If You Do Nothing Else Today…Please…

Just exactly what the title stated, If you do nothing else today, do yourself a HUGE favor and rush immediately over to tracksuitceo and read the article on the 10 Commandments of Supporting Your Family. Definitely a two-thumbs way UP…and it sure segues nicely into what I espouse here. Bravo!

Straight to the chase: It appears that we have become so inundated with our work, kids, vacations, cocktail parties and the like that maybe we just don’t slow down enough to really listen.  Sure, we may hear about various news stories, but that’s just it, we’ve heard.  

There hasn’t been any mental processing or reflection on most things we “hear” in the news. Maybe we should stroll down Memory Lane and listen this time? 

Every one of these memories are examples of lowering the bar of acceptable standards.  I am fuming with the notion that a United States Representative in the House can be video taped receiving 100K and that from the FBI. But what really irritates me is the mere idea that this person along with other members of their “Brotherhood” balked when the Justice Department went in to his office—warrant in hand—and they end up being chastised by the Speaker of the House and down the line with her croonies for searching this fool’s office! 

I am irate when so many of our elected “Congressional officials” are in the process of, or have been indicted for crimes such as bribery, receiving huge amounts of money for services, ‘playing with the Pages or Interns’ (male and female), and leading the way to rehab when NOT arrested for drunk driving, right Mr. Kennedy?  Can we deduce that the first “rehab” for excuse abuse was Mr. Kennedy’s drunk driving while also on sleeping pills? 

I have just got to share this one with you: In elitist Orange County California, parents of high school students who were NOT going to graduate—walk across the stage receive diploma—were so up in arms at the schools, district, all the way up to the superintendent of schools because get this: Johnny or Susie will be so humiliated in front of their friends… Hang on here! Johnny or Susie haven’t earned the right to even attend graduation. 

Yet, the bar was lowered again and school officials scurrying around trying to come up with something that: one, wouldn’t offend the other students who’d worked hard and earned their status, and two, finding invitations,  commencement cards, caps and gowns, and seating for over 200 students at one high school! 

Hey! Stop a minute and get a grip here! Apparently the parents of these students who were not to graduate devised a program whereby their children could receive a “Certificate of Achievement” for having attended high school. Seriously now…many states have been doing it for years; so now for the sake of humility, or self-esteem, or self-respect, these failed students get to walk across and get their hard earned “Certificates.” How many other ways can I show this debauchery? 

Forget about the Policies and Procedures Manual that described everything in detail what the consequences will be if the student doesn’t abide by such, and that the parent signed. Forget about the teacher!  He or she has only trained for 8 or so years and holds multiple degrees; forget about what the teacher has done during the entire year and what the student did not do. Seriously people, whose getting humiliated here?

 I will continue to write about the public school system in our great United States of America. But the basic premise is—and will always be—the system will never be fixed as long as we are worrying about kids’ self-esteem, or better still, their parents’.  Lastly many people talk about the “Back to the Basics” movement and I am fine with that—moreover, all the way back to the parents.

Better public schools in America start with better parenting within the home.

More to come. . .