My Private Nation

Our governor, if you can call him that, in his infinite wisdom, has decided that it is a good move to cut $90 million in state funding to public schools, while not allowing municipalities/districts to increase property taxes to make up some of the difference. Districts which are already struggling to balance their budgets are now going to be left with no choice but to cut staff and programs. Teachers are going to lose jobs (in one community, as many as 85; this is a community that was already affected by the closure of the GM plant, and now they'll have even more unemployed people to worry about). This means that class sizes are going to increase, students will get less one-on-one time from their teachers, and students' performance (determined by those well-meaning but not-really-helpful standardized tests everyone touts) will go down. Wisconsin is apparently the second-highest-ranked public educational system in the country; it won't stay that way now.

I have a few comments I would like to make to those people who claim that teachers aren't teaching our children anything anyway.

First. Yes, it's right there in the title. Teachers teach. But let's take a look at some numbers here. (Note: these will be just averages here.)

7 days x 24 hrs = 168 hrs/wk
5 days in school x 7 hrs = 35 hrs/wk (avg. of 21% of the week)
5 days daycare/sitter/alone/after-school programs/etc x 2 hrs = 10 hrs/wk (6% of the week)
5 days w/ parents after/before school x 15 hrs = 75 hrs/wk
2 days w/ parents (weekends) x 24 hrs = 48 hrs/wk
7 days x 8 hrs sleep = 56 hrs/wk

75 hrs + 48 hrs - 56 hrs = 67 hrs/wk with parents (40% of the week)

Children spend almost twice as much time with their parents as their teachers (on average). In summer, children often don't spend any time with teachers at all. And yet teachers are mostly responsible for educating children?

Second. Teachers can assign homework to their students; teachers cannot make them do it. If their parents don't make them do their homework, to the best of their ability, or attend class, or pay attention to their teacher, or respect their teacher, most children won't. Anytime a parent says "I don't think teachers are doing a very good job," their child will pick up on that. What affect is that attitude going to have on the way that child acts towards their teacher?

Third. The Christian Science Monitor recently had a commentary article* on how the children of less-educated parents don't do as well in school as children of better-educated parents. Perhaps because they're picking up on their parents' attitudes toward education as pointless?

Fourth. Perhaps the most important. If teachers aren't doing a very good job of educating children with the resources they currently have available to them, how are they going to get better at it with less money? If you had a leaky dam, would you spend less money to fix it?

When are we going to stop putting so much emphasis on teachers and what they're teaching and start focusing more on the parents' obligation to contribute to the child's education?

Kagan, Jerome. "Want better students? Teach their parents." Christian Science Monitor, Feb. 21, 2011, p.34.

Some more thoughts on last night's election results.

Anyone who has been through a high school American history course, or even been paying any attention at all to the election this year, knows why this is such a historic election.

We consider ourselves the richest, most advanced country in the world (I won't say we're the most progressive, because even if we think we are, we aren't; if we were as progressive as we want to think we are, we'd have stem cell research, alternative energy sources, etc., and wouldn't be passing bans on gay marriage [I mean honestly, California, you're supposed to be full of liberal hippies].} Yet other countries, some not as developed as we are, have had female or minority leaders before we have -- until last night.

The election of a minority as president, and the fact that several traditionally red states voted for a minority as president, is a good sign that maybe we're really beginning to get past these racist ideas that divided the country even as recently as forty years ago.

It's amazing to think that a black man born during the civil rights movement could become president.

We helped to do it. We the people helped to do it (true, some helped more than others [go crescent_gaia!], but anyone who voted for him helped it happen), but we as a country made history last night. Like Obama said last night, we made it happen.

I remember reading somewhere as part of all this election stuff that the next president could end up appointing a Supreme Court justice or two. With a Democratic president and a Democratic Congress, chances are the Supreme Court won't become anti-choice.

And with a Democratic president and a Democratic Congress, there may be less infighting during it all. I hope that they all take McCain's advice from last night to work together. It's about time for the two parties to start working together again.

Last night's election results go to show that we as a country are tired of the last eight years and want to move on.

It's an amazing feeling.

ETA: I've been going some thinking about why New Mexico went the way it did, considering that it's got a red state on either side and a fairly conservative population (some areas certainly are more conservative than others; the county I'm living in now went red and is surrounded by red counties). Based on statistics I saw earlier this year, New Mexico has slightly more Hispanic voters than Caucasian voters. I'm not sure if any other state has that kind of voter makeup. Obama did well among the minorities, including Hispanic voters. New Mexico is also mostly a low-income state, despite being an oil and gas and ranching state like Texas, and Democrats tend to be the favored candidates of low-income people. Given the large Hispanic population, and the large low-income population, and some people who are likely both, it's not so surprising after all that a generally conservative state voted for a Democrat. Also, we've got a Democratic Governor who endorsed Obama.

Other countries (in this case Canada) have nutbar bigoted politicians too.

Kill gays, independant federal candidate says

Yes, that's really what he said.

During a telephone interview later in the day, Popescu reasserted his view. "A young man asked me what I think of homosexual marriages and I said I think homosexuals should be executed," he said. "My whole reason for running is the Bible and the Bible couldn't be more clear on that point."

Apparently the Bible told him to run for office. (I just have to wonder how many other things it says that he ignores because they "don't apply".)

And according to Wikipedia:

Popescu was charged with assault against his elderly mother in 2003, after a family member reported seeing a large bruise on her arm.[7] Testifying at a bail court hearing, Popescu said that he had given his mother a "small swat and a light shake" to get her attention when she was not paying attention to him. He expressed remorse for his action, but argued that it was not serious and did not constitute assault. He also testified that he had been violent toward his mother in the past, but that this abuse had ended over 25 years earlier.

So you can go ahead and kill gays if you want, but you don't have to listen to that commandment that says to honor your father and mother.

Hmmm.

(The scariest thing about this is, if he were running in the US, he'd stand a good chance of being elected. At least he doesn't get elected, in Canada.)

Conservatives grow wary of mixing church, politics

THANK YOU.

Finally realizing that part of the Constitution, are they?*

Okay, technically it's a more complex issue than that, but still.

I finished Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace...One School at a Time yesterday.

This is one book that GWB and certain of his advisors should be forced to read. Someone has figured out a way to fight terrorism -- with education instead of bombs.

(The book has two "authors:" the man doing the work in Pakistan and Afghanistan, whose story it is, and the journalist who actually wrote the book. The man doing the work, who's the executive director of the institute providing the funding, is Greg Mortenson.)

Mortenson firmly believes that education is the way to fight the Taliban in Afghanistan, and terrorism from surrounding areas, because there currently (at least when he started the work, anyway) is a lack of it. The state-funded schools were generally ineffective and not available to just anybody -- it required money to go there, and in many cases these schools were days away so most boys in remote areas of the country couldn't go. )Girls didn't go to school either.) When other options were available, they tended to be madrassas -- the religious schools that turn out jihadi and Taliban. By building local schools in these remote areas, children (especially girls, who had fewer options) could go to school without learning the fundamentalist religious ideas that cause people to be terrorists. Women could also get an education and the whole town would benefit, especially when those women learned something about maternal health.

It wasn't just schools, either. The institute also built some pipelines so people could have clean water, which helped the infant mortality rate.

There's another advantage to this. Those who have benefitted from this see an American as their savior (for lack of a better term). Even if someone does spout hateful comments about Americans, they'll know it's not true in every case.

The book also makes the following point about Afghanistan: all that aid money we promised them? We should be giving it to them. If we go in and destroy their buildings, take away whatever way they had of making any money, then don't give them the money to rebuild it (money that we've already promised them), the problem won't get better. Sure, the Taliban has lost much of its power, and we've put a leader of our own in place, but without money for schools and teachers, the madrassas are going to come right back and start churning out terrorists again...because that's what they'll have money for. Without helping them to find some way of making money other than the opium trade, which is necessary when the money coming from the leader we installed doesn't make it to the more remote regions, the government we put in place won't be any more effective than it is now.

Anyway, in summary: you should read this book. Not only is it a good story about people working together to help those who need it, it also is about one man's fight to tear down misconceptions about Islam and those who follow it.

If you want to buy it, the link above goes to a link where you can buy the book and 7% of the proceeds benefit the Central Asia Institute (the people doing the building of schools).

The Central Asia Institute's website is http://www.ikat.org/ if you want more information.

Abstinence-only programs do not reduce HIV risk

And yet certain people continue to insist that abstinence-only education will cut down on the amount of unsafe sex, unwanted pregnancies, STDs, abortions, etc...