Thread: America is Doomed!

Originally Posted by mtm1963

the biggest failure in education are the student's parents.

It's true. We're ignorant and stupid about how kids learn, about what kids need. We cling to outmoded ideas about how to educate kids, and we let unimaginative clods mastermind our system. We tolerate everything bad that the unions bring, instead of looking at the problems we face and engineering solutions that will leverage the unions for positive results. We bitch and moan but we don't want to be the annoying parents so we let things slide when we should be up in arms over some of the institutionalized drudgery that passes as education. We should be involved, and I don't just mean reading to your kid every night or helping him with his math homework. I mean involved in the process, beyond the fucking PTA horseshit, sitting in on school board meetings, kicking doors down, DEMANDING that we embrace different approaches to get better results, perpetually refining the system so that it starts to produce for us again. And our elected representatives, local, state and federal, need to play their appropriate role in making that happen as well.

Originally Posted by USA-1

I'm not condeming the entire generation. From my observations I see three types of parents. Those that spoil their kids and make sure they have everything they didn't have as kids. The most important thing to them is for their kids to be happy and not suffer in any way. Another type are parents that could care less about their kids and are only concerned about themselves. The third type are parents that are concerned about their children's future, they teach them the skills to survive and get ahead in the world. They stress the importance of discipline, hard work and education. They teach their kids priorities and what really is important in life.

The problem is the number of the third type of parents is dropping while the other two are rising.

I think there's a fourth class that's probably by far the most numerous. They care deeply about their children but, as human beings are complicated, they sometimes make mistakes and misjudge their children's needs and talents, or misjudge how much or how little help to provide. Not sure if you have kids, but it's like walking a tightrope between not doing too much and doing too little. I reassure myself that as long as I struggle actively and consciously with myself I'll land somewhere near an acceptable balance. But the fact is that sometimes you're in the dark, life and people's souls is a messy, complicated, inscrutable business, and you just have to do the best you can.

We're not doing the best we can, as a society, though. We're letting shit slide that we know is mediocre at best because, hey, we've got fucking work to do and shit to take care of, don't we. I see A LOT of that. The frustrations and confusion of how to juggle and balance the needs of the kids on a day to day basis is just more than some people can manage, and they cop out, basically, and decide that they can, after all, trust the public school system to do a good job. But the schools are like government. The less we participate, the more broken it gets. The less educated we are, the worse the services get.

Go to a diner in California. Order just about anything you want. Eat it up. Enjoy it. That's delicious, isn't it? Mmmm. Now go to the best diner you can find in New Jersey or Pennsylvania. Order something similar. Compare and contrast. California: fresh everything, delicious vegetables, nothing drowning in fat and grease, wonderful real food flavors bursting. Pennsylvania: a plate piled high with a greasy slop that you'd be hard pressed to differentiate from any number of greasy items you could order from the menu in a blind taste test.

The point? Why the difference? Because people in California demand that shit. And people out here don't know any better, so they don't demand it, so they don't get it.