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FIRE THEM!

Once again, Bill Maher has penned an honest portrayal of the idiocy in this country.  I admit, I’m a bit biased when it comes to this but lets talk about education for a minute.  First, my background.  A significant number of my immediate and extended family members are teachers or have been teachers at one point or another in their lives.  Growing up, education..or more to the point, GETTING ONE, was the number one rule, ahead of anything else despite my pathetic attempts to think otherwise at times.  My folks made time for reading every night to my sister and me whether it was reading TO us or allowing one of us to read to THEM.  They both struggled along with us trying to figure out ways to tell a 14 frustrated year old that Algebra is actually relevant and to just suck it up and learn it and they RE-LEARNED it with me.  My folks went out of their way to provide Sarah and me with educational opportunities, not because they wanted genius children (hopefully that was not their wish) but because they both knew and understood the importance of a basic education.  They sent Sarah and I to enrichment programs, they participated and helped us to participate in Cub Scouts, Brownies, plays, programs, events, museums, and yes, even instruction about shoveling shit on the farm.  Education is important.  It was important to my parents and it was eventually important to me.  I’m not talking here about post-secondary education but the basic shit.  Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic — K-12 public education.

Today on the Huffington Post

Firing all the teachers may feel good – we’re Americans, kicking people when they’re down is what we do – but it’s not really their fault. Now, undeniably, there are some bad teachers out there. They don’t know the material, they don’t make things interesting, they have sex with the same kid every day instead of spreading the love around… But every school has crappy teachers. Yale has crappy teachers – they must, they gave us George Bush.

According to all the studies, it doesn’t matter what teachers do. Although everyone appreciates foreplay. What matters is what parents do. The number one predictor of a child’s academic success is parental involvement. It doesn’t even matter if your kid goes to private or public school. So save the twenty grand a year and treat yourself to a nice vacation away from the little bastards

Click on the link above to read the rest.

I get so sick of the bullshit in the papers and on line criticizing teachers for ‘failing kids’.  Bullshit.  The only teachers who are failing kids in this country ARE THE PARENTS.  Yes, there are bad teachers, AND bad doctors, lawyers, and scientists but come on if you are going to take the time to write in to the newspaper editor, at least show your kids that you know how to use a spell checker or that you can FINISH a fucking thought in a single sentence!  So, the next time you get an urge to criticize a teacher, stop and think for a minute about what you are doing.  Is little Jimmy’s failure to learn his times tables the fault of the teacher OR is it YOUR fault for failing to make sure little Jimmy got home after school to DO HIS HOMEWORK!  OR, is it YOUR fault for failing to drill them into his head like you were asked to help do by the note you got from the teacher BECUASE YOU YOU COULD NOT BE BOTHERED TO SHOW UP FOR PARENT / TEACHER CONFERENCES!

One reason, among many others that I got out of the Education thing for myself was that I had a very difficult time understanding the lack of involvement of parents in their kids lives because it was SO foreign to me. Growing up I couldn’t shit without one of my parents asking me about school and about my life and good Lord there were times when I absolutely HATED their incessant nagging, prodding, and scornful stares and I would slam my books on the table and leave for coffee at Denny’s just to piss them off more. My parents were doing their jobs, THEY were being teachers, never mind their own backgrounds.  THEY were demanding accountability from me and THEY were going to stand by me and help me even while frustrated with me to make sure that at the VERY least, I got my ass through High School with an education.  Yes, I know everyone has shit going on in their lives but come on, you do not have to be a scholar to be a teacher to your child, you only have to be there and show that to your child.  They will know your expectations, you don’t even have to explain what they are,  that’s the beauty of a parent / child relationship.  The kid WILL come to you for help even when they know you won’t be able to give them the answers.

Lack of parental involvement is the #1 reason that our education system in this country is shot.  It is not however broken and it is not un-fixable.  It is also not the sole responsibility of teachers in this country to raise YOUR CHILDREN.

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Car Surfing

Just when you think you’ve seen it all, today I got my first glimpse of “Car Surfing”.  I was driving down the road about 55mph going home from work and approaching me in the other direction was a car load of kids, although as they passed these were not young kids, they well into their late teens or 20′s.  2 of them were fully outside of the car (also traveling at a high speed) hanging on to the car door screaming and yelling (my windows were down and they could be heard as they whizzed by me).  A couple cars later, the same thing!  2 more kids, a little younger this time, hanging out of the car clearly enjoying themselves but oblivious to their own safety (and everyone else’s). Now, I did a LOT of dumb ass things as a kid, hell, I did stupid things well into my 20′s that looking back now that would have clearly marked me as an idiot but I’m proud to say that “car surfing” was not one of them.  I’ve always taken the responsibility of driving (and riding) rather seriously.  No seat belt, no ride kind of thing.  I just can’t imagine what was going through their minds, oblivious to the fact that a passing semi truck alone could have easily sucked them right off the side of their car and on to a certain and rather nasty death.  Wow.

It’s been a BUSY week for me.  Work has been a zoo but not exactly in the same way it has been most of the summer.  By zoo I mean that someone literally left the gate open at the zoo and untamed wild beasts have been shopping at the store this week!  One customer brought my assistant to tears this week, yelling at her for a problem he created, and yelling because when he discovered it he could not deal with that revelation.  I had another customer holler at me for having to come back and get more driveway sealer because what he got was too good and too thick and not like what he bought before even though what he got before was purchased at some other store in some other part of the state.  I had several other people in this week complaining that we are out of stock on SEASONAL items (stains, sealers etc.) and that I should have anticipated a shitty summer for doing outside projects and that 75% of the state has waited until the absolute last minute to do anything around their homes.  FUCK YOU, buy shit IN SEASON, you snooze you lose.  On top of the general jerks, it’s been beautiful outside now for the past 10 days and I’ve been stuck inside working my ass off.  Oh well, at least I can pay my bills…with the Michigan jobless rate above 12%, I can at least say I’m lucky to have an income.

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Not too much else going on lately.  I am planning a trip to the Upper Peninsula with the folks in early October which will hopefully result in some good photography opportunities.  Right now, I don’t live any further from Lake Superior than I do from Grand Rapids (for the most part) and I’m sad that I’ve not bothered to just do a day trip up there.  If you like being out in the middle of fucking nowhere, the UP is certainly the place to do it.  I’ve been a little lax this year taking pictures.  Plenty of family pictures were taken and tons more pictures of Gavin, but I’ve not spent very much time in the woods this year like I’ve done in the past.  Most of that has to do with the fact that I live much further from nature now than I have in the past.  There are places to hike here in town but there are also lots of people, I can’t let Gavin off his lead, and I just don’t like being able to hear car horns and screaming children when I’m out hiking in the woods!  Oh well, at least I’m not sitting on my ass in front of the TV.  Anyhow, toodle for now.  Time to make dinner.