Dumpster Diving Behind Public Schools

And this is what you'll find. I know, I had bad thoughts when I read this headline, too.

Babies For Love

This is what the world is coming to:

There's a stunning twist to the sudden rise in teen pregnancies at Gloucester High School. Seventeen students there are expecting and many of them became that way on purpose.

Time Magazine first reported that nearly half of the girls confessed to making a pact to get pregnant and raise their babies together. None of them is older than 16.

Schools Superintendent Christopher Farmer told WBZ's Bill Shields Thursday the girls had "an agreement to get pregnant."

No parents of the 17 girls were interviewed. What causes a peer group to come up with such a self-defeating scheme? The Superintendent says the girls "lacked love". Teenagers can be mind-numbingly stupid, though. It seems to me that at least a few of these girls had loving families. It's possible that they all had uncaring parents but I doubt it.

I'm putting this one to a vote. It just seems too crazy.

The PRIMARY reason the pregnancy pact happened is because:
	The girls lacked love
	Peer pressure
	Little supervision
	Oversexed culture
	Teenagers are stupid
	The girls lacked a moral foundation
	Media's glorification of sex
pollcode.com free polls

Cross-posted at Right Wing News

Sexual Harrassment In Middle School

I thought that sexual harassment only occurred when there was a power differential. Do 12 year old boys and girls have a power differential? I remember grab ass in the hallway as a 12 year old myself. One time it was rather traumatic because there were three guys and only me and no witnesses. Somehow, I survived, but according to this, other kids are traumatized for life:

The problem of sexual harassment from peers — which can include name-calling and unwanted touching in hallways and classrooms — is often largely dismissed as normal student behavior by school officials. However, the emotional toll of sexual harassment by school kids appears to be even worse than physical bullying, according to new research published this month in the journal Sex Roles.

I'm assuming the schools already have zero tolerance policies. Do we need less-than-zero policies?

Another Reason My Kids Aren't In Public School

I wish this were a joke.

School Stress Evaporates At Home

The stress in our family has lessened so significantly since starting to home school. My kids already had severe test anxiety at the ripe old ages of 7 and 9. That's a problem. The result of their anxiety was a defeatest attitude: if they couldn't be guaranteed super-success, they didn't want to try. I don't think yoga at school would have helped much. It might have helped a little. Maybe getting rid of homework would have helped the generalized anxiety. In fact, I'm quite sure it would have helped.

Two and a half months into home schooling and the results are promising. More relaxed family (including me--an unintended benefit) and more relaxed kids. Shhhh, don't tell them, but the tests I write for them are harder. I'm pushing them to comprehend. They are being forced to remember not just what, but why. And still, they are more relaxed. They have also received their first "bad" grades and survived. They are learning to go back again and study and get it and then try again.

With home school, there is no homework. Well, not like is generally understood. They are reading and reading the "required" texts but they don't realize what they're doing. When we talk through and do assignments off of books they enjoy reading, they're doing work, they just don't really notice.

I wasn't sure at the beginning, the curriculum scared me because of its simplicity, but I simply must sing the praises of Math-U-See. It is amazing. The comprehension of math concepts is so complete and simple. The kids are motoring through it.

Another curriculum, this one for handwriting called Handwriting Without Tears, is nearly miraculous. My son, who has problems with deciding where to put the pencil and has fine more strength problems viewed learning cursive with apprehension. He literally looked suspiciously at the text book. Not now. Loves it. My husband said, "He wrote that?!" It's been pretty amazing.

We are also using Sonlight for Reading, Vocabulary, Spelling, Phonics, Grammar, History, Geography, and Bible. It is a literature-based curriculum and it's fantastic. The text books are original works. The kids are reading a couple Robert Lewis Stevenson poems a week. They are learning a couple Aesop's fables a week. They are reading out loud. They are explaining the moral of the story. They are creatively writing. Each week, we are going through a couple pieces of children's literature.

For people like me who find the notion of putting it all together daunting, the Sonlight system is flexible yet structured. The only work I add for myself, is more testing. At least every other week, I put together a comprehensive test for the kids to make sure they are retaining what they learn. This week, they have learned the basics about the Phoenicians, Spartans, Athenians, the architecture of columns, the story of Romulus and Remus, Rome, the Olympiad, Homer's Odyssey (which they are dying to read), Eastern Europe, Romania, Italy, what was significant about Mecca and the rise and fall of King Saul, the rise of David and the friendship between David and Jonathon. That's a lot. And that's all on the test. Plus dates for the Peloponnesian War and the original and reinstated Olympics. It's definitely a survey of History and Bible this year. It will be the foundation for the next four years when we go back and look, in depth, at those times.

And they aren't stressed. Can you imagine? They love it. We haven't had an art project or science project in a while. We have made cave man pictures and created hieroglyphics. When we get to Pompeii, we'll explode a volcano. They have more time for the arts--music and drama are during school hours. Dance is after school twice a week.

All in all, I don't think the stress in school comes from the volume of material or even the focus on testing. The running from one activity to another, the inability to slow things down to have a question answered, the frustration of having play-time or recess taken away to finish up work, the inability to get a drink when thirsty or run to the bathroom without missing something, the boredom when a topic is already known, the pressure to perform during timed tests (in second grade) and on and on. The schools must meet the needs of many kids so some of the flexibility needed to reduce stress just can't happen. I'm amazed at the stellar job the teachers do. It is certainly not easy.

So, it's admirable that the High School principal wants to put in a program to reduce stress for kids. That's an excellent goal. I'm just not sure it's possible.

British History Without Winston Churchill

I named my Shih Tzu Winston for heaven's sake! What is Britain thinking? Nope, there's no good guys in the world. And no bad guys. Hitler and Stalin won't get a mention in history class, either. How do you learn history without historical figures? You don't.

Day Care Bad for Baby Behavior

In the kid eat kid world of Day Care, is it any surprise that a child who has been part of that system has more behavior problems than kids who are at home, relaxed, with mom or dad?

And then, as the kid gets older and exhibits the bad behavior in school, he gets doped up on Ritalin and denied recess until his behavior gets better and he starts submitting and obeying and oh, yeah, learning. The obvious solution? Extend the school day, of course. Ann Althouse notes the irony of extending the school day:

Is lengthening the school day the solution for failing schools? I think not. In fact, I think it is a morally wrong solution. It's bad enough that children are cooped up and physically restrained for as long as they are to get through a school day. To justify that physical restraint, adults owe children a lot. If the adults are now failing to do what they owe children to justify physically restraining them, it is outrageous to attempt to make up for their own failure by increasing the restraint. What makes it worse is that the solution is inflicted disproportionately on minority kids. Oh, but it's a benefit! It's not as if we're proposing to put them in jail during those long afternoons when they might otherwise be roaming the streets.

I don't think it's a race issue. It's a gender issue. Sure, girls might be more aggressive with years of Day Care, too, but it's the boys that are being drugged and dragged indoors. When I was in third grade, (my son's grade) we had a 1/2 hour recess in the morning, 1/2 hour in the afternoon and 45 minutes to one hour at lunch time, plus gym class twice a week. And the boys were still rowdy! And in the same breath, educators and government officials and doctors will kvetch over fat kids. Good grief! Let them run around and be kids.

Bible Class at a Public School Near Me

Interesting developments. I love the Time article, implying that "liberals" need to know their bible better if only to argue against conservatives more effectively. The idea used as an example:

HERE IS ONE OF PROTHERO'S FAVORITE stories of Bible ignorance. In 1995 a federal appeals court upheld the overturn of a death sentence in a Colorado kidnap-rape-murder case because jurors had inappropriately brought in extraneous material--Bibles--for an unsanctioned discussion of the Exodus verse "an eye for eye, tooth for tooth ... whoever ... kills a man shall be put to death." The Christian group Focus on the Family complained, "It is a sad day when the Bible is banned from the jury room." Who's most at fault here? The jurors, who perhaps hadn't noticed that in the Gospel of Matthew Jesus rejects the eye-for-an-eye rule, word for word, in favor of turning the other cheek? The Focus spokesman, who may well have known of Jesus' repudiation of the old law but chose to ignore it? Or any liberal who didn't know enough to bring it up?

This argument is even more nuanced than suggested. The "turn the other cheek" retort carried to its absurd end creates anarchy--no punishment for any crime is the often sophomoric reading of the New Testament. Jesus also said to "render to Caesar, what is due Caesar, render to God, God's", which implies that Jesus fully understood that there needed to be a law in the land and that it needed to be complied with, too. In fact, had Jesus been staunchly anti-war, anti-law enforcement, surely He would have mentioned that salient fact to the Roman Centurian, but he didn't. He also wouldn't announce his second coming with Trumpets alerting the world to war. He'd be dropping flower petals and singing Imagine.

The confusion suggests that the solution is Bible learning. People need more religious education. I've made the argument before that one can hardly be considered educated without a firm biblical understanding. Christians, especially need to get their noses in the Good Book. We can hardly share the "hope that lies within" if we don't the truth of God's word.

I'm all for this new development. Since kids aren't getting educated in church, they need to at least have an understanding of the Bible as literature.

Colorado Killer Molested Girls

What makes a person snap and molest and murder? Why are men more likely than women to sexually assault as a means of violence?

This man somehow managed to justify his actions. He had planned this event and executed it to frightening perfection. Dr. Helen posits that more boys and then men, need more emotional support to head off these types of problems.

My experience has been that boys, especially young boys, are particularily fragile. With less vocabulary and a narrower emotional range, if traumas or difficulties aren't adequately supported--mostly by a loving, patient mother (we're talking before three here)--and helped to interpret these traumas, they are like a rudderless boat at sea. If, as the boy grows, he doesn't have a firm, loving father guiding him through the physically and hormonally rocky time of adolescence into adulthood, the boy is at even higher risk.

Boys seem to be more fragile emotionally and more prone to lethal long-term damage if left untended. That is not to excuse this nutjob or blame his mother and father. For every one mismanaged boy, ten end up okay. But those ten usually have someone intervene along the way.

There was debate at Dr. Helen's about it "taking a village". Group dynamics tend to dilute responsibility. There is already an undeclared war between parents and teachers, as it is, with each accussing the other of malfeasence.

One thing I notice, is that with the labelling that is so prevalent now, with teachers encouraging parents to medicate boys who don't adequately mold and with parents relieved to externalize their troubled chld's problem, challenging children are ironically, getting less support. Rather than being taught self-management skills, rather than having someone help them burn the anger and energy physically some boys are on a slow burn.

All this is not to say that girls don't have their own issues these days--not the least of which is the ever-present fear of being victimized by one of these hostile, women-hating men. The problem for women is that while a few men prepetrate these crimes, all women fear the few men. A woman is most likely to be victimized at home, by someone she knows, but high profile cases like this remind women that supposedly safe places like a High School aren't safe sometimes. When are those times? How does a girl defend herself against a crime when the problem is that she was picked because she has blonde hair and blue eyes?

It ends up being a vicious circle, doesn't it? A messed up boy grows up and commits murder and mayhem. The hand that rocked the cradle rules this world, to an extent. And then, the boy takes out his rage on other women. Possible solution? Support mothers while they mothering their young kids (don't throw them money--give in-home parenting support, if necessary) and intervene with boys once they are schooled. Social skills training would help all children and help their education, too.

I know. I know. The nanny state rears it's ugly head. Would things be better if all welfare was pulled, so women would be forced to marry the doofus they have sex with? Would any of this prevent psychos like the Colorado murderer? Or must women just learn to live with the possibility of being a victim?