So do I...

I am not knowledgeable about changing education standards, BUT it seems like every generation, even in ancient times, said the youth today is decadent and puts society in peril. I hope when it seems like kids earning less, it's really this ancient tendency.

:) Thanks CG--he's a good man and at 42 is still taking care of business.

It makes sense if these children are being taught less and less in our schools... they are beginning to lack the vocabulary that will allow them to express and understand those concepts that authors like AR have been fighting to disseminate for as long as there have been thinking human beings. It is horrifying to me that "thinking" human beings can so totally twist others to conform and no one seems to care. Maybe we're already that far gone into the dark night of totalitarianism.

Thanks, LS--I have been trying for years to get that message across to other parents, but they won't listen, and the results are showing...

Probably for a gov't school. I think we're going to encounter more of her and will probably change schools as needed. Hopefully the real impolite ones just leave, confused as to why they can't influence people and polices.

It's funny that people went to a writers group and then didn't like using advanced words. That only makes sense if they wanted to write for a juvenile audience.

There will be a certain amount of getting your kids to unlearn what they have learned (at school).

I can overlook some of that, but if it's a pattern we won't be able to use the public schools.

If the schools are filled with impolite people, we will be moving them out immediately. We'll never prepay a term for two kids again.

What an idea! If a single child breaks say two dozen shared paint brushes we can just call it a social accident and demand the all the parents for next years kindergarten class buy extra supplies.

LetsShrug is right. It starts in kindergarten with the book "Rainbow Fish". Actually it started before the first day of kindergarten when everyone who brought their school supplies was promptly told to put in a bin for everyone to use. That actually happened within the first couple of minutes that I was dropping off my daughter's school supplies and I was meeting my child's new teacher. My daughter thought that teacher was the second worst she ever had.

Not only can she read, CG, but LetsShrug used to be a school teacher before shrugging.

"Before his class reached graduation day, my son had gone to the local college for his GED, paying for it with a part-time messenger job, then enlisted in the Navy."
I love this story. Many people in engineering school received enlisted training from the Navy, and they had a huge advantage over people fresh out of HS. Whatever path he wants, he sounds like a guy who goes out and gets it. That's so refreshing compared to stories about why people *aren't* achieving.

BTW, in high-tech "disruptive" is an over-used positive word. It means bringing a product or service to a group of people who previously couldn't get it. Keep disrupting!

I don't know if it's just regional, but I've never heard of people speaking to one another in this way, except maybe on those commentary shows whose subtitles I see at the gym. I've had business trips to the East Coast, including one to Long Island, and I never see this stuff, despite the stereotypes. Maybe they're all not in other industries or in their basements. Or maybe I know them and they just hold their tongue without anonymity.

I once walked it into a Starbucks in Manhattan, and I think the barista thought it was my first time off the farm; she wasn't openly hostile though.

There probably are a million people who would accuse someone of being a bad parent without knowing him, more than a million if you count nursing activists. I just don't know them and really don't want to.

lol. she got you there cg

Wow. There is a reason why they don't teach things in a way that makes sense anymore. They don't want these kids to grow up and expect logic in life, they want them to look to others for answers (even if they, themselves, do not understand the answers). They WANT them to be dependent, to not think freely or critically, to not question, to not notice, and to not be certain about anything. They want them to be easily led sheep. This is why the Constitution is barely taught, and when it is taught it's with lazy brush strokes with no in-depth discussion about the importance of individualism and freedom. WE ARE LOST.
I am happy that your son did not go on ritalin...that is a management tool for teachers who have too many kids in a classroom. Some kids need a lot of one on one and they don't have the resources for that, so they push drugs instead...which is a mind numbing of another kind. In my opinion it is done on purpose, large classrooms with all levels of kids mixed in, does NOT make for the highest learning possible for any student. It's a pigeon hole. And Common Core is going to make it so much worse as it is a faster way to make sheep.

If you don't have your eyes and ears open (I'm not saying you don't, but most typical parents' aren't open all that wide) you'll miss plenty. The school I worked at gave food bags away every friday to selected kids (on what criteria I do not know), but the message this sends to small minds is plain wrong. (I will avoid going into a rant here.) As for the books the teachers, counselor, or whoever, read to them, if you're paying attention, many have collectivist ideas in them. (The Rainbow Fish for one). But I only read one book there that leaned towards teaching individualism instead of collectivism. (The Gingerbread Girl). I loved reading to the kids, and I would always question the happenings of the story as I read and do a review at the end of how I didn't really like this or that part because...... the kids LOVED it when I did this too... but I didn't get to read to them very often since my real job was to be a testing machine...(constant testing... but if a student showed an interest in a certain topic while I was testing I'd stop and elaborate and answer questions, although I didn't really have the time to spend on anything outside of our rigorous testing schedule).
My point is...in public school you aren't there to notice, or monitor, or say "no, this is not something I want you teaching my kid" and kids sure don't know when they're being spoon-fed garbage, that's up to the parents to curtail. So public schools have an easy job of indoctrinating. And I never once, in my ten years of being there, heard a discussion about freedom, or individual rights (other than on MLK day)...schools or sorely and purposely lacking on these very important topics...and it isn't being noticed at all, as far as I know, by parents in my area. I finally shrugged the whole thing and now work from home. With common core coming down, it was time to go. I tried to wake up as many as I could on my way out.... I don't think anyone heard me.

"So subtle many teachers don't see it. The story math problems with a leftist bent. The revised history."
We will keep an eye on the school. My wife and I have a leftist bent, but I certainly don't want news and history for me or my kids that just corroborates what I want to be true. I want them to develop their own opinions, not their own facts.

If they're teaching them leftwing ideas they're some of the same ideas they get at home and from friends. Our neighborhoods is 85% liberal, although I really think it would be lower if moderate libertarian were a widely understood option. The important thing is for people to learn a system of scientific critical thinking and math to model systems. If the school really is promoting a political agenda, I see homeschooling in our future.

"The food give aways. The collective children's books."
I don't even know what this is. Just like every time the kids grow another year, I'm in for a whole new set of issues. :)

I can READ.

You've never even met me.

If it's at the same time, that won't help. :( But thanks :)

They have a replay running next Tuesday July 29th.

I will NOT miss tip toeing around those Friday bags. I was the only one who saw the wrong in it and refused to be a part of it. And not one person asked Why I was so against it. I think the word "why" has become a politically incorrect word. No one wants to be perceived as nosy. (or Informed, apparently).

ISank
how was the documentary?