Common Sense From Feisty March 8, 2007
Posted by Michael in News.trackback
Our favorite straight-talking hooker suggests that class time should not be devoted to discussing the gay experience in high school. The school should focus on academic subjects.
Americans are falling behind nearly every Asian country in math and science and have been for awhile, yet this school feels that class time should be devoted to saying what it’s like to be gay in school. How about having fat kids, poor kids, pimpled kids, band nerds, slutty girls, pregnant girls, guys with beat up cars, and really short kids talk too? I graduated high school in 1998, and even waaay back then, it wasn’t as bad to be gay as it was to be fat or ugly.
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Innocent Bystanders 
I wasn’t Homecoming King or anything but I wasn’t exactly unpopular in High School. The Sportos, the Motorheads, Geeks, Sluts, Bloods, Waistoids, Dweebies, Dickheads – they all adored me. They thought I was a Rightous Dude.
I graduated high school in 1998
Jeez, I was thinking about starting my third career in ’98.
I’ll take Feisty’s argument more seriously after I see more details on the tests that show American students lagging. For example, if the tests actually show we’re falling behind in Gender Studies, and that’s tanking our overall average and dragging down the math and spelling scores, then obviously we need more lectures about homosexuality.
When I was in my mid-twenties, I noticed that I was gaining so much “real-life” knowledge, year to year, that it if I compared what I knew at the beginning of each year, it would be almost nothing compared to the end of the year. Which was kinda funny because when I was a teenager and in my early twenties, I thought I knew everything.
Another way to tell this story is: When I was a teenager, my dad knew nothing. But as I got older, the old man started to get smart.
In a few years, Fistey will look back and realize that she knows waaaay more than she does now.
(Michael is a dummy who peaked at 25, so I don’t expect him to understand.)
I don’t understand how someone can’t a relationship between the decline of American education and the increase of Progressive politics introduced into the curriculum.
Remember Ebonics?
Enough said.
QED, bitches.
Michael is a dummy who peaked at 25, so I don’t expect him to understand.
You’re right, Bart. I pretty much knew everthing at the age of 25. But I forgot. Now, I’ve had to reconcile myself to the fact that I’m a total dumbshit.
Most of high school is a complete waste of time. I hung with the stoners and the partyers, the chess players, and the sluts, and we were all in complete agreement.
Once I started reading Feisty’s list, I started kinda singing it to this little jingle: Fat kids, skinny kids, kids who climb on rocks. Tough kids, sissy kids, even kids with chicken pox!
What’s even more amusing to me is she’s probably too young to even know where that came from.
Schools are all about self-esteem, tolerance and equality. It’s no place for competition. BAH!
My 13 year old son asked why they can’t play dodge ball in gym class. That was one of my favorite things. There’s nothing quite like hurling a big, red rubber ball at someone’s face while trying to avoid getting blasted yourself. Kids can’t play it anymore because it causes self-esteem issues for the sissies.
That’s Armor Hot Dogs. The dogs kids love to bite!
I remember a few times I actually held one of those dodge balls. It was a powerful feeling. Then I had to throw it hard enough to tap someone out and the powerful feeling left me like a gust of wind. Those little balls stung like a mutha too. I was pretty damn good at the “dodging” part.
Kids can’t play it anymore…
I would have agreed with you totally, one week ago.
However the 9 yo son of one of our good friends was playing dodge ball at school and got hit in the head on December 19th. He kept getting headaches and then his face swelled up. Turns out he had a fractured skull. He spent Christmas in the hospital. He seemed fine until about a week ago and then he started getting nose bleeds and headaches then his face swelled up again. Long story short, he had to go back into the hospital because he had an infection at the site of the fracture between his skull and brain near the sinuses. I think she said it was called Potts Puffy Tumor.
When the accident first happened I was thinking “Dodgeball???” I couldn’t believe it. What the heck were they throwing, a Basketball?
This kid is not a sissy, he’s probably a foot taller than the rest of the kids in his class. His dad is 7′ tall and his mom is 6’2″.
A month ago I wouldn’t have understood why the schools would ban anything as wussy as dodgeball. Now I have a little more understanding.
Oh, I guess I should update you; he spent another week in the hospital and is now home but his mom has to change his IV meds.
I’m sorry to hear that Geez. I hope the boy is going to be ok.
Just to clarify, the kid spent a week in the hospital around Christmas then he got out and was fine until about a week and a half ago.
Here’s his dad, Big Ron, and I (attention Dave) at a Gunshop.
I’m almost 6′ tall but I look like a kid next to him.
Compos, please don’t think I’m coming down on you. Like I said, I thought it was pretty lame for schools to ban the game. I could see it happening in San Francisco or that wussy state that Michael lives in but not here in the
StudSpud State.I’m still having trouble believing that the injury was caused by the ball. At first I figured that he was trying to dodge it and dove into a brick wall.
Or they were using a basketball or bowling ball or something.
I love that vest.
Gotta git me one of those.
Speaking of guns…
I went to a fundraiser last night for the local chapter of the National Wild Turkey Federation (disclosure, I’m not a turkey hunter but I’m thinking about asking my friend Jeff to take me hunting).
I won an auction item, a beautiful print of four lab puppies resting after playing,
and I won this Huglu shotgun in a raffle
Dude, that shotgun Rocks.
I guess you won’t be needing that Kimber now.
Just Sayin’
I always thought it would be fun to go Turkey hunting. Those guys are Intense. Kind of like Duck hunting without all the Cold and Wet.
And without getting up at the crack of Dark.
Remember Ebonics?
Ebonics was bad, but nowhere near as bad as Bilingue.
And Bilingue was a frickin’ disaster, but not even half as bad as Creative Spelling.
My husband knows a lady whose kid -and the rest of her class- was pretty much ruined by Creative Spelling.
They let pre-literate young students ‘tinker’ with spelling and ignore the rules, then act all surprised when the kids end up writing like retards for the rest of their lives.
Why do teachers and administrators go along with this crap?
Why do teachers and administrators go along with this crap?
They are driven by the religion of socialism.
It took us 15 years to drive “Outcome Based Education” from our local school system. We had to run off two superintendents, and flipped the school board 3 times. Effin nightmare.
We finally got their attention voting non! on 3 bond issues, and explained to them “we really understand you need to build some new elementary schools, and upgrade middle and high school facilities, we have no problem with that at all. But if you don’t start educating our kids we are not giving you another fucking dime”.
That worked. I suspect it’s easier to do in Texas
for those of you unfamiliar with OBE, it’s basically a sliding scale of accomplishment, and nobody fails. You lower the bar until Johnny quits crying.
Johnny now works third shift at the warehouse. He wanted to be a forklift driver, but he can’t pass the written safety test.
He can’t read it.
That paragraph sums it up nicely.
You should consider a career in writing.
Why do teachers and administrators go along with this crap?
After spring elections, when I’m no longer on my local school board (I decided not to seek reelection), I’m going to rant on this like you’ve never seen me rant before.
“I will not seek, nor will I accept, the nomination of my party for school board.”
Dude! What are you waiting for?! Start ranting today. Now. This instant.
Dave, same thing here in my town. 3 school levies have failed in the last 2 years. Money flying everywhere, new schools, new houses, but “not enough.”
So what do they do when the first levy fails? Close elementary school libraries. Second time? Eliminate bus service. Talk about being held hostage.
I ain’t playin anymore. My kids will graduate and do fine despite the public school system.
Bastiches!
Those levy things, those are like emergency funding for the regular budget, or is it facility improvement/expansion? In Texas you gots to float bonds to build, but your operating budget comes from property tax revenues, which are collected in each county, tranferred to Austin, and allocated by the Comptroller (one tough grandma for Taxes).
It is a system that is, what’s the expression I’m looking for?
Fucked up.
Yes. That’s the expression.
It is a system that is, what’s the expression I’m looking for?
Fucked up.
Yes. That’s the expression.
It’s also the outcome of decades of constitutional litigation. Nuthin’ like getting the courts involved in running schools.
My kids will graduate and do fine despite the public school system.
Mine will too. Once again, I’m glad I homeschool. I ought to get a shirt that says that.
Our former school system played games to get levies passed also. Cancel bus service, cancel football, and you have the parents right where you want them.
I guess I should say my kids will graduate and do fine without the public school system. Hey, I’m depressed and chowing down on chocolate at the moment; give me a break.
Hey, I’m depressed and chowing down on chocolate at the moment;
I suggest that you go Name My Dog. That ought to cheer you up.
simplified spelling society
I believe that this technique for spelling was used on the teleprompters at the oscars. At least I heard a report that said that.
OH EFFING PLEASE!!
I think that “invented spelling” goes too far, but I also think you’ve got to be happy and supportive of efforts to put pencil to paper by little kids. My second-grader’s latest story is about an alarm clock that watned to sleep in for a change. She put a lot of time and total concentration into getting it down on paper. When she brings it to me, brimming with pride, I’m an idiot if I immediately start correcting misspellings. Have her read it to me, praise it up and down, and let her enjoy the moment. THEN tell her before it has to be turned in, let’s make sure everything is correct because we want it to be as good as it can be. I also think when they are reading to me, I’m not going to jump in and correct everything everytime. They don’t need to feel like I’m trying to catch them being wrong. If they try to sound it out and get stuck, help. Don’t stop them every time they say “a” instead of “the” though.
Oh certainly, all age appropriate, and all with encouragement and stuff.
WP, those links are absolutely horrifying.
Thing is, I’ve studied a lot of languages, and the fact is that English is one of the most whacked-out, bizarre, and unnecessarily complicated. Even friggin’ Arabic is spelled phonetically (but it’s got its own set of problems).
That said, it is what it is, and unless you want to look like a total moron, you have to follow the rules.
Vocal Telepathy.
Doesn’t matter though, engllish is the language of science and engineering (sure theres the whole latin thing with the biology naming thing) no science, no engineering, no society.
Skin,
I agree, let the kid render their accomplishment, but it is important that they be able to communicate, The expression in the invented writing is that any of those examples are actually able to be read.
Let the kids when they are first introduced to it practice the cypher of characters, but it is soon necessary to teach them how to organize the cyphers so that they make sense to everyone.
I’ve been hiring kids out of college for 15 years now.
With a very few exceptions, their written communication skills are very poor. Spelling errors, bad grammar, wrong word choice, and difficulty assembling a sentence that clearly communicates the intended thought. They are usually verbose.
It’s so bad today I hold a couple of brown bag lunches on business writing. 101 stuff like keep it short, put the action item up front, and clean up your errors. You can be the smartest programmer in the room but if you can’t spell and you make grammatical errors, you look dumb.
As a hook (getting them to care), I try to point out that your writing has a purpose, you want to get something done. If you make it hard to figure out what that is, you won’t be effective. That and it’s just plain rude to make somebody try to interpret your intentions, it’s intellectually lazy.
We make written and oral communications one of the top five measures in the bi-annual review. Tied to a bonus. Moolah.
It’s so bad today I hold a couple of brown bag lunches on business writing.
You’re a good man, Dave.
I’m a selfish man Michael. These guys send memos outside MIS and make us look like a bunch of retards.
You can be the smartest programmer in the room but if you can’t spell and you make grammatical errors, you look dumb.
I are a good programmer and the writing is sometimes important as a skill if you may not never want some people to always understand how good your programs are.
As a hook (getting them to care), I try to point out that your writing has a purpose, you want to get something done. If you make it hard to figure out what that is, you won’t be effective. That and it’s just plain rude to make somebody try to interpret your intentions, it’s intellectually lazy.
Before I even got to oki, I was hated throughout the unit (that changed later) so I was pushed into a billet (additional work to my assigned task) that would keep me out of everyones sight and hair. S&R. The ‘bird Cpl who was in charge of me wouldn’t let me do JACK! I operated purely off of basic action, never having anything explained to me.
One day the Cpl was gone, and I’m sitting there, doing my mindless work that I was trusted with, and a gunny comes in, say’s he needed something, and I said I couldn’t find it. He REALLY got knee deap in my shit, and I said I can go find my Cpl.
The Gunny comes around the desk, stands over me, and points at the mindless work I’m doing. He asks me what I’m doing, I said that I’m seperating completion dates from shipping dates. He looked dumbstruck. He gets in my face so I can smell his breath through his nose jabs his finger at the report I’m going over, and he says “THIS MEANS SOMETHING! Get your Cpl.”
The gunny sat down, and taught me how to do the job that my Cpl wouldn’t in a matter of minutes, and I’d been in that spot for more than a month.
That gunny changed my entire MC Career.
See what I mean, Dave? You’re like that Gunny. You’re a good man with those brown bag lunches. You don’t fool me.
That gunny wasn’t even closely related to my unit. I think he was NBC from 3rd Div.
Oh stop it.
I ain’t got the stones of a Marine Gunnery Sergeant.
Those fuckers can look Beelzebub in the eye, and say “your war face don’t scare me”!
he said “LIKE” not “Identical.”
if that means “you have good intentions, like the steely Gunny”, then I will accept the compliment gracefully.
Gotta brag on my 5th grader here. They just had a spelling Final for their trimester, with 50 words and 6 bonus words. These were words many adults screw up, for example a couple of the bonus words were “Appalachian” and “presumptuous.”
The kid aced the 50 words and got 5 out of 6 bonus words. He missed “Machiavellian.”
He’s my dude.
*checks database*
Yeah, we have him on the list, but we’re still trying to figure out who has seniority out there.
Hey Schoolyard Bullies?
Theres some guy at the post office who thinks it’s a good idea to make mail boxes look like R2D2.
Ooh, nice work by the geoff-spawn!
I’m with Dave. While I was co-oping, I served on the mentor awards committee twice. We read the nominations that other co-ops submitted for their mentors and decided which ones deserved the awards. The nominations were written like 419 scam letters, demonstrating about the same grasp of the English language. Yes, the same understanding of English as Nigerian criminals. And these were supposedly some of the best minds our colleges in America have to offer. Appalling.
Also, one day, I was playing AdventureQuest, and randomly decided to go digging in the forums and see if there was anything good there. I discovered a couple of stories people had written about their characters. They were written like scripts from video game RPGs. Gack!
I don’t think parents (with the exception of mine) and colleges do a very good job preparing kids for the real world. Poor communication is one problem, which I think is often exacerbated by the Internet (not always; the ‘tubes helped me develop a stronger voice), but there are others. For example, young women know how to dress for a date, but do not know how to dress for WORK. I think Dave has commented on this problem before.
If I take the time? I’m actually very expressive in my written writing. (used to re-write/proof-read my brothers professional papers some time ago, he’s got it now)
I became so disgusted by having to go through my (various) company’s linked outlook E-mails (if you dig you can see if the file was actually scrolled, or opened) so I had to read all of this CRAP! that said nothing, and I came to a decision. I will NEVER write an E-mail on topic, and I will write as much as possible, until I’m called on it.
I was never called on it while working as an elec-tech. It took a highschool dropout coke addict assembly line worker to make the observation “you sure say shit pretty, but you didn’t say anything worth a shit, you know that right?”
Most think that if it looks and sounds impressive, then it MUST be. Most of the time, it isn’t.
Common sense from Feisty? What about this St Patrick’s Day revelation from Festy? http://wp.me/pDjed-eT