Category Archives: Education

Better Schools

Posted in Education by

As I sit here watching Fox News Sunday, I noticed that they were going to spend the hour on improving schools.

1st , let me say it’s the wrong question. We need better teaching. In the past they did better teaching in 1 room schools. In the past, for sure we have done a great job of improving the buildings but we have done horrible at imparting knowledge and skills. In tmes past, 3rd graders learned to read the Bible; more difficult than what 3rd graders read read today. Why shouldn’t our kids know how to read at least as well as times past? It is certainly the most important thing any 3rd grader should learn, not sex ed.

I have 2 suggestions to improve teaching. Keep the federal government out of schools. More importantly, keep dems away from determining what is taught. It is, afterall, the dems and the NEA that has decided 1st graders should be taught about sex, instead of the alphabet.

As usual, the dems sure like pointing fingers at other people, other things, and, of course, viruses. They actually have the nerve to blame the China virus. Let’s get real. The ares that are having the worst results are dem controled.

Moreover, it wasn’t the virus so much that caused the problems but rather revealed them. It was only when the kids stayed home that they realized what their children were being taught.

Again, may I remind one and all, the conditions in the pasr have been far worse. Moreover, never before have our teachers been more educated. Never before have the students learned so little.

By the way, never before was sex ed so so prevalent, especially in lower grades.

Incidentally, one woman on the show said Bush started Department of Education. Wrong. Google it for yorself. I won’t say. However, I will ask was the woman ignorant or lying.

Learning From our Mistakes

Posted in Abuse of Power, Communism, Controllers, Education, experience, Politcal Opinion, Uncategorized by

Well, we’ve made the mistake. When are we going to start learning.

Oh. Maybe you are wondering to which mistake am I referring. Well, let’s look at it objectively. In the fifties and sixties, we had some of the best schools in the world. California had the best schools in the schools country.

Odd. Since then, we have increased spending on those schools, not just two fold but ten fold. One would think the quality of the teaching would have skyrocketed. It did… in the negative direction. The teaching has gotten so bad so fast that one would think it intentional. Well, maybe it was intentional. I have often wondered and I am sure I’m not alone.

Shall we take a short walk down memory lane, please. The current Department of Education was signed into law in 1979 by Jimmy Carter (You remember, he was the president who did very little other than give away the Panama Canal. Now that took some brains.) Since that time, the quality of our education has taken a nose dive. Do you suppose that forming the Department of Education just might have been the beginning of mistakes.

Let’s look at two very important objective considerations. The current budget of the department is 68 billion dollars. (seems as if we could build a lot of schools with that.) If distributed equally, that is over a billion dollars for each state. Also it has 4900 employees. I wonder just how many of them actually knows how to teach. I wonder how many ever did teach. It makes me wonder if they really know where to most effectively spend that 68 billion dollars.

When I started this post, I did feel I should Google the department. At that point, I only had a vague idea on what I would be writing. Right there on the computer screen was a photo of a big building. (I really mean it is big.) Do they have to have a big building? Does it serve any purpose. I am sure that building must require maintenance, utilities and upkeep. It makes me wonder if those going green folks realize the waste. Actually, when you come right down to it, the US government likely generates a lot of carbon dioxide in buildings like that. You ever take a tour of DC. There is a big building for this and a big building for that. There are many of them and I suspect there are more planned. Shut that city down for a month and we could run Southaven on the savings all year and then some. My electric car would likely go around the world… forget that. I don’t think I could make that calculation.

At any rate, my best guess, that big department likely takes it’s orders from the National Education Association, a union. I don’t think that the union has the interest of our kids at heart. Like most unions, their biggest interest is the union…gaining and maintaining money and power. If the kids get educated, it is totally by accident and the local education system.

The department controls local schools in three ways. They collect statistics. The distribute money, but only to those who meet the standards of the department. It makes little difference of those standards are good or bad. Finally, they make sure that there is no segregation in the schools. Surely, all this can be done locally. Why do we need a big brother in DC to tell the local schools and teachers what to do.

Well, how is the centralized system working out for us? Well, they collect the stats. They, themselves ought to be able to tell us. I don’t have to guess. You don’t have to guess. Since their formation… by their own stats, they have failed miserably. If we are ever going to learn from our mistake, I’d say the best thing to do is do away with the Department of Education and let the homeless move into that big building. It would solve 2 problems. The schools would start improving and homeless would have somewhere to stay. Actually, a lot of homeless people could stay there.

Okay. It won’t solve everything and I know it. It will help. The big mistake is this, more money does not always equal better teaching. If you want better teaching, you need better teachers, better curriculum, and less overhead. As I said, those folks in the department hierarchy don’t teach. They are what I call, “Hangers on.” At the state level, there are thousands who work for the school system who don’t teach or for that matter directly support the teachers.

By the way, the state of California has its own education quagmire. They have 2740 employees and a budget of over 89 billion dollars. I wonder just how many of them know how to teach. Just how many of them know where the money will do the most good. My guess is they get many of their orders from the N.E.A. too.

I think the big part of the mistake is centralizing the education system. Those folks up there in those really big buildings have no idea of what is going on in the classrooms. I think most experienced good teachers will agree with me. On the other hand, the mediocre teachers will prefer the protection provided by the union.

Wanted: More Money

Posted in Education by

It’s the thick and the thin of another battle between the dems and the not-dems.  Ever since I first set foot in this area back in, I guess it was 1967 or 68.  Not sure.  At any rate, I was stationed at NAS Memphis.  I entered the place as a private and left as a lance corporal.

I did follow the politics here and I did find it interesting.  I guess, because I started following it almost since the beginning, I likely know something more about it than people who are citizens of Shelby Country.  I have something of an advantage.  I watched it as an outside observer.  By the way, what a mess it has been from the very start.

It has been a battle of egos, power, with a whole bunch of racism and anti-racism mixed in.  Then too, almost at the beginning of it all, someone went and shot Martin Luther King.  It was like pouring gasoline on a fire in an effort to put it out.  For a while, it was downright dangerous to walk many of the streets of Memphis after dark, regardless of the color of your skin.  There were parts of Memphis that were off limits for those of us in uniform.  Walking down Beale Street in uniform was something inadvisable for anyone, especially those with the paler skin.

Those who were Black were rightfully angry but there was some righteous anger on the other side too.  The fact that they never really determined who killed Mr. King didn’t help matters at all.  The man was told, sign on the dotted line and you won’t die.  He never had a trial.  No evidence was ever presented in a public trial.  They never proved the rifle shot the bullet and even went to great extremes to keep from finding out one way or the other.  Moreover, the one they incarcerated, we don’t know if he was guilty or if he just didn’t want to die.

Nowadays, many consider it water under the bridge and don’t like revisiting those days, but I believe it is one place where the deal got in the way of finding out what happened.  It might have gotten in the way of justice as well.  At the very least, they should have checked the weapon… before making the guy confess.

At any rate, it has been one big problem after the other.  If I were a good writer, I could write a book or two about it.  There was a lot that happened before, during, and after the assassination.

I will briefly go through a small part of the aftermath.  It would take far too long to cover it all.

  1. The city of Memphis went from very slightly Republican to substantially Democrat.
  2. After the Supreme Court came down with the bussing decision, it aggravated the situation.  The white populace in Memphis drastically dropped.  The white populace in the areas around Memphis increased drastically.  It was called white flight.  What it was; was doing what they could to insure their children went to good schools.  Oddly, it is no longer just whites deserting Memphis.  The cities and communities surrounding Memphis have become pretty integrated.  It would seem the Black people decided they don’t like the schools that are run by Democrats either.  I’d guess that they are also seeking a place where the taxes are more reasonable.
  3. The Memphis city schools failed.  Despite the enormous amounts of money poured into them, they just were not getting the job done.  Hence, they dissolved the Memphis city schools and let the county take them over, which sounded like a good idea.  It didn’t work.
  4. Some left the county; south, north, east and west.  I think my property value went up about 10 or 15 percent after that fiasco.  Some put their kids in private schools, those who could afford it.  Some of the cities in the county formed their own schools.  This really hit a sore spot with the now county schools.  Much of the money going into the county schools is now going into the little cities.  As another problem, some of the little city schools are in the county.
  5. More than that it didn’t work.  After a couple of elections, those who were causing a disaster with the city schools are now causing worse problems with the county schools.  Moreover, they renamed Shelby County Schools to Memphis Shelby County Schools.  Hence, as one might figure, the city is now running the county schools.  Now, I ask you, who could have foreseen that one?
  6. So.  After all is said and done.  They have the same problem as with Memphis schools.  Only, now the problems have grown to include the whole county.  They are, more or less where they started, but worse.

Now there are power struggles between the little city schools and the county schools.  It’s a mess.  It would take a long time to explain it all but it’s a mess.  There is fighting between the little cities and the county and the state and feds are getting involved.  That can’t be good.  Well.  It is just fine for me.  My house value just might go up another ten or fifteen percent.  Who knows?  If they continue to mess things up as they are, my house might turn into a really good investment.

However, the real disasters are the county schools.  Just as the city schools before them, they are failing.  15% of the third grade students are reading at third grade level.  90% or more of the students in the little cities are reading pretty well.  I don’t know about y’ll, but to me that spells failure for the schools far more than for the students.  I suspect, at the end of this year, when they test this year’s students, the reading levels might even be worse.

Now, after all this, they don’t seem to be able to find a superintendant.  They have been looking for one, I guess about a year now.

As I look the whole situation over, if I were qualified, I don’t think I would want the job.  Right now, it is starting to look like Mission Impossible.  I simply would not want to have my name and reputation attached to that nightmare.  Even if I had the qualifications, I simply would have no idea where to start to straighten out the mess.  However, my first best guess is start by firing some teachers and rewarding others.  It’s sort-of the thing that works in the private sector.  It always has.  It always will.  While the leadership continues to be too blind to see that, as long as they continue to bow down and worship the National Education Association, no one will fix anything.  This is true, no matter how much money they have.  It will only get worse as you throw money at the problem instead of fixing it.

Myth Busters

Posted in Crazy Nuts, Education by

Used to be one of my favorite shows. Ever since I was a kid, I was interested in science and Myth Busters was a show, mostly, about science.

However, over the years, they exposed things on the show that really deserve greater research. Off hand, I only remember two. There was the one about dimples in golf balls and the one about the blindfolded person walking in a curve, possibly, eventually in a circle.

In the one with the dimples in golf balls, they proved that a dimple in the surface of a car will make the car more aerodynamic. Now that’s a kicker. Where is the research on that. Don’t you think by now, we would all be driving around in cars with dimples? I don’t know. Maybe someone(s) in some college did do some research on it. I have heard nothing of it.

I’m thinking that the big eighteen wheelers ought to have dimples on the enclosed trailers. A five percent decrease in fuel usage is just what this nation needs. Has anyone tried it with airplanes. At a speed close to the speed of sound, maybe they could save 10 or 15 percent of the fuel.

Where are the engineers checking this out. It’s easy to do. There are wind tunnels for that stuff, you know. Has so much as one engineer tested one dimpled surface in one wind tunnel. I would check it out, but I have neither the degree nor the money. Without the degree, no one will listen to what I found out. Without the money, I’d not be able to research it.

I wonder. Does it work on water too. Can you imagine what would happen if we put dimples on an aircraft carrier. Maybe we could make it faster as well as more efficient. (maybe quieter)

I don’t understand. These going green folks should be all over this. With one simple change in our engineering, we might save 5 to 10 percent on fuel and decrease the CO2 oven more. After all, it would make the electric car more practical.

Then there is the old walking in circles thing they proved. You put a blindfold on a person; tell them to walk in a straight; and they don’t. They follow a slight curve. I don’t know why. Perhaps a few experiments will reveal something.

Is it always the same? Perhaps the curve changes based on how close they are to the equator. On the other hand, is the same or nearly the same with everyone. Is there any variance based on altitude. Has anyone considered the experiment under water?

I don’t know the answers to any of these. I don’t know if anyone does. I don’t even know if anyone has experimented with it. What did they find out if they did. Isn’t anyone besides me curious?

I do know this. They have known of the problem for a long time. It is why they used to trail ropes on ships and from wagons while going across the prairie. It is difficult to go straight with no mountains as a reference.

Just a thought. If we know how much we curve naturally, maybe we can figure a way to counter it and go straight.

Ignore

Posted in Education by

Did you ever notice the word ignore is somewhat hiding in the word ignorance. It does seem appropriate. If we keep ignoring what the dems and the NEA are doing to our schools, we should not at all if those graduating are ignorant. Ignorant of our history, our Constitution and our economic system, just for starters.

It does scare me when I think that these are the future leaders of our nation. Time to stop ignoring and say something. Time to start complaining about mediocre teaching. Better yet, time to turn the teaching over to private schools and keep the NEA out of it.

Sorry, I Messed Up

Posted in Abuse of Power, Being woke, Biden, Education, Face Masks, Lawyers and Representation, Norton, Politcal Opinion by

I apologize. Don’t know how I overlooked it but I did. In my post about training and education, I overlooked one detail, a very important one. I did not mention that all should go through at least one semester of school devoted to The Constitution.

As a matter of fact, I would submit that before anyone be permitted to vote in federal elections, they should be required to be able to demonstrate a knowledge of The Constitution and The Bill of Rights. That should be a minimum. It is not to limit voters but to make sure that those who vote have some degree of knowledge about what they are voting for or against.

It would have a beneficial side effect. The dems would really go out of their way to make sure that everyone would be able to demonstrate a knowledge of The Constitution. That would be a good thing.

It would be good for the voter as he would be able to vote for what he really wants. It would be good for others, as the voter would make better decisions. Finally, it would be better for the country as it would make it more difficult for controllers to deceive the voters.

Can anyone really call that a bad thing. A good education is the enemy of the would be dictator. It is why it is one of the first things that dictators try to destroy. Ironically, the current would be dictators are destroying our education systems by pretending to make it better.

Training and a Good Education

Posted in Abuse of Power, Being woke, Biden, Compromise, Deceit, Education by

Used to work on computers. One day I went into an office where the woman was having problems. She was properly frustrated and concerned she wasn’t going to get her job done. I listened to her complaint and then fixed the problem in less than five minutes.

Amazed at how quickly I fixed her computer she remarked, “You made that look easy.”

I shrugged and replied, “It is…when you know how.”

Through the years, I considered the situation many times. Maybe I should have taken longer. I should have gotten a couple of books out and did this and that and the other thing. I could have made the problem look very difficult. I could have taken two hours. Likely the woman would have thought more of me and, oddly thought I was better at my job. But that’s not me. I just don’t do things that way.

The fact is that it was, for me easily resolved. It’s what happens when a person is provided some good training and education. A good carpenter with the right tools can generally put together the frame of a 1500 square foot house in a day, two at the most. I know carpenters who have. Okay, he will have to sweat a little but he doesn’t work in an air conditioned environment as I did.

The sewer line went bad at our house, an unpleasant thing at best. The plumber came out and replaced it in about 6 hours. If I’d tried to do it myself, it would have been far less pleasant.

The point that I am trying to make is that training and education are extremely important for us all, no matter what line of work we go into. It makes the difficult easy and the impossible manageable. That’s true from the burger flipper to the doctors and lawyers. It is why society uses the apprentice system. Better to learn from someone who knows than to discover stuff on our own.

But then you knew that already. I didn’t have to tell you. Maybe I did help to emphasize it for you bit. Illustrations are good for that sort of thing.

Now, maybe it’s time we tell our politicians, representatives, and yes, especially, those who run our schools. Maybe they need to concern themselves less with gender and more with reading, writing and arithmetic. Incidentally, maybe it would help to provide an education about our true history and economics. A good sound science foundation wouldn’t hurt either. It’s all pretty important. It makes the difficult easy. On the other hand, that gender stuff, all it will lead to is grief, for everyone.

Incidentally, education is one of those things we should not compromise on, and yet we do every day. With the money our school systems get, our children should be getting the best education in the world and they aren’t.

Responsibilities

Posted in Christian values, Education, Fast Food by

Of all the things I have learned in all my 70 plus years, taking responsibility was perhaps one of the greatest. Certainly, I learned it while in the Marines. There are three aspects. Knowing, when I do something, I must know that I will take responsibility for it. When I make a legal promise, I must do everything humanly possible to fulfill it. When I take on a debt, assuming there is no deception or fraud, I must pay off that debt.

Maybe it is something well worthwhile for college students to learn that lesson. At seventeen or eighteen, they should learn what responsibility means. They should learn, when they sign the paper, they need to make good their word.

To be sure, they are young. However, 17- and 18-year-olds make the decision to go into the military. They are expected to put their lives at risk and not back out. It is likely the first thing many men and women really learn. However, even then, they usually have some guidance from parents. Unfortunately, sometimes the parents don’t provide proper guidance.

In some cases, parents co-sign for the loan. Maybe, then, they provide just a little better guidance, especially in choosing a major. The father just might spend a little while convincing that youngin that basketweaving might not be the best thing to major in. Maybe, if we started requiring parents to cosign for collage loans, this problem with unpaid loans would simply go away.

Having just put so much responsibility on the students and parents, I digress. These big schools. These outfits that claim that they are for learning deserve some of the blame. Shouldn’t they know better? If they are going to offer useless and semi-useless courses, shouldn’t they require some kind of full disclosure. Some folks actually have more money than they know what to do with. They can easily pay to learn how to appreciate art. In such cases, I say, fine. It’s their money. Let them throw it away if they want.

However, in cases where money is involved, maybe the colleges and universities should be held responsible. I mean, if this is a place where smartness is something that they impart, maybe they should be required to exhibit some basic intelligence. When they see a person headed head-long into a disaster, just maybe they should not permit it. “No, you can’t take that course; not until you demonstrate you can afford it.”

At the very least, maybe they should separate their courses: those that are good for making a living and those that aren’t.

May I go back on my Marine days just one more time? I took Instructor training. One of the first things they taught us was to impress on the student the importance of the course. It makes me wonder just what some of these professors tell their students about how important their subject is. I suspect, no, I know they have to do some real stretching to explain just why their field is absolutely essential.

Okay. I get it. If it were not for art, the world would be a pretty dull place. To be sure, actors go on to provide the world with more than a little entertainment. The Sound of Music, The Fidler on the Roof were both more than entertainment. For those of us who are willing to listen, they have a lot to say. They help remind us of how things were so that, hopefully, we won’t go back there, or even think about it.

However, there are but so many positions for actors. My best guess is that we have, oh maybe, a glut of them. Maybe when someone wants to major in acting, the counselors might suggest at least a minor in math or business. Who knows? Even if the student does become a great actor, he might be able to use his business training to help him handle all his millions.

Basically, I said all that to say this. On such degrees as acting, art, and the like, colleges should require the money upfront, no loans. Or, they should be notified not to expect payment until the student can pay. Maybe them, they wouldn’t offer so many courses on art. I mean the only folks not taking a risk are the institutions of higher learning.

Let the old laws of supply and demand take hold in the halls of ivy. Now there’s a unique idea.

Those with sheepskins ought to be able to do more than serve fast food.

Now that’s a thought. Maybe a person could major in fast food preparation. Why not. A person can actually make money in the restaurant business, though it is real honest, hard work.

Is it Right or Is it Wrong?

Posted in Biden, Education, Fear, Lawyers and Representation, Liberals, Socialists, Supreme Court by

In last few days the Supreme court has made some decisions. Old Joe has said he will need to find another way. The homosexuals have said they have been slighted. The dems are upset that there is no longer a quota system in the colleges. It would seem there is a whole lot of disagreeing going on. One says one thing. The other says the other.

So, the question is arising, were they right or were they wrong? I submit to you. it is very easy to tell. When the dems hate it, the Justices can suspect they got it right. When the NY times complains about the decision, it goes beyond suspicion. When the major news anchors complain as if someone has them by the little toe, then they will know, beyond any reasonable doubt that they have it right.

Success

Posted in Christian values, Dyslexia, Education by

I was prompted to look back over my brief history of writing posts. Or is it posting that which I wrote. Whichever. I looked back and realized that I have been posting for over four years now. I wish I could say it was with success. I’m afraid that would be somewhat stretching things.

However, every now and then, I see a change a short time after I post something related to it. Of course, I’d like to lay claim. I’d like to say that that change was brought about by something I wrote. For instance, I noticed that Tide has come out with a new tide, less irritating. I did have one post specifically about how the original tide caused my wife great problems with itching and irritation. I suspect that few experienced the problem, but I felt it would be good to get the word out there to those few that did have problems.

I don’t know. Did the makers of tide read the post? More likely, someone with a little more clout wrote to the company and suggested they tone down the chemistry a little. The again, who knows, I might have been the one who told someone who told someone about the post. Then, that person with clout realized the reason he itched so bad was because he used tide. At any rate, maybe I can tell myself I had something to do with it.

I have written many posts on salvation. I am sure many disregarded it. Maybe they were even angered about it. It’s okay. If it got one more person(s) into heaven, I’ll put up with the figurative arrows. I will even put up with a few complaints. The hitch is, if I did do any good, this side of eternity, I will likely never know. So far no one has said something in the remarks.

I would hope that in four years of writing posts, one or two just might have done some good. Perhaps, I would have had more success if I had a college degree. People who have more respect for those who hav degrees, especially people who have degrees. To some degree, that is my fault. As I said in one of my posts, I have a tendency to put things off. However, it is not likely that I would have gotten a degree anyway. I’m dyslexic. Some of you who have read a few of my posts and books will notice that I have problems with words like there and their; with words like its and it’s. I know the difference between them. It just is that I habitually use the wrong one and I have a very difficult time finding them during editing. Also, I leave words, or complete phrases out. On the other hand, sometimes I use them twice. Then, sometimes I use also at the beginning of a sentence and too at the end of the sentence. I think they call that being redundant.

I also read very slowly, about 200 words a minute. I have heard of professors who assign five and six books at a time for reading. Even if I were to skim through them, I’m afraid I’d never make through two. Then there is the English part of it. Considering the way I write, do you really think I would pass a college English course. Do you think I could ever turn in an acceptable term paper. And, of course, back in the sixties, there were no word processors.

After one semester of junior college, I gave it up. I had not one clue why I did what I did. I just knew I did and that I had no hope of getting through college. So, I turned to what I did know, electronics. Oddly I had strengths in electronics everywhere I didn’t have anywhere else.

I went through aviation electronics school in thirteen weeks, second in the class. It was a sixteen-week school. I don’t have a clue as to why. When I got into electronics, I was right at home. A short time after returning from Vietnam, I went through instructor training and became an electronics instructor for three and a half years.

It was only about ten or twelve years ago that I realized I was dyslexic. Well, maybe I can’t truly say that. I have never been tested. Let’s just say I have all the traits, every one of them. Strange. When I was in school, no one seemed to notice. I had problems in reading, spelling, stuttering and the whole bit. I suppose, for fear of being found out, I covered it up. I did not want anyone to think I had a learning problem. I certainly did not anyone else to know. That would be very embarrassing.

So, here I am. Plugging away. Trying to help others avoid the mistakes I made. Trying to help people see some of pitfalls along life’s way. I hope I have helped others. I will continue to try to impart my little bit of knowledge that I have acquired, not in college, but in the school of life.

And, oh yes. Every now and then, if I can, I will bring the plan of salvation to those who have not yet heard it or understand it. If I can do that alone, I won’t mind so much being dyslexic. I will have had a life of success.

This is an addon, a postscript, so to speak, which I thought of right after posting this post It is intended for parents. From third grade on, watch your child for signs of dyslexia. They can’t cure it, but they do have ways of living with it. Look for problems with spelling, slow reading, reading aloud. For a full list of symptoms simply look up the word. If you have suspicions, most modern-day schools have experts who can help you, if you put enough pressure on them.

If you do this, your child might not have to go through what I have.