Aces, Cooties, Big Bertha, Devil Dogs, and the Eleventh Hour
Mean ol’ Miz Roberts, in seventh grade, made us all memorize this poem. I still know it by heart.
Thank you, Miz Roberts.
This poem refers to World War One soldiers, killed and buried overseas. Their families had no body to bury. They gave their lives so our children won’t have to give theirs. The war to end all wars. The Big War. The one Colonel Potter fought before he fought World War Two and Korea.
Sadly, there were and will be bigger wars. However, I also fear that Einstein was correct when he said, “I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.”
And then it will no doubt start up all over again.
Let us hope not.
Whatever your opinion of the military might be, please remember that because of them, you are free to hold that opinion, and make it public.
Thank you, veterans.
Mind Your Own Business
Mamacita says: I have never been able to understand why some people consider other people’s business to be their business, too. I mean, shouldn’t they at least wait to be asked before chiming in with an opinion, piece of advice, or any kind of diatribe?
Some people prefer paper; others prefer plastic. Is it any of my business? No. I prefer paper – the kind with handles – but it’s still none of your business.
Cloth diapers? Disposables? Honestly, was there EVER a topic less anybody’s business other than the one who has to do all the diaper-changing?
Does it really matter how we dress our children as long as they’re protected from the elements and decently covered? It does not. If you don’t like the way my children are dressed, that’s too bad. I think your kids look like little hookers and pimps, but I’m not going to tell you that. My kids got to choose their own outfits, and it didn’t bother me in the least that my son wore sweat pants until 5th grade or that my daughter spent most of her “at home” time in a frilly full slip. Big deal. As for how they dressed when they played outside in hot weather. . . well, it was fun while it lasted, wasn’t it, kids.
Note: if you DO allow your kids to go out in public dressed like pimps and whores, don’t act all shocked or surprised if someone tries to buy the advertised product. The world is full of ignorance and perversion, and parents who let their kids dress like that are, in a way, both.
Are you in love with a man? A woman? A man who used to be a woman? A woman who used to be a man? I don’t care. I have all kinds of friends, and I like them all. None of that is any of my business. Or yours.
Did you choose to breastfeed your kids? I think that’s lovely. Did you choose to bottlefeed? I think that’s lovely, too. Really, it’s none of my business how you fed your babies, and it’s none of yours, either. Fighting over which method is best is silly, childish, selfish, and makes me think you’re not all that secure or confident about your own choices.
If your kid is parking his Harley, hanging his leather jacket over the back of a chair, grabbing a bag of Fritos and a ham sandwich, ogling a Playboy, and then demanding to be breast or bottle-fed, expect society to give you the stinkeye, but even so, it’s still nobody else’s business if you’re a bunch of weirdos or not.
Worship however you please – or not. Drive any kind of vehicle you want. It’s none of my business what brand of cheese you buy. It’s none of my business if your kids know Harry Potter by heart, or if you have banished all things HP to the back of the line behind your row of Disney fairy tales, because of their witchcraft and spell content. Wait, was that in HP or in your Disneys? Hmmm. Bibbidi-bobbidi-boo was a spell, wasn’t it. Oh dear.
Speaking of inconsistency – that’s really the only thing I despise. If you’re going to ban Harry Potter ,because of the witches and evil, you’d better not have Disney’s Sleeping Beauty, Little Mermaid, Snow White, Beauty and the Beast, etc, in your home, either, because if you ban one and not the others, you’re a hypocrite. And I loathe hypocrisy.
Even so, it’s still none of my business if you’re a hypocritical git.
Do what you want. Let others do the same. Back off. Shut up. Lay off. Etc.
The majority of what other people do is none of your business. Live your own life, and don’t throw stones unless you’re perfect, yourself.
That would, of course, be nobody.
I Worry About the Future
Mamacita says: I worry about the future.
I worry about the future for different reasons than most people’s reasons. I worry about the future because present generations aren’t learning about the past.
Seriously. Our students don’t seem to have anything to make connections to, these days. They believe ridiculous things on Facebook updates. They don’t associate Lincoln with the Civil War. They think the Disney versions of fairy tales are the original versions. They don’t know that the Little Mermaid died. They don’t know any nursery rhymes. They can’t finish a line of poetry. They don’t know why Paul Revere rode through the streets. They don’t understand the difference between a comparison and a contrast. They are uncertain about antonyms and synonyms. Most of them have never used a thesaurus. Some of them have never heard of a thesaurus, and when they hear the word, they think it’s a dinosaur. Most students think a dictionary is good only for a definition, and if they don’t know how to spell a word, they can’t find it.
I worry about a future wherein the so-called “educated” population has nothing filed away in their heads, but rely on Google to find out the simplest things. I worry about a future that has me picturing, in my head, surgeons googling the whereabouts of the spleen with the patient on the table. Already, we have a population that doesn’t know how to do math without a calculator.
TV shows make stupid people seem like the norm, and ignorance seem like the ideal. Our schools are emphasizing conformity and punishing creativity. Physical ability is trophied even while much of the population’s physical ability is atrophied. Academic success is pretty much ignored lest some kid’s self-esteem suffer because he/she can’t do “it” as well.
Excellent work that, a generation ago, would have been put up on the wall so all could see and benefit and honor it, is now hastily shunted away because not everybody can do that well. Kids who can’t do that well now no longer have examples of what things could be like if they worked harder, etc. Bright, fast kids are advised to slow down, and ignorant teachers “reward” them by giving them more of the same or, even worse, relegating them to the hallway where they spend the day tutoring slow kids.
I worry about the future because people know nothing about the past these days. I worry about the future because people are spending the present letting other people think for them.
What kind of future is in store for our children if they are not taught about the past, and encouraged to do things more than one way, and encouraged to apply and connect this with that, and that with the other?
Education is about connections. If our students have nothing in their heads, lives, or experiences, what sense can they make about anything? How can things be relevant if there is no relativity?
I’ve had students who couldn’t follow the directions on a box of brownie mix. Oh, they could read the directions, but they weren’t sure about teaspoons, tablespoons, and measuring cups. Imagine.
Speaking of “imagine,” I’ve had students who had a hard time imagining anything because imagination requires connections, too. Image-ing is possible only with prior knowledge – schema. How can we create the “magic” part of “i-mage-ing” unless we know as much as possible about as many things as possible?
The more schema we can bring to the table, the more connections we’re able to make. The more connections we make, the more we can understand. The more we understand, the more we learn. The more we learn, the more we know. The more we know, the better able we are to cope and improve the universe. Not to even mention those sofa Jeopardy wins.
As for those teachers who advocate “no memorizing, no studying, no homework, no proving knowledge or mastery, and almost total dependence on electronics,” I have only this to say.
Bullshit. You’re all full of bullshit.
And this from Mamacita, who advocates tech so thoroughly and enthusiastically that my students who don’t use the social networking that they were told to use are left out of the announcement loop altogether.
P.S. Dear Students: Midterms are this week. If you skived off class and didn’t check Twitter, Facebook, Google +, or email, you’ve got a big surprise coming.
And if you aren’t able to make connections, it won’t do you much good to show up, anyway.
