Dear God...

[MJZiggy]

When I was growing up, I had a friend who came from India. They prayed, but they prayed differently than the majority of people in our school, so when issues of prayer in school came up, she was always excused from the class and made to wait in the hall. I can tell you with absolute certainty that every time it happened, she was absolutely mortified for the attention and felt completely excluded. And not just for the 10 minutes or so she was out of the classroom.

As to the other stuff, I don't believe it necessary to physically punish my kid to get him to learn what's right and wrong in life. We tried it once when he was little, and the kid dug in his heels and dared us to try it again. So instead we started using our imaginations and ended up with a great kid that is not aggressive, thinks of others first, and is quite often complimented by servers and little old ladies on his wonderful manners--because he knows he's not gonna get what he wants if a please doesn't come with the request. He has been taught to treat everyone from his "elders" to his "subordinates" with respect. The reason is that he has no subordinates as there is no such thing.

And if his teacher or principal ever decided that beating my kid was a good idea, they would be reminded by his mother what it feels like to be hit. Last week, my son had a small behavior issue in class. His teacher mentioned it to me and by yesterday afternoon, his behavior was perfect. I never laid a hand on him, but his actions were corrected. That is my job. Not his teacher's. The problem is not school people not being able to hit the children. The problem is parents not doing what they should to correct behavior when problems come to their attention.

And yes, I am an agnostic. Religion doesn't offend me, because by definition, agnostics are unsure. The athiests might have a different view.

By the logic of the original post, God should have protected the VT students because it is a college, not a high school where you can take things like comparative religion and theology, and the students in the dorm should surely have been protected because prayer is certainly allowed in the dorms.

Also using that model, NONE of these things ever should have happened, because God should have been there to heal the sick minds that came up with these horrific plans in the first place. The world does not work that way. The only part of that post I partially agree with is the entertainment, but that also can be pointed back at parents who are supposed to be responsible for monitoring what their kids are using for entertainment. I've known far too many little kids using first person shooter games that I wouldn't let my kid near until he was an adult. I think I'm done now. Have at it.

[pacfan]

Zig, an amazing, simply amazing post.

[Zool]

Seconded

Instead of looking for why something happened, why not look to see how it could be prevented in the future.

[K-town]

Seconded

Instead of looking for why something happened, why not look to see how it could be prevented in the future.

Because in hindsight, everyone's vision is 20-20.
Looking forward, it's a lot of myopic, one eyed people leading the blind.
Except for me.

[packinpatland]

When I was growing up, I had a friend who came from India. They prayed, but they prayed differently than the majority of people in our school, so when issues of prayer in school came up, she was always excused from the class and made to wait in the hall. I can tell you with absolute certainty that every time it happened, she was absolutely mortified for the attention and felt completely excluded. And not just for the 10 minutes or so she was out of the classroom.

As to the other stuff, I don't believe it necessary to physically punish my kid to get him to learn what's right and wrong in life. We tried it once when he was little, and the kid dug in his heels and dared us to try it again. So instead we started using our imaginations and ended up with a great kid that is not aggressive, thinks of others first, and is quite often complimented by servers and little old ladies on his wonderful manners--because he knows he's not gonna get what he wants if a please doesn't come with the request. He has been taught to treat everyone from his "elders" to his "subordinates" with respect. The reason is that he has no subordinates as there is no such thing.

And if his teacher or principal ever decided that beating my kid was a good idea, they would be reminded by his mother what it feels like to be hit. Last week, my son had a small behavior issue in class. His teacher mentioned it to me and by yesterday afternoon, his behavior was perfect. I never laid a hand on him, but his actions were corrected. That is my job. Not his teacher's. The problem is not school people not being able to hit the children. The problem is parents not doing what they should to correct behavior when problems come to their attention.

And yes, I am an agnostic. Religion doesn't offend me, because by definition, agnostics are unsure. The athiests might have a different view.

By the logic of the original post, God should have protected the VT students because it is a college, not a high school where you can take things like comparative religion and theology, and the students in the dorm should surely have been protected because prayer is certainly allowed in the dorms.

Also using that model, NONE of these things ever should have happened, because God should have been there to heal the sick minds that came up with these horrific plans in the first place. The world does not work that way. The only part of that post I partially agree with is the entertainment, but that also can be pointed back at parents who are supposed to be responsible for monitoring what their kids are using for entertainment. I've known far too many little kids using first person shooter games that I wouldn't let my kid near until he was an adult. I think I'm done now. Have at it.

Wow.
Seriously, do you teach parenting classes? Your son is a lucky little guy.

[Merlin]

The sad part about society is that somewhere someone came up with the great idea to allow the government to dictate how a child should be raised. Public schools and the rules (or lack thereof) are a byproduct of this decision.

People truly believe that it takes a village to raise a child and that is sad.

[Partial]

The sad part about society is that somewhere someone came up with the great idea to allow the government to dictate how a child should be raised. Public schools and the rules (or lack thereof) are a byproduct of this decision.

People truly believe that it takes a village to raise a child and that is sad.

Yes but what good are private schools? They don't have quality teachers because they don't pay well-enough(unless we're talking the upscale ones). Also, they don't have government funding to get textbooks, school supplies, etc.

American school system is crap until you get to university. Then we are leaps and bounds ahead of the rest of the world.

[Merlin]

The sad part about society is that somewhere someone came up with the great idea to allow the government to dictate how a child should be raised. Public schools and the rules (or lack thereof) are a byproduct of this decision.

People truly believe that it takes a village to raise a child and that is sad.

Yes but what good are private schools? They don't have quality teachers because they don't pay well-enough(unless we're talking the upscale ones). Also, they don't have government funding to get textbooks, school supplies, etc.

American school system is crap until you get to university. Then we are leaps and bounds ahead of the rest of the world.

1) Private schools have as qualified teachers as any public school. Money isn't everything to everyone. Some people actually enjoy teaching. At the local private school there are more teachers with masters degrees in a student population of 600 then the whole public school system in the city combined with a student population of 3,000. They make on average $30,000 a year less then the public school teachers. Many of them have been there for over 10 years. Both public and private in my city have very good educations but the private school students score better and a larger percentage complete college and get better paying jobs. If the teachers are so bad because the money is so bad, how do you explain this?

2) Private schools continually out score public schools in all standardized testing nation wide. (do a Google search and be careful to match apples to apples and not apples to oranges like the teachers union does).

3) Private schools do not get government funding (although they do receive some for hot lunch programs), they are also not bound to the same rules as the public school system. This has a good effect on the overall private system in many ways (too many to list) because the government is NOT involved.

4) Although private schools don't get new text books every year, new computers and whatever, that doesn't mean that they don't make do very well with what they do have. The local private school has a computer lab and it is a hogpoge of computers, all work and do what the student needs them to do. The public school system spend millions every year replacing and upgrading computers for no reason other then to say they have the latest and greatest. In the end, both work the same for their intended purpose. The last word on computers from first hand experience is that at the private school, you cannot use a computer or calculator in ANY math class until you have proven you can do it long hand. At the public school, you learn what buttons to push to give you the answer.

As far as universities, that's your personal opinion. I think most public universities are nothing more then liberal trash that grade people not based on their work but based on an agenda. And that is from first hand experience and my opinion. As fas as being better then the rest of the world, I disagree. There are many schools worldwide that are better then a lot of our universities. Not all western cultures are educated in the US and yet they have no problem kicking our ass in many areas.

[LL2]

The sad part about society is that somewhere someone came up with the great idea to allow the government to dictate how a child should be raised. Public schools and the rules (or lack thereof) are a byproduct of this decision.

People truly believe that it takes a village to raise a child and that is sad.

Yes but what good are private schools? They don't have quality teachers because they don't pay well-enough(unless we're talking the upscale ones). Also, they don't have government funding to get textbooks, school supplies, etc.

American school system is crap until you get to university. Then we are leaps and bounds ahead of the rest of the world.

1) Private schools have as qualified teachers as any public school. Money isn't everything to everyone. Some people actually enjoy teaching. At the local private school there are more teachers with masters degrees in a student population of 600 then the whole public school system in the city combined with a student population of 3,000. They make on average $30,000 a year less then the public school teachers. Many of them have been there for over 10 years. Both public and private in my city have very good educations but the private school students score better and a larger percentage complete college and get better paying jobs. If the teachers are so bad because the money is so bad, how do you explain this?

2) Private schools continually out score public schools in all standardized testing nation wide. (do a Google search and be careful to match apples to apples and not apples to oranges like the teachers union does).

3) Private schools do not get government funding (although they do receive some for hot lunch programs), they are also not bound to the same rules as the public school system. This has a good effect on the overall private system in many ways (too many to list) because the government is NOT involved.

4) Although private schools don't get new text books every year, new computers and whatever, that doesn't mean that they don't make do very well with what they do have. The local private school has a computer lab and it is a hogpoge of computers, all work and do what the student needs them to do. The public school system spend millions every year replacing and upgrading computers for no reason other then to say they have the latest and greatest. In the end, both work the same for their intended purpose. The last word on computers from first hand experience is that at the private school, you cannot use a computer or calculator in ANY math class until you have proven you can do it long hand. At the public school, you learn what buttons to push to give you the answer.

As far as universities, that's your personal opinion. I think most public universities are nothing more then liberal trash that grade people not based on their work but based on an agenda. And that is from first hand experience and my opinion. As fas as being better then the rest of the world, I disagree. There are many schools worldwide that are better then a lot of our universities. Not all western cultures are educated in the US and yet they have no problem kicking our ass in many areas.

A very strong argument Merlin, and I agree with what you say. My family moved a lot. I went to public schools, a Catholic school, a Christian school, and public univeristy (got my bachelors degree). I experienced them all, and I struggled in the Catholic and Christian schools (the Christian school I went to was non-denominational) with getting good grades and always had a couple hours of homework. Where my public school friends never had homework. Looking back I was glad I was sent to those schools, but not sure now that as a parent i will send my kids to a private school. The reasons are part financial and partly because in the Chicago suburb we live in the schools are small compared to the majority and have a really high rate of sending kids to college (we pay high taxes ). If my wife and I can afford it though I would like to send our kids to a private school for their elementary years, but a friend said they would do the opposite and send the kids to private school during the HS years if it came down to a choice. Parenting comes with a lot of decisions, but even the small private schools do not lack in education compared with public schools. The only area they might lack is extra-curricular activities, where public schools get a lot of funding for that.

[Merlin]

We are lucky up here. Our Catholic school system has what they call "fair share" tuition. You pledge how much you can afford and if it isn't the full tuition, you sit down with a financial adviser and they go over your finances and make sure you are being honest. Over half of the students that attend our schools do not pay full tuition. The parish subsidy makes up about 25% of the tuition, private donations make up about 15% and you pay about 60% or what you can afford to pay. Try moving up here .