Posted on 06/28/2008 11:36:30 PM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
The ideology of teen pregnancy
By Christopher Caldwell
Published: June 27 2008 19:59 | Last updated: June 27 2008 19:59
Every year at Gloucester High School in Massachusetts, three or four girls get pregnant. But not this year. This year 17 did. When Time magazine alleged that some of the girls had a “pregnancy pact”, reporters and cameramen from around the world descended on the fishing port. Whether the pact was a teenage dare or a practical arrangement by the girls to give each other moral support has been hotly debated. No one disputes, though, that many were delighted to discover they were pregnant. “Sweet!” one of them shouted in the school nurse’s office. The school superintendent admitted: “They were not trying very hard not to get pregnant.”
(Excerpt) Read more at ft.com ...
I haven’t visited any Catholic schools other than the one my special needs brother attends, which is a weirdly designed place anyway so I can’t say. I have very limited exposure to government schools and accept that. It just seems to me a vaguely unnatural way to teach kids but if you’re coming from a standpoint of mass education, most of the design choices and teaching styles make sense.
Honestly schools are probably more like factories than prisons but since factories don’t manufacture humans the similarities aren’t as obvious.
I can respect that.
Just as a question: do you think your children would be more influenced by these "spawn", or do you think they would choose instead to associate with friends from church or the neighborhood, or the children of your friends, or do you just not want to take the chance?
So, please know that I am aware that there are good teachers in public schools and there are many good kids, but the system itself is what I object to. I would object to it far less if I didn't have to subsidize it.
Now I'm a little bit confused, but I do appreciate your acknowledgement that we're not all evil Marxist atheists, etc....Do you object to the system because you consider it socialist, because everyone is allowed to attend, because you have to pay taxes for it, or for some other reason?
How about colleges? I've attended classes at at least 5 colleges (if I could afford it, I'd be a permanent student) over the past 30 years, and it seems to me that they are more like public schools than unlike them in the way they are built.
The main difference in colleges is nobody is forced to be there, you don’t have rules about when you’re allowed or not allowed to be in the hallways, and they generally treat you like an adult. You don’t have to get a hall pass to use the restroom. Rarely do they take attendance. And I’ve never been in a college with locking grates across the hallways.
Generally the students at colleges are adults, which might explain that...
A lot of the rules in public schools result because parents expect the schools to be responsible for their minor children at all times, and if said minor children choose to be in the wrong place and get hurt, etc., the parents can and do hold the schools responsible.
Rarely do they take attendance.
They didn't when I was an undergrad, and most of my graduate professors didn't, but judging by the syllabi I've seen from my youngest child's college classes (which isn't all of them by any means) more and more college professors are taking attendance. I'm not sure why that is.
When I was in college, most of the professors didn't take attendance because if you weren't in class you weren't going to pass anyway. The ones who took attendance were the same ones who basically read the textbook to us in class...a certain economics professor comes to mind...
I haven’t been in an actual college classroom for two years but I’d be very surprised if attendance taking was commonplace. They often have a “participation” grade, but that’s based on things like contributing. A professor will schedule frequent quizzes if he wants to ensure attendance, not call the role.
Of course colleges treat students like adults and primary/secondary schools don’t. However, they don’t really treat the kids much like kids either... more like merchandise.
Private colleges, may not require attendance, like public ones do.
Could you explain how you know that, since you didn't attend public schools?
Thanks, that may be the difference. My son is attending a state college, but I attended a private college for my undergrad degree.
Ok, that’s entirely based on what I’ve read and been told by other people. *rolls eyes*. Can you tell me what gravity is like on the Moon, since you’ve never been there?
Sorry, but sticking twenty five-year-olds in a classroom and trying to get them to do organized stuff for hours at a time, is not the way to treat kids. Making ten year old boys sit at a desk for seven hours a day is not the way to treat kids.
Simple: I want them associating with children of parents who share the same moral values I have. Freedom of association and all that. Though I sense from the tone of your question that you like the whole "melting pot" idea of our public schools, "The Great Leveler." Suffice it to say, I disagree.
Now I'm a little bit confused, but I do appreciate your acknowledgement that we're not all evil Marxist atheists, etc....Do you object to the system because you consider it socialist, because everyone is allowed to attend, because you have to pay taxes for it, or for some other reason?
Um, I doubt you're confused, but I object to the system because it's a centralized bureaucracy that perverts the classic market relationship of merchant/consumer. That being said, if I didn't have to subsidize it, I'd leave it with the rest of things in society I prefer to opt out of.
To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.
- Thomas Jefferson
Yes, that makes perfect sense. I wanted the same thing for my children, and my parents wanted the same thing for me.
Though I sense from the tone of your question that you like the whole "melting pot" idea of our public schools, "The Great Leveler." Suffice it to say, I disagree.
You're reading into my reply something I did not intend. That wasn't at all why I asked the question.
When I was in school, there were people I wasn't supposed to hang around with. I mainly chose to associate with other students from my church group and from the Honor Society. I chose not to associate with the "druggies" and other people whose morals and values I did not share.
I mostly wondered if you didn't trust your children to make the right choices, if your neighborhood was that bad, or if you wanted to completely control who they associated with "just in case".
Um, I doubt you're confused, but I object to the system because it's a centralized bureaucracy that perverts the classic market relationship of merchant/consumer.
Ok, that's what the 2nd half of your post sounded like, but in the first half you made it sound as if the only thing you had against public schools was that your children would be associating with unsavory characters, hence my confusion.
Actually, I agree. Kindergarten ought not to last more than 3-4 hours a day, and ought to include lots of play time.
Ten year old boys need to run and play, or they're going to drive you nuts.
My neighborhood's fine.
I want my children to be around peers who will inspire them to a higher standard of behavior.
Why would I knowingly send them someplace where there are people "to avoid?"
I post on a variety of topics and I don't see your name. Do you see mine?
I didn't know it was possible to check another poster's posting history. How would I do that?
Maria Montessori was sympathetic to communism, yet my children attended Montessori pre-school and I used many of her methods in my homeschool.
Helen Keller was a hard core socialist. ( Personally, I believe that she was highly sympathetic to communism.) He life, and the methods of Anne Sullivan, are the single **most** important influence in our homeschool philosophy and methods.
John Lennon was a flaming socialist ( I suspect also sympathetic to communist philosophy.) but I still enjoy his music.
So?...What is your point? There are many communists who are right about some things.
You put in the posters name in the search box, and then hit go.
It will give you that posters posts in chronological order.
Very cool! Thank you!
I have tried “find” and “search” on my own name and nothing comes up. This is what it says at the bottom of the search page:
“Only **article titles** can be searched and words with three or fewer letters are not searched at all. “
I suppose since the word “wintertime” is not an article name, my name is not popping up.
Go to your home page (click on your name) and then click on “in forum” - that should give a list of your latest posts. Of course, for yourself, you can also find your posts by clicking “pings” but you’ll get the posts TO you as well.
Just for the sake of discussion, since your most admired educators are all socialists or Marxists, does it surprise you that schools of education are also full of Marxists?
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