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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: epicure who wrote (93020)	1/10/2005 5:04:12 PM
From: cosmicforce	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

It doesn't help when we have leadership that shows a general disdain for academia or any matter that requires more than a superficial understanding of the facts at hand. Since you were talking about sports in school, it started me thinking about that whole team spirit mentality that we start inculcating kids with as early as in elementary schools with mascots and various identifiers. Sort of baby jingoism, really. What if the stars on your school team are mostly jerks? Can merely being associated with the local school override their jerkiness and make one of a sober mind cheer them? I've never fully grasped how people "decided" about the team they'd back nor, for that matter, the draw of professional sports. Hooliganism, for example, is a totally inexplicable phenomenon for me. Team affiliation isn't always purely based upon performance, region, players, etc. and sometimes people will travel miles to support "their team" One has to wonder if these same gut-feel associations work their way into higher level decision processes. I think the answer is a resounding "yes". It seems geopolitical decisions nowadays appeal to the same lowest common denominators exhibited in professional team sports affiliation and that people choose their politicians with all the critical review they have for whether they are a Sox or Nicks fan. What's worse is the two-party system actually encourages such a moronic subdivision of complex issues.

To: epicure who wrote (93020)	1/10/2005 11:39:22 PM
From: Grainne	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

I would never blame education problems on the teachers, Ionesco. Did something I said in my post make you think I believed that? I do think it is very complicated (of course). I think that when most mothers returned to the workforce, starting in the 1970's, the result is that there was much less structure in a lot of homes, parents were tired at night and needed time to themselves, and a lot of them stopped participating in school-related activities like the PTA. All of this is very bad news for children, who require a quiet place and time to do homework, and parents who have energy in the evenings and are interesting in the minutia of their child's day. I also think education itself took a huge hit with the rise of the conservative right. My father was the director of curriculum development at a large school district in the 1970's. He was teaching the theory of team teaching at USC as well, and was a liberal educator who idealistically wanted all children to learn. He believed that teaching music and art were really important, and as we know today, learning these subjects create good brain connections for other subjects. But the far right--the 3 R's campaign--was working itself into the culture, and a conservative school board was elected, and my father lost his job. I have no idea why conservatives want such rigid and boring presentation of such a limited number and variety of educational materials--how can you excite children about learning under those dreary conditions? I also think that No Child Left Behind is an abysmal program. Even when my child was in elementary school, testing became more frequent. And of course teachers taught to the tests--rote memorization instead of teaching for actual knowledge. The Bush administration has made things even worse, and made punitive retribution the rule for "bad" schools. The fact is that it is really hard to teach children who are poor, hungry, have seen people being stabbed or shot, have one parent who may be on drugs or alcohol, never had anyone read them a book when they were a preschooler, etc. So the solution is to deny the schools these children go to money to possibly help? That sounds very Republican, doesn't it? How about making the schools well lighted, brightly painted, cheerful, welcoming and nurturing places where there are plenty of good teachers, and developing more programs to reach the damaged parents of these children, so some good can come of a bad situation possibly?