite all kinds of sports stats. Can you recite a poem? Can you name five famous living poets? Five living authors? Five dead authors?  (Besides Stephen King)

Wahh, wahh, math is hard. I can’t do it without my calculator. Why should I EVER have to do it without my calculator? Can you add a column of a hundred big numbers with a piece of paper and a pencil? Teachers used to do that every six weeks, for every student.  That’s how grocery clerks used to figure up your total.  Can you figure a square root with a pencil?  Can you figure tips in your head?  Poor, poor Barbie.  I was in a bookstore a few years ago and the power went out.  They had to close the store because there wasn’t a single employee who knew how to add correctly and figure change, by hand.

Can you tell the difference between satire and racism? Do you have any sense of historical context when it comes to studying literature, science, and history? If you don’t, you’re easily and often offended. If you do, you laugh a lot, shake your head a lot, and understand at least part of almost everything you read or hear.

How big is your vocabulary? The more words you know, the better your understanding of the world and the better the world can understand you. (By the way, it’s “. . . make ends meet,” NOT “. . . make ends meat.” Dear Lord. A college graduate actually asked that question.)  Do you put an apostrophe on every word that ends in “s?”  Stop it!  Do you believe that “idea” and “ideals” are the same thing?  Do you say “anyways?”  Keep a dictionary in your bathroom and learn at least two new words with every poop.

I love to observe people talking to one another, in restaurants, airports, waiting rooms, etc. I’m not saying that I sit there and make judgment calls, but I do tend to sit there and make judgment calls.

People whose children are running wild in a public place probably aren’t talking about Darwinian theory or comparing a book to its movie adaptation. Men who think bodily noises and odors are hilarious and classy  probably don’t converse about citizenship and the importance of discipline in our schools. Women who have affairs with married men probably don’t converse about proper behavior or philosophical ethics or Plato or morality. Grown men who don’t remove their hats inside a house or public building probably don’t listen to Bach or read. . . much. Adults who honestly believe they’ve got a right to sit and rest with friends and have a coffee and a croissant while their toddlers destroy the restaurant and get angry if the owner asks for “inside voices” probably weren’t discussing missionaries or tutoring or foreign policy or volunteering. Children raised in homes with Jerry Springer will often enter kindergarten completely illiterate and with no clue about how to hold the scissors except to stab things. Adults who drink too much, use drugs, fool around, curse constantly, and hit, generally breed children who don’t know how normal, decent people are supposed to behave, and who either wash out completely in school and life just like their parents, or somehow, miraculously, transcend their parents and become wonderful human beings who love learning and make their own living. I love it when that happens.

Many Americans don’t even KNOW anybody who earns their own living. Many of them don’t even know how a person would go about earning their own living. Many Americans have permitted themselves – and yes, it’s ALWAYS their own fault – to become adults who have no skills whatsoever that might earn them a living.

In any group of a hundred people, 95 of them are like the people in my reader: kind, intelligent, considerate, thoughtful, decent, ethical, helpful, hardworking, interested, interesting, and thirsty for knowledge. It’s the same in most schools. Most people are good. Most people mean well. Most people try.

What a shame that the majority of the world’s attention, money, and interest seems to focus mainly on that 5 percent that are the complete and utter opposite.

A shame, and a travesty, and a disgrace, in fact.  The lowest common denominator in any circumstance are NOT the ones who deserve these things.

Awards, rewards, badges, certificates, trophies, and self esteem mean nothing unless they’re honestly and individually earned by accomplishment and merit and work. Prizes for showing up are a joke. Trophies for trying, ditto. Every kid knows there are no points “given” for missing the basket, no matter how angry your mommy might be that the mean scorekeeper didn’t understand how HARD he tried and how MUCH he wanted those points and how UNFAIR it is that the other kids on the team are taller, etc. But I’ve ranted about this before.

And I’ll probably do it again, because our culture is going down the tubes and most of it is due to people insisting on their share of the pot even when they haven’t put anything in the pot.

Why yes, I might be a tad opinionated. Why, what’s your point?

*No offense meant to Nascar fans who also know how to carry on a conversation about Einsteinian theory and Scrubs, and who can pick out the fine points of a Sondheim counterpoint.  Ditto the occasional flatus-man (or woman) but only if they know what “flatus” means.

People who are not lifelong learners. . . .  I just don’t get it.

This is the irrational season
When love blooms bright and wild,
Had Mary been filled with reason,
There’d have been no room for the child.
–by Madeleine L’Engle

Madeleine has been one of my idols for many years.  I quote her frequently in this post.  She was awesome.

School administrators puzzle me. They don’t seem quite human sometimes. When they look at a group of students, what do they see? I mean, what are they really SEEING, when they look at our children? What are they seeing when they look at the teachers? I think they see statistics. I don’t think they see children, or educators; I think they see numbers, and dollar signs. Their schools are not filled with children; they are filled with potential federal cash cows, and potential lawsuits if their parents are not catered to. There are no educators; there are only puppets.

Children are not measurable. Statistics are.

I have a hard time understanding people who see progress only as a measurable statistic. I have problems with people who see creativity as a threat to order. I don’t get along well with people who see rebellion as a disregard for the status quo. What a sad commentary on our society, that the movers and shakers are mown down and shackled, just when they most need to be exposed to every innovation, every wonder, every aspect of the world that can possibly be brought into the classroom.  How sad that teachers are no longer allowed to bring the world into the classroom.  I was actually told that it wasn’t FAIR for my students to have a speaker, etc, when the other teachers weren’t doing that.  I was told it wasn’t FAIR that I cooked breakfast for my ISTEP students every morning, because other students (and their parents) were complaining that the other teachers weren’t doing it. A hot breakfast gave my students an unfair testing advantage.  Unquote.   Guess whose activity had to cease, immediately?  Yep, you guessed it.

Besides, what was I coming to school so early to do?  I mean, really?

What kind of people have we become, when attempts to guide are interpreted by those in ultimate control as journeys into perversion? When did going out of one’s way to try to help someone become inappropriate? Why must everyone now be so very equalized that much individuality is lost? Of what societal or individual use is an echo? The ingredients in a multiple vitamin are standardized; children should not be.

What possible good can be accomplished by a reflection that is not one’s own? I’ve seen a child’s original poem edited and corrected until the end result had nothing to do with that individual child’s talent or purpose. But then and only then did it get a good grade.  I was sent to a seminar and taught how to do this, in fact.

When the arts are removed completely (and they already are, in some schools; for the rest, it’s just a matter of time.) to make room for more practical, measurable, easily understandable lessons in math, sports, grammar, sports, science, sports, sports, sports, PC, and sports, what will our children have to write about? And why should they bother?

Our nation isn’t, to our shame, much about the intellectualism thing. (I made that sentence appalling on purpose.) It’s strange to me, then, that administrations set such store by IQ’s and standardized testing. An IQ cannot measure artistic ability. A high score on the ISTEP does not measure a capacity for love. We have no test that measures common sense. All we have are standardized tests that give us statistics, and statistics are not facts. I’ve ranted about that before. Statistics are people, with the tears wiped off. (Professor Irving Selikoff ) This is not good. We need the tears, too. The numbers are not accurate without the tears. Or the laughter.

Tears and laughter are not measurable. Therefore they are of no use to school administrators. They want only those things that can be measured with straight numbers, graded by a machine. In order to do this, things that make our children laugh or cry or sing or dance or draw or paint are no longer allowed in many of our schools. And yes, sometimes crying in school is a good thing. I’ve had students weep over a story in a book, or a scene in a film, or a headline in the newspaper. It’s GOOD. (I’m not talking about bad things that make children cry.)

The ability to love, to be loved, to express love: can it be that these are more important than grammar, or math, or social studies? I think they are. I also believe that a good teacher can do both at once, if ever he/she is allowed to do so again.

How do we teach children to have compassion, to allow people to be different, to understand that “like” is not the same as “equal?” How do we teach our children to laugh, to love, and to accept the fact that the most important questions a human being can ask do not have – nor do they need – statistical right-or-wrong answers.

There are even “educators” (and I use the term loosely) out there who believe that creativity itself can be taught, and who write learned (hahahahaha) and usually dull, treatises and articles and textbooks on methods of teaching it. If you try to eat air, you’ll. . . . well, you know what happens when you eat air. What comes out usually stinks.

The creative impulse, like love, can be killed, but it can’t be taught. What a teacher CAN do, in working with young people, is to give the flame enough oxygen so that it can burn. As far as I’m concerned, this providing of oxygen is one of the noblest of all vocations. Teaching out of a text so a test score will be higher is not.

In most modern schools, however, the providing of oxygen is forbidden. Only the hot air of measurable statistics is permitted, because this is the only sort of thing understood by many of those in charge.

When we make complicated that which is simple, the powers of darkness rejoice.

The powers of darkness rejoice whenever a child’s creative light is ignored or extinguished by a system that considers only statistics to be of merit. Not on the test? It won’t be tolerated.

The powers of darkness rejoice whenever a creative and caring teacher is removed by a system that considers only in-the-box, good ol’ boy, make-no-waves, textbook-teachers to have merit. What an ironic thing. What a joke on me. All these years, I thought my job was to teach and help young people. What a reality jolt to be told, after all these years of what people told me was success, that my job is NOT to help students, or to teach students, or to guide students; it is to teach spelling, grammar, and literature, and that it must be done with absolutely no delving into humanity, personality, or creativity. The language arts made rational. It is a travesty.

Facts. Facts. Measurable facts, cut and dried.

Have we learned nothing from Don Quixote de la Mancha? Is there no one out there in a position of authority who understands that facts are the enemy of truth? It’s better to tilt at windmills than to deprive our students of their individuality by cramming them into the little boxes of comformity. Yes, no student should ever be allowed to graduate or move on if he/she can not pass a basic grade-level skills test; but to teach only to that test? Absolutely unacceptable. Removing the magic from learning should be a capital crime.

And when all the glory and wonder and magic of the language are removed, there is nothing left but the very safe, very statistically provable, very politically correct picking of the bleached, sanitary bones. Our language, in all its glory, forcefully ebbing, forcefully waning, its light put under a bushel lest someone see something sentient and therefore potentially controversial and unmeasurable. Our children’s talents buried, hidden under that same bushel, to be dug up every nine weeks for a progress check.

WAIT! Over there! A teacher is laughing with her students! Can’t have it. BAM, she’s gone. Whew, that was close.

Bullying teachers? Check. Sleeping teachers? Check. Incompetent teachers? Check. Adulterous teachers? Check. Racist teachers? Check. Oh, we’re keeping all of those; no two styles are the same, you know.

WAIT! Over there! A teacher tried to help a student after hours! Can’t have it. BAM, she’s gone. Whew, another close one.

Decent, hardworking, winning coach/teacher? Sweet. But WAIT! A famous name says he’s willing to coach if there’s ever an opening! BAM. Instant opening. A few rules are broken but it’s all in the name of a winning season so it’s okay. Irony: no more winning season.

Plagiarist? Check. Another plagiarist? Check. Two plagiarizing valedictorians in a row. But it’s okay; their families are prominent, and the principal approved. He’s no longer principal, by the way.

He’s now the assistant superintendent.

Students with bullet belts? Check. Students who use racist epithets? Check. Hey, that’s just how we do things around here.

Student’s car, parked in lot, has an empty beer can on floor of back seat? Expelled. Student wasn’t even in the car at the time? Doesn’t matter. Zero tolerance.

LD student steals a girl’s purse, opens it, and eats all her Midol tablets. Student gets sick. Girl is suspended for bringing drugs to school. Zero tolerance.

Student’s purse strap catches on fire alarm. Parents are called in. They are nobody. Student is suspended for a week. Zero tolerance.

Student deliberately pulls fire alarm. Parents are called in. They are somebody. Principal slaps student on the wrist and sends him back to class. Check.

Student is seen putting Orajel on gums because newly-tightened braces are causing pain. Student suspended for drug usage. Zero tolerance.

Student unplugs a teacher’s computer and disconnects the monitor. Check. Boy was just being playful and silly.

Same boy has a website called Hate_____(insert various teachers’ names in blank.) All the students know about it. Boy takes pictures of teachers with cameraphone and posts them on these websites. Obscene language. Check. Boy honored with free trip to California for being so web-savvy.

Student steals Chapstick from girl’s purse, and eats it. Student gets sick. Girl suspended for bringing drugs to school. Zero tolerance.

Inhalers must be kept locked in the office. They’re considered drugs, too.

Okay, let’s calm down now and take some tests. They’ll determine your future, but no pressure. Anybody left in the room? Begin. Make your mark heavy and dark.

I guess that in today’s educational mentality, dormancy is a positive; at the very least it means a child has not regressed (bad for statistics); at the very most, it means that a child has not done any thinking. (also bad for statistics.) How safe, for those in charge. Imagination, that creation of an image for one’s thoughts, is the great enemy of the payroll statistician, of the elected administration, of the appointed administration, and of the population created by them.

Also, when a school’s scores are low one year, and higher the next year, the school gets more money than if the scores had been high all along. Improvement has merit; being good all the time does not.

“Picture Satan in a business suit, with well-groomed horns, a superbly switching tail, a wide, salesman’s grin, sitting with folded hands behind a large shiny desk, its top littered with the paper trails of many a person’s demise, thinking ‘Aha! If I can substitute images for reality, if I can substitute statistics for people, if I can substitute good public relations for truth, I can get a lot more people under my domination.” (L’Engle)

This is what I picture when I think of a school administrator now.

Public opinion. Administrative opinion. Political correctness. Euphemisms.

And by whose values is a test labeled “objective?”

“An infinite question is often destroyed by finite answers. To define everything is to annihilate much that gives us laughter and joy. Current methodology, the morbid preoccupation with scores and statistics, is destroying our society’s ontology:its essence, its BEING.” (L’Engle)

It seems that when those in charge do not understand a thing, they straightaway condemn it. Simplicity itself. These are the kind of people who never understand anything unless it is told them in very plain language and hammered into their heads. And even then they understand it only with their brains and not with their hearts. Such people don’t like creativity. They like facts. Facts are easier to comprehend. They take little effort. They represent money. They’re easy to come by and grade. The main thing, however, is money.

Money talks. Statistics mean money. What is then the most important thing to listen to? Statistics.

The whispers of creativity and love and kindness and hard work are seldom heard above the screaming of administrative-types seeking money-making statistics. Teachers who go above and beyond the call of measurable duty are facing a firing squad, and the guns could go off at any moment. It’s dangerous, for many, TOO dangerous, to put yourself on the line to help a child. Those who take the chance, are taking a genuine chance. An administrator who can’t comprehend such a thing will do all in his power to remove a genuinely caring teacher from the ranks, lest there be talk. The truth be damned; they are concerned only with public opinion.

The concentration of a child in play is analogous to the concentration of an artist of any discipline. But unless the child’s output can be objectively measured, many administrators dismiss such activities and substitute activities which have a statistically measurable output. Recess is gone, in many schools. The time is needed to prepare for standardized tests. Wiggly little children have no outlet for their natural energy. They ‘act up’ and are punished. If there are music and art classes still in the curriculum, they are crammed with six or seven times the student population of an academic class; it’s just music, after all. Helpless teachers cry out in vain for common sense and fairness and they are not heard. Such things do not exist in the world of statistics and measurements. And our children are standing in the corner, trying not to move, lest they disturb other children who are having facts crammed into their heads that they might retrieve them for the State.

Don’t misinterpret me here. I believe in testing. I’m no tree-huggin’ earth mother who thinks children should sing and dig clay out of the ground for art and eat granola all day long. I believe in math and science and grammar and spelling and history. But I also believe that these are only a partial list of things that our children need to learn, so they will become rational adults who are able to earn their own living, care for themselves and for others, appreciate culture, have fun, and contribute, rather than take away, from society.

I am also a firm believer in cross-curricular education.  Everything is connected to everything else.  Astronomy can’t be taught without also teaching mythology.  And science is connected to EVERYTHING.  Yes, and teachers should require students to use proper spelling and grammar in all subject areas.

We must never lose sight of the fact that civilizations are judged by the arts they leave behind, not for statistics and varsity letters. What will the archaeologists of the future be able to say about our civilization? That we taught our children to be joyless? That we valued a statistic far more than a painting? That we stifled laughter and encouraged apathy? That we honored a scoreboard more than a poem? “Where are the statues and paintings and stories?” Can you hear them wondering? Can you? Or are you too busy condoning the firing of a winning and competent coach so that a Name Brand might be hired in his place? Are you too busy basking in the sea of innuendo and assumption, and ruining teachers’ careers and lives based on nothing but rumors and lies? I think some administrators are, and that they love it. They must, or they wouldn’t continue to do it.

It is sad but true that we are a litigious society. It is sad but true that many of the above facts originate out of fear of a lawsuit, or fear of adverse public opinion/publicity. The self-esteem police and the PC patrol and the heliocopter parents are rampant, and are to be truly feared. That is sad, too.

But it is even sadder that the society which strikes the most fear into the hearts of the schools was created by this fact-finding mentality that is so prevalent today.

The saddest, and the truest, is that this is a vicious circle, and no one seems to have the intestinal fortitude to straighten it out. Indeed, as so many of us have discovered, it is too dangerous to try.

1. Behavior is a mirror in which every one displays his own image. –Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

2. The true test of character is not how much we know how to do, but how we behave when we don’t know what to do. — John W. Holt, Jr.

3. If I have made an appointment with you, I owe you punctuality, I have no right to throw away your time, if I do my own. — Richard Cecil

4. If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed. — Albert Einstein

5. When man learns to understand and control his own behavior. . . he may be justified in believing that he has become civilized. — Ayn Rand

6. I believe that you control your destiny, that you can be what you want to be. You can also stop and say, ‘No, I won’t do it, I won’t behave his way anymore. I’m lonely and I need people around me, maybe I have to change my methods of behaving,’ and then you do it. — Leo F. Buscaglia

7. Behavior is what a man does, not what he thinks, feels, or believes. — Unknown

8. The behavior of some children suggests that their parents embarked on the sea of matrimony without a paddle. — Unknown

9. The man of character, sensitive to the meaning of what he is doing, will know how to discover the ethical paths in the maze of possible behavior. — Earl Warren

10. Children lose their innocence the very moment they are forced to make excuses for their parent’s bad behavior. — Krista Delle Femine

11. Children follow your footsteps, not your advice. — Krista Delle Femine

12. A cigarette in the hands of a Hollywood star on screen is a gun aimed at a 12 or 14-year-old. — Joe Eszterhas

13. You want to raise your child in such a way that you don’t have to control him, so that he will be in full possession of himself at all times. Upon that depends his good behavior, his health, his sanity. — L. Ron Hubbard

14. The value of marriage is not that adults produce children, but that children produce adults. — Peter de Vries

15. You want to be a parent? Shut up and do your job. — ‘Dr. Robert Romano’ from E.R.

16. Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them. — James Baldwin

17. Live so that when your children think of fairness and integrity, they think of you. — H. Jackson Brown Jr.

18. Setting an example is not the main means of influencing another, it is the only means. — Albert Einstein

19. There is a sobering side to eccentricity. Odd behavior can flourish only in a tolerant society and that it often produces radical new ideas by virtue of its willingness to cast off accepted norms. Blessed are the cracked, for they shall let in the light. — Unknown

20. Someone will always be looking at you as an example of how to behave. Don’t let them down. — Unknown

21. About all you have to do to get a man to behave right is expect him to. — The Country Sage, newspaper clipping, Albert W. Daw Collection

22. The test of a man or woman’s breeding is how they behave in a quarrel. — George Bernard Shaw

23. If a man does not control his temper, it is a sad admission that he is not in control of his thoughts. He then becomes a victim of his own passions and emotions, which lead him to actions that are totally unfit for civilized behavior. — Ezra Taft Benson

24. When a woman behaves like a man, why can’t she behave like a nice man? –
Dame Edith Evans

25. It is a waste of energy to be angry with a man who behaves badly, just as it is to be angry with a car that won’t go. — Bertrand Arthur William Russell

Oh, I could keep going for hours.

My point is, if everyone in the world simply behaved properly, the whole world would be vastly improved and infinitely easier to go about in.

Since that’s never going to happen, the next best thing would be if the penalties for misbehavior were so severe you’d have to be certifiably nuts to misbehave.

Yes, lady woman in Kmart today who just watched and laughed as her two daughters raced around the store with that tricycle. Were you paying attention when the manager took it away and carried it off and all the other customers applauded?

And yes, we were all looking at YOU and passing judgment, and I bet we all agreed.