Wednesday, May 4, 2016

An Abundance of Questions

                                                            

So many things have come up this week that I don’t know where to start first. My grandson, Joshua, is now officially in the Navy. After boot camp, he’ll be trained on a submarine. While writing down my address in order for Josh to keep in touch with me, he asked me to print because they don’t teach cursive writing in school. The fact that my grandson, who is very smart, didn’t know how to write cursive actually blew my mind. This kid is planning on working with Elon Musk and Space X but he doesn’t know cursive because he was only taught to print.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/cursive-handwriting-disappearing-from-public-schools/2013/04/04/215862e0-7d23-11e2-a044-676856536b40_story.html

My first reaction was to go on a tirade about the poor education system in this country, but I didn’t want to direct it at my grandson. He didn’t make up the rules. So who the hell did? Yeah, I know, everyone uses the computer so why worry about handwriting, but penmanship is an important discipline that works with the eye and hand coordination part of the brain. I’m afraid that in the next few years, someone will come up with a new rule that considers printing unnecessary because you can just peck at the keys of a keyboard.  I guess I won’t be seeing too many handwritten letters from my grandchildren. Maybe that’s why they love texting so much.

Common Core Sucks!

Instead of solving the real problems of education, some nut job had decided in 2009 to place us even further behind in the education race by coming up with something called Common Core. Guess what? It is a big fat failure and kids are graduating from high school unprepared for college. The teachers are now forced to teach kids to pass tests. That’s not what education is about. Teachers are supposed to teach lessons and encourage children to ask questions, do experiments, have debates, and then, come up with theories based on their research...right?
                                                                
Maybe eliminating cursive handwriting was the first step down that slippery slope to dumbing down our kids. I went to Catholic school for twelve years and I know more about history, social studies and science than most kids today. Why is that? The nuns taught us with one purpose in mind. We were to learn everything about the world and its people in order to become contributing members of society. Yes, there were tests, and yes, we stressed over them because a bad report card was not acceptable to our parents, who took an active interest in our learning. But, the nuns didn’t teach us to just pass tests. They taught us to think for ourselves.                                                            
I think we’ve done a big disservice to our children and our teachers with this stupid Common Core and maybe we should go back to what worked before. I would write a letter to the U.S. Secretary of Education, but they may not know how to read cursive.
Who can fix this?
                                                          

Veterans
Can someone tell me how it is possible that our young men and women, who we sent off to fight a war for some rich bastard to make oodles of noodles from invading other countries, are now living in the streets? These are our soldiers! These young men and women served in the military to keep us safe and where are they? They are living in poverty, that’s where they are. Corporations should be hiring veterans as soon as they are discharged from service. It should be a law. Who can fix this, now!
                                                             

Social Security Vampires
Who started it, I don’t know, but I’m pissed. I’ve been working since I was seven years old. I worked seven days a week in my parent’s grocery store in South Philly. I graduated from High School at 17 and I went right to work at Bell Telephone. I’ve worked many jobs, but I always paid taxes and also paid into Social Security. I’m retired now and I live on a fixed income.  So, why am I confused? Conservatives want to take away my money. They say it belongs to them. Who do I send my neatly, handwritten letter to?
Okay, I am done ranting. What’s on your mind?
 
 

 

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