Daily Whackjob

Every three years we are contacted by the County Public Schools to complete a census of “school-aged children”. Every three years I decline to participate.

Why?

Because they use this census to determine how much of 1% of the state’s sales tax each school gets. My kids don’t go to the government’s schools. The school shouldn’t receive money for educating them.

I’m fairly certain that at one time a former member of the school board told me on another blog– that has since self destructed– that funding for the schools was based on actual enrollment. Perhaps some of the funding is determined that way, but obviously not all. This census asks you to fill out information on any young person whose age falls between 1 and 19. Including children enrolled in privates schools, preschool programs, schooled at home, at collage or in the military. Why should the government run schools get money to educate a child they are not even paying to educate? According to this and this, 10% percent of children nation wide attend a private school. The public school system isn’t paying for that; the parents are. Likewise, the 2.2% (and growing) that are educated at home are not the financial responsibility of the government’s schools.

Until the funds gathered by the sales tax are distributed to those actually educating the children I will continue to follow the advice of Home School Legal Defence and send this in reply: “We decline to participate in this voluntary school census. Thank you very much.” I encourage all other parents that are financially responsible for their children’s education to do the same.

Click to see the silliness the school system sent me.

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Cut a stinker
Float an air biscuit
Bottom burp
Drop a bomb
Gaseous intestinal by-products
HUMrrhoids
Mexican jet propulsion
One-gun salute
Pass gas
Trouser trumpet
Rebuild the ozone layer one poof at a time
Rectal honk
Break wind
Let each little bean be heard

Whatever you call it, don’t do it at Camden-Rockport Middle School where some boys were “making a game of seeing who can expel the loudest and grossest flatus.”

It will now land you in detention.

After a few weeks of vacation the huge peppermint flavored sugar stick has been confiscated in the name of education and my sanity –the little bit that is left.

Language Arts is pretty much same old same old: diagramming sentences, making sure things agree with each other and using punctuation correctly.(Speaking of punctuation, Mr. Chandler, did I use that colon correctly? I find them rather tricky. )

We are still stuck in the middle ages for history and I hope to have this completed by summer. We got sidetracked on the lessons about Charles Martel and Charlemagne before Christmas when the girls spontaneously decided to write reports. Time to move on.

I’m most excited about our science. We will be learning about elements and the periodic table. Hopefully, by summer we will be able to recite all the elements and know their abbreviations. I am truly amazed by this science book. I throughly enjoyed chemistry in highschool and did very well, but this book is very easy to understand and I learned some things I wish I had been taught back in school.

I do believe, that across the board, I have learned more teaching elementary school to my children than I ever did in 12* years of government school.

*13 counting kindergarten

(cross-posted at Now At The Podium) 

Governor Tim Kaine cut federal funding that was provided to schools that promoted abstinence-only sexual education.  Conservatives (of the social variety) have been spewing various amounts of outrage.  Many state this is promoting immoral behavior, encouraging promiscuity, and so forth.

However, let’s be realistic here.  Teenagers have been trying to find ways and reasons to have sex since the beginning of recorded history.

Should we have sex-ed programs that stress and promote abstinence?  Of course!  Anyone who says “we should encourage teens to have sex as early and as often as possible” would be nuts!  That’s something that the vast majority of us would agree with.  However, we have to be smart about this and realize that abstinence-only hasn’t exactly proven to be a big hit or a successful deterrent to teens doing…well, “it”.

Parents should have the ability to opt their children out of sex-ed classes, and most people also agree with that.   I also believe we teach sex-ed at too young of an age.  I remember being in the 3rd grade, all of 9 years old, doing diagrams of the different parts of a penis and a vagina.  Even though I do believe that kids these days “grow up faster” and learn more at an earlier age than previous generations…there is no need to augment the rapid decrease in time that a child has to simply be a child.  I’d say that 5th grade (normally 10-11 years old) is a good time to start with sex-ed, but go with the basics (anatomical differences, etc…)

Anything earlier than that is the responsibility of the parents to decide if their kids are mature enough to handle the subject matter at hand.

Let’s be fair about this, as well…promote abstinence from the start.  However, starting in late middle-school and high school, lay it out there that if you choose not to abstain from pre-marital sex, one should use protection.  Teach the mechanics, talk about the risks of unsafe sex, especially with multiple partners.  Talk about STD’s, et cetera…pretty much common-sense stuff.

On the issue of homosexuality, I believe that children should be taught what it is and that it exists…but no moral “Yes, it’s OK” or “No, it’s wrong” stamp should be placed on it.  There’s too much gray area in terms of how people feel about homosexual relationships that to have the public schools approve or disapprove of it, that would be wrong and exclusive.

The point of my idea is that you wait until the kids are mature enough to handle the subject matter before the schools get involved.  Also, I believe that this idea of mine allows for a fairly universal form of objective morality (promote abstinence or at least “waiting” until you’re older, teaching safe sex habits…the things we all generally agree on).  At the same time, it reduces the effect the curriculum has on the more subjective aspects of people’s morals (whether or not being gay/lesbian is OK, whether or not abstinence is the only way, etc…).

Obviously, I’m not an expert on this subject.  I’m just simply attempting to apply common sense to an issue that people take so many different sides on.

Thoughts?

we need to learn Roman Numerals? I could think of two reasons — identify which Superbowl is being played and telling time on a fancy clock. I googled it and found one other reason–to be able to correctly identify which Rocky movie you actually wanted to watch.

This is one of those skills that I never really learned in school, having spent maybe one day of math class on it in twelve years of being educated by the government’s school system, and mostly had to figure it out on my own. I was (pleasantly?) surprised to find that my daughter’s math book devoted two whole chapters to this lost art. Now I can semi proficiently use Roman Numerals. I just have to wonder what I will use them for.

why we listen to anything scientists have to say.

NEWS FLASH!

Kids are smarter than apes. Babies are manuplitive. Animals can be bred to produce desired characteristics.

Do you feel more intelligent now?

That last one bothers me the most. I don’t want to start an evolution/creationism debate; we have been there and done that, and to be perfectly honest I am feeling much too distracted to get into it. All I want to do is vent about the dishonesty that is so prevalant on both sides.

Encouraging certain physical attributes to be passed along to an animal’s offspring and eliminating other attributes through selective breeding hardly disproves creation. It does show that micro-evolution can and does happen. Which is something that I doubt you will hear any creationist try to refute. Showing that a dog can be bred to possess the desired appearance doesn’t prove God didn’t make a dog to begin with any more than it proves that the dog evolved from a jellyfish millions–or is it billions?–of years ago. It is dishonest to say this disproves creationism.

Not that the evolutionists are the only ones to do this type of thing. Creationists are just as guilty. Take the symbiosis argument for example. That two creatures rely on each other for existence does not disprove evolution (it is possible that they evolved together) and prove that God is the only answer. To say that it does, is dishonest.

Should sex offenders be allowed on school property? Didn’t take me long to answer no to that question and wonder what kind of whackjob would even suggest it.   But what about when when a child’s parent is a convicted sex offender and the parent has taken steps to get their life on track and wants to be the best involved parent they can be? What then?

 School boards across the country are debating how to deal with parents like Cody Mittleider. The 28-year-old married father of three young children spent a year in prison for a 2005 rape conviction, but has since worked to become a respected member of the community.

He quit drinking, attends counseling, got a job at a potato farm and joined the volunteer fire department in this central North Dakota town of about 760 residents.

But as a convicted sex offender, Mittleider, is not allowed to attend his children’s school programs or athletic events, pending a Steele School Board decision. 

I would like to know how they can enforce a rule like this. Do they run a background check on everyone that attends a football game?  How can the School Board ensure that no sex offenders enter school property? Seems like they can only keep out the ones that are honest and very upfront about their past. The rest can sneak by. I would think that the ones they are keeping out are the ones that present the least threat.

I like to think I don’t agree with Democrats when it comes to things like sex, but this just makes sense. Actually telling kids the truth about it.  The title of the article caught my attention, “Sex Ed for Kindergarteners ‘Right Thing to Do,’ Says Obama”, and I thought I was once again going to find yet another reason I don’t send my kids to school.

I was surprised to find that I agree with Obama on this. If a kid asks where babies come from you should tell them the truth and not make up stories about storks or cabbage patches. Of course, it should be kept age appropriate, but I feel that if they are old enough to be curious and ask then they are old enough to know basic facts.

Makes me wonder what is being taught now.

To hear the left tell it, it just protects kids from discrimination so they can learn. To hear the right tell it, it should be bill number 666 and mandates that kindergardeners be indoctrinated with the homosexual agenda.  Most likely the truth lies somewhere in between.

From the left:

 SB 777 creates uniform nondiscrimination standards within the state’s education code and clarifies the responsibility of school officials to ensure a safe learning environment.

“Inconsistencies in state law create significant gaps that leave students vulnerable to harassment and bias and unaware of their rights.  SB 777 helps fill those gaps so that all youth are protected.”

“Right wing extremists have recently attacked this bill, grossly distorting the facts about what the legislation does,” said Kors. “The Student Civil Rights Act protects all youth, not only those who identify as LGBT, from discrimination so they all have the opportunity to succeed in school and thrive in life.”

From the right:

Radical legislation mandating that schoolchildren as young as kindergarten learn about and support transsexuality, bisexuality and homosexuality has passed the California State Senate.

 “The notion of forcing children to support controversial sexual lifestyles is shocking and appalling to millions of fathers and mothers,” Thomasson said. “Parents don’t want their children taught to become homosexual or bisexual or to wonder whether they need a sex-change operation.

 

SB 777 also deletes the true definition of “sex” from the Education Code, which currently reads: “Sex” means the biological condition or quality of being a male or female human being. And because of the bill’s wide-open definition of “sexual orientation,” homosexual “marriages” and all aspects of homosexuality and bisexuality would be positively portrayed to children as young as kindergarten. SB 777 will teach these highly-controversial sexual subjects without parental permission.

And here is the actual bill. 

First off, I don’t think you can teach someone to be homosexual any more than you can teach someone to be heterosexual.  Sure, you can pressure kids into trying things so they will fit in, but I don’t think you can teach kids who to be attracted to.

I only skimmed over the bill, but it doesn’t look like it says teachers  must teach what it means to be homosexual, transgender, bisexual, etc. Or that they must teach that it is good. It just says you can’t discriminate based on these things.  If I’m reading this part right, I agree.  Teachers shouldn’t make children feel excluded or like they are less of a person based on things beyond their control.

I am a little concerned about the way this bill redefines “sex” and “gender”.  I can see how this could cause some trouble.

Old definition- “Sex” means the biological condition or quality of being a male or female human being.

New definition- “Gender” means sex, and includes a person’s gender identity and gender related appearance and behavior whether or not stereotypically associated with the person’s assigned sex at birth.

 I know some people are going to disagree with me on this, but if you have two X chromosomes you are a girl. If you have an X and a Y you are a boy. That is your gender. That is the bathroom and locker room you belong in and the softball team you should play on.  You may have a different gender identity, but it doesn’t change you gender.

I already know; you don’t have to tell me. I’m a horrible liberal that has already been indoctrinated by the homosexuals since I don’t think Satan wrote the bill and believe that  all kids should be able to go to school and keep their self respect. I am also an uncaring bigoted conservative because I think gender and gender identity are two different things and the latter doesn’t define the former.

Looks like some “teachers”* got the bright idea to stage a gun attack that scared the crud out of their students.

The mock attack Thursday night was intended as a learning experience and lasted five minutes during the weeklong trip to a state park, said Scales Elementary School Assistant Principal Don Bartch, who led the trip.

“We got together and discussed what we would have done in a real situation,” he said.

Rather than letting the kids know it was a drill they told the kids it was real. They even had a disguised teacher rattle the closed door while crying children cowered under tables thinking they were going to die.

“The children were in that room in the dark, begging for their lives, because they thought there was someone with a gun after them,” said Brandy Cole, whose son went on the trip.

After the lights went out, about 20 kids started to cry, 11-year-old Shay Naylor said.
“I was like, ‘Oh My God,’ ” she said. “At first I thought I was going to die. We flipped out.”

If a professor gets fired for pointing a marker at young adults and saying “Bang”, what should happen to these educators for terrorizing children with such a traumatic experience?

* I don’t think all teacher are like this. There are some very wonderful teachers and I would venture to say that they are the majority.