Posted on 10/21/2006 10:38:35 PM PDT by SmithL
The dispatches arrived in a bunch and pointed too much to the same conclusion to be coincidence. The conclusion: We're doomed. And it's not al-Qaida doing us in. We're doing it to ourselves.
In what is surely the tip of the social iceberg, a New England grade school has joined schools across the country in prohibiting the kids from playing tag at recess.
Touch football is also banned. The schools are growingly - and legitimately - fearful of lawsuits over playground accidents by litigious parents. Seesaws and jungle gyms have long since disappeared from playgrounds.
But there is probably more at work here than just fear of the courtroom: the kids' feelings. Remember a few years ago when the schools started banning dodge ball? The problem was, dodge ball was exclusionary, the point being to knock people out of the game at great risk to their positive self-image.
The problem of unsupervised games and skinned knees may be self-solving because surveys show recesses are shriveling, with the schools arguing they need that time to prepare their students for the tests mandated by the No Child Left Behind Act.
So how's that working out?
Not so hot, according to a Brookings Institution study. It found that, while American eighth-graders professed enjoyment of math and confidence in their math skills, they didn't perform as well as foreign eighth-graders, who were not so happy and confident.
Summed up one account: "Even the least confident students in Singapore outscored the most confident Americans."
Countries like the United States that teach math by trying to relate it to daily life using real-life examples have the worst scores. There's a two-word explanation for that: binomial theorem. When was the last time you had occasion in daily life to use that basic first step in introductory algebra? The more math you learn, the more remote it is from real life.
The final threads of this tapestry of doom came together when the Associated Press filed a story about an NFL program to help combat the epidemic of childhood obesity, a condition caused in part, the experts say, by a lack of exercise like, oh, say, playing tag or dodge ball.
The program aims to work physical activity into the classroom. Reported the AP:
"New York Giants quarterback Eli Manning dropped by a Manhattan public school this week where he showed eighth-graders how to add some exercise to their math class. He had them perform squats, then count their own heart rates for 15 seconds and multiply by four to calculate their heartbeats per minute."
So here we have eighth-graders - 13-year-olds - being challenged to count into the double digits and then multiply that number by four.
A science lesson would teach the dangers of cholesterol and the importance of healthy hearts by having the kids play - get this - tag. Imagine what it will do to the self-esteem of an eighth-grader who in a classroom game of tag is chosen to be cholesterol, heart-clogging fat.
We will ask ourselves how we got to be so fat and stupid. And the answer will come: Education.
We're doomed.
Indeed, the descendants of the flinty New Englanders who chased the British redcoats from Lexington Green and Concord Bridge back to Boston are prohibited from playing all unsupervised "chasing games."
There is likely some advantage in approaching a difficult task with humility and trepidation, but we do lead the world, however, in instilling self-esteem.
If you're really good, there are only about five other people in the world you can talk to, and none of them, very likely, is a Singaporean eighth-grader.
So much for teaching self-esteem...
Teach them something useful and self-esteem will come on it's own.
PING = Later
Thanks for the ping.
As the great swamp philosopher, Pogo, once said: "We have found the enemy and they are us."
I guess the days of kids playing Smear the Queer are over,replaced by the more acceptable"Kiss the Queer".
We accept that. Our children are doing very well scholastically, I'm just pointing out that it is only because we put so much effort into what takes place outside of school. It sure as heck isn't because of the school.
What irritates me is when I compare the quality of education I received compared to what my children get. My parents never had to worry or work so hard as far as my school work. They were wonderful and supportive, but I don't recall them needing to spend 16-20 hours a week on my back asking "Do you understand?". Now we are seeing stuff that many people would assume are easily taught being entirely ommitted, and children being left with complex homework and no method to discern how to do it. Good review for us, but extremely troubling that the children don't get at least the basics at school. We are banding together with several parents in the same class and comparing notes on the teacher (who is highly rated!), the homework and general comprehension of the children. We are coping, but it's really concerning.
Thank God for our tutor, who is as devoted and wonderful as we could hope for. My son's getting highest marks because of her and his mother. I help too, but can't compare my effort to theirs.
When the kids get older, we'll consider the alternatives for education. Right now we can handle it. Later the $1,600 a month minimum (2 kids) for private school may be the option we take unless we can get involved with a good home schooling group. We'll see. For now, we want to focus on getting all the basic down.
Demo man is one of the scariest movies because it is slowly coming true.
Just as bad, those flinty New Englanders are about to re-elect a lying, murdering, woman-abusing, pile of cr*p to the U.S. Senate. Maybe America is lost.
A beard and no teeth.
For a culture dominated by those who claim to believe in evolution, we're doing a pretty good job of eliminating the natural selection factor. First we get rid of the dangerous toys (pocket knives, BB guns, lawn darts, etc.) that used to remove stupid kids from the gene pool, then we get rid of rough sports. I suppose next some liberal in a position of power will point to a jail cell and say, "If you get in there, it will be much easier to protect you."
Unless you are saving for retiremtne, buying a house, buying a car, laying out a landscape, putting up shelves, connecting water pipes, etc.
Outstanding BTTT!
You're right - high self esteem will come in time - as it should. High self esteem before it's earned can be a negative. The kids with the highest self-esteem in high schools are gang members ...
You mean you'll go around eating rat burgers? /sarc.
THANKS.
Sadly, INDEED . . . Exceedingly too, too true.
At my HS the most popular kids (Sports jocks, cheerleaders and yes very conceited) became gas station attendants and fat drunks. The one guy that no one noticed became our state rep.
Revenge of the nerds?
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