Disrespect Revisted

Today’s JSEB “Schools should pick their battles” would have better read “Schools should halt skirmishes before they turn into battles.” School Administrators, Boards and Teachers are becoming totally confused. First, the good parents who back the schools decisions involving discipline and distractions in the classroom and on the school grounds are ignored when a student and her parent challenge the kids dress or behavior in the media. Divisive media like the Journal Star say these are just kids and wait until there is something bigger. Bigger like what? More disrespect, such as challenging the teacher when the teacher tells them to please sit down and they defy the teacher with a remark like “make me”. Yes, I saw that happen twice in my classroom visits to #150.When I asked the teachers why she didn’t send the kid to the office; their replies were that “just causes them (the teachers) more problems”. I have blogged on this sorry situation before.

Again, bigger like what? Like coming to school with a shaved head like Brittney? Getting pregnant in the fifth grade or sooner? Dressing in tight and tighter clothes showing the boys the best you have to offer because it won’t be your stresses and your common sense that will cause them to “like” you? Wearing spiked hair and T-shirts with profanity like they allow at most colleges? Read Molly Messing’s letter to the editor in today’s JS.

“60 Minutes” is often too liberal for me, (I do like Andy Rooney!) but if you watched the program on “workplace entitlements” last night you are getting a better idea of where this once great country is heading.

It is parents who challenge school rules that have caused the problems described in an article in the WSJ on 11/08/07 titled “Adult Supervision”. Excerpts: “A Colorado Springs elementary school is one of the latest to ban tag on its playground. Running will still be allowed as long as there is no chasing. The ban wasn’t the idea of overprotecting educrats—it was the result rather of children and their parents who “complained that they’d been chased or harassed against their will.” Other schools have already banned swings, merry-go-rounds, teeter-totters, sandboxes and even hugs. You read about the discipline meted out to Megan Coulter for hugging two friends goodbye for the weekend-a violation of the schools ban on “public displays of affection? That rule came about because some inconsiderate and spoiled kids were all but “making out” in the hallways so all “hugging” had to be banned.

The old saying is that “a few bad apples” ruin the basket. But we used to have common sense and remove those apples before the good apples were ruined. Today, do that and you hear from an attorney.

One California school district worried about bullying, violence, self-esteem and lawsuits” also banned tag, cops and robbers, touch football and every other activity that involved bodily contact. In some schools, free play has been replaced by organized relay races in order to protect children from spontaneous outbreaks of creativity. This makes sense to the type of parent who thinks children must at all costs be protected from the scrapes of life and the prospect of having to deal with social interaction and disappointment.

We have parents wanting everybody that shows up to an event that used to be competitive to receive a “trophy”. Worry about a hot sun? Build a canopy over playgrounds. Worry about bacteria? Scrub everything and maybe eventually wrapping everything in bubble-wrap.

My parents always said “wash your hands”. Nothing wrong with that especially today but Dad didn’t say get soap and wash off the handle of the manure shovel. He said grab the shovel and learn how to work cause you aren’t living off Mom and I when you become of age. And speaking of manure, all this over protectiveness and defiance of authority are turning this country into a country of wimps. Some day, expect this once great country to be taken over by religious radical zealots and Socialistic-Fascists similar to Bin Laden or Chavez. Pacifists are going to be in what some call d..p s..t.

They can see the fear in our eyes and read it in our psychobabble.

Most of those that did the fighting to keep this country and its inhabitants safe from tyranny were shaped by the competitiveness of this countries character. We had better pray that our enemies of the future are enemies that value non-competitive, risk-free and self-esteem building play activities for its young. I suggest that while prayer may be powerful, prayer to stop aggressors who rather you would be enslaved or dead won’t work.

Don’t blame the schools for making all the stupid rules. Almost all these stupid rules come because of complaining parents, the liberal Medias and outside pandering. Blame over-protective, disrespecting parents and divisive medias to force administrations to set rules to protect the schools and the property tax payer from the NCAAP, the ACLU, attorney’s of the same ilk and parents who often times don’t have a clue about what’s going on in their kids lives. They do know they wield great power thru the press and that some liberal newspaper and some attorneys are going to force the school leaders into submission, no matter how small the perceived slight.

This attitude of let them go, they are just kids doesn’t work anymore. When you let them go, they often don’t know how to stop. And many kids become very good at embellishing a “story” they tell or are good at outright lying.

A recent article titled “Is Goodness Really Gone” reads “Our actions were our own. Consequences were expected. No one to hide behind. The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke a law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law or a teacher. Imagine that!

Not everybody made the teams. Those that didn’t had to deal with disappointment. Not today, you get a trophy for maybe occasionally showing up.”

This irony came home to me recently. I competed in sports at Western but never won or earned a varsity letter. Last year I received a Varsity Letter from Western apologizing to me for not being awarded a varsity letter many, many years ago. Their belated compassion still did not get them the expected donation.