Education, Government and the Law

Today's subject? Education

In case the majority of you have forgotten?  I'm an old dude.  I'm a product of the 60's and early 70's; and this is when most of my education happened.

And as I remember, I didn't enjoy a whole lot of it.

During my first years, I attended a private baptist school, in Los Angeles, I imagine somewhere around Inglewood, CA, where we lived.  I remember it very well.  I remember what the classrooms looked like even.  I also remember being whooped a lot by a ping pong paddle in the principal's office.  This went on for quite a while, until one day I went home with some serious welts on my butt, and my mother freaked out and removed me from that school.  I believe from there, we went to Iowa.

I won't go into the number of schools I attended back then, but it was quite a few.  Some were public, and some were private Christian schools.  The Christian ones were pretty nice.  I didn't fare so very well in the public types. In High School, I attended at Theodore Roosevelt High School in Des Moines, Iowa.  I went for a year and a half there, then dropped out in the middle of my junior year, because I decided to move out of my mother's place and take care of myself.  Note:  Rules about kids and jobs and how many hours they were allowed to work didn't exist at this time.  I remember not doing well at all in high school.  I got grades from B to D, and a lot of them in 10th and 11th grade were more towards the lower C to lower D category.

Anyhow, I didn't finish high school.  I did return to a drop-in type school for a while, and then I quit that too.  No one was too terribly upset about that, with the obvious exception of my mother.  I didn't return to school again until 1984.  I wanted to get my GED.  I hadn't stepped into a classroom in 7 years.  I tested out without attending any refresher classes.  I passed with flying colors.  I remember the math portion of the test the most.  I remember freaking about whether I would be able to handle the algebraic portion.  I think there were all of 2 questions about it.

Years later, my wife graduated the same high school in 1998.  She got C's and B's all through high school.  In 2010, her and I decided to attend college together, to improve our situations.  For me it was to just get a diploma of some kind.  For her, it was all about getting a better job and better pay.  I went for an associates in Liberal Arts.  She did the same.  I was able to take whatever classes I wished to.  Her counselor however, decided my wife would have to take some college preparatory classes before she moved on to getting a degree.  I finished my semester with some A's B's and C's.  My wife, however, managed to get a .34 grade average.  Don't judge...she does have a learning disability.

Oh, but wait.  Didn't she have B's and C's in high school?  Plus she graduated....right?  OK, then how did she manage that .34 grade average??

Here's what I truly love though.  I remember stuff they taught me in 2nd grade.  Math comes easy for me.  I can usually add numbers up in my head.  I'm no genius, mind you.  I believe my IQ is somewhere around the average. My wife?  She has trouble with 3x3.  5-20.  4 divided by 2.  If you ask her for change for a dollar, and there's no register to tell her how?  Count that drawer as short.  How then, did this woman graduate high school?

I got just short of the associates I was after, then returned again to study law for a paralegal degree.  I zipped through the first semester only having to drop one course, and got an incomplete (which translated to a C-) in another.  The second semester presented no issues for me whatsoever.  The third semester however, brought trouble to me.  I had to re-take the one course I had gotten a C- in (I was supposed to keep a 2.0 or better grade point, or I would lose my financial aid, and I had to have a C or better in all of my law classes, or I wouldn't get the certificate or the degree I was trying for at the time).  I had a female instructor in my Intro to Law class, in which I received a C.  She was easily the most inane person, and the lousiest instructor I had had to that date.  I learned pretty much nothing.  In my 3rd semester, I had her for 2 more classes (the selection of instructors for this program were extremely limited.)  I learned a lot less.  I was so stressed out about having her as an instructor for half of the classes I chose to take, that I systematically re-failed the C- class, and totally failed the fourth course.  The 2 that I took with that same instructor that I was so stressed over?  She passed me with a C...for both.  WHAT???  I was certain I had managed to fail all four.  And this female instructor?  She was the head of the department of the paralegal program.  Wow.

The thing I remember most about school when I was attending was that there were an awful lot of Civics, Government, and Law classes, as well as references to our infrastructure, and the way government and the law worked.  These days?  There's almost none.  Remember when I stated, in my blogs about The Law Itself, that if you asked people how our hierarchy of the courts was, or how the law works, or what the Constitution says, that a lot of people wouldn't be able to tell you?  This is why.  We have lessened, almost to extinction, anything to do with how our systems work, where the law and government are concerned.  Why?  As I mentioned before, the need to keep Americans in the dark as far as government is concerned:  What they're doing up there on Capital Hill, as well as how the law works, how laws are passed, and what you can do about it...these things are not considered important to teach any more, because if we know what's going on, then we might want to bring about change, something our Government does NOT WANT.  No, the only way you'll get that kind of Education is if you attend college, or take Law.  But it seems pretty obvious to me that they don't care too much for you learning much there either, especially with the head of the legal department shoving you through with passing grades, when you know damn good and well you learned NOTHING, failed all your tests, and didn't complete or did very poorly on any of the assignments given to you.

It's sad enough that we have a poor education system anyway...but when the national averages dropped and people began to complain that the standards in the education of our children were not sufficient, we changed a few things...but obviously those things are not helping.  Children currently graduating can't read, can't write, and can't speak.  And math?  Fahget about it.  If there's no calculator or cell phone or computer available, they'll be lucky to get the multiplication tables right.  Somewhere along the line, children that weren't able to pass grades were pushed through.  No child left behind.  I remember when that one came into existence.  Does that mean we pass them regardless of the grades they get, or if they really didn't understand a thing they just learned, just so we can up the averages and continue to get grants and funding available?  Is anyone really monitoring what our children are ACTUALLY learning?

If any of you actually know how, I would suggest, strongly, looking up what our national standards are, and what happens if someone doesn't quite meet those standards.  Find out what your college tuition, which is currently getting more and more expensive, really pays for.  Most of all, I'd really want to know, if my child decided to not attend college, and I take away all the technology that they have now, could they still survive in the world, say, if the internet went down?  Scary thought, right?

Day #5 - Elections/the Electoral College/Education

The letter E consisted of more than one subject I wanted to cover.  This letter, therefore will help to indicate not 26, but 27 deadly American sins...but, if you like, you can lump them together using the sub-subject mode in writing.  I sure didn't want to mis-represent the main header.  I just felt that both subjects were equally pertinent is all.  This will, I guarantee it, happen again, at least with Day 20 (the letter T), and might happen yet again to some other letter as well.  We'll see.

I have a couple of links for you this time, BEFORE we get going here.  This is something you should not only file away, this is something you need to post on every possible social media site, memorize, and put a copy up wherever you go, so you can re-check your list as events occur in our country.  Most importantly, make sure all of your friends and family READ IT CAREFULLY.  Before you write off or chalk any of this up to paranoia, you'll be shocked, as well as downright upset at what you find. Be sure to Google each and every one.  Not for me.  Not for my satisfaction.  For your protection and safety, I insist.  For your children.

2nd, I'm posting another link to an ad that someone is using for profit...but if nothing else, listen to the first half of it.  It fits things occurring in our nation just a little too nicely.

The first?  A list of warning signs that your country is going fascist.  I read this and I was, the whole time, just nodding and saying to myself "yeah...yeah, that's it...check mark THAT"...and moving on.

http://prorev.com/fascisthints.htm

The second, like I mentioned, is really just a scare tactic to make you buy something.  But listening to that first half, you simply have to nod in agreement and say "Yup.  Makes perfect sense."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cbyoqotxtk

All right, so now that you are better informed on the direction we might be headed towards, this makes my job a heck of a lot simpler.

One of those checks is fraudulent voting counts.  Remember G.W., the man we supposedly put in office not just once, but twice?  There's one for the books.  Gore had it, then next thing you know?  Out of NOWHERE comes the "Good Ol' Boy" supreme, out of our favorite well-to-do family (as well as former presidential family), the Bushes:  and just pushes that man right out of his rightly-won position.  Oh sure, we questioned it.  Funny how they didn't allow the re-count.  Funny too how G.W.'s brother was involved as well.  Of course.  Because they WANTED G.W. in office, regardless off what we wanted.  Why?  It all goes onto one of the bigger piles of crap ever put over onto the American public:  The Electoral College.

The Electoral College, a place where representatives of our state, the number depending on how many elected senators and representatives each one is allowed to send to Washington D.C., votes for our President, for us....supposedly.  There are, of course, things that most Americans don't know.

1).  The representatives of the Electoral College are pre-disposed to vote for a chosen candidate.  It's called "Pledging to a Candidate."  Even though it's only happened 4 times, it's bad enough that the Electoral College even ONCE went against the popular vote when determining the President and Vice President that would occupy their respective offices.  The fact that it even happened once should have abolished the E.C. right then and there.  Most recently, it was the 2000 election of G.W. Bush that it happened last.  Before the vote even happens, Electoral Reps already know whom they're voting for.

2.).  This way of voting is only for the offices of the President and Vice President.  Why??  Why do we need this?  We don't.  This is a safeguard, in case we decide we like someone Congress doesn't.  It takes the vote out of our hands, and places it in the hands of the Government, people who, as far as we know, vote for whomever they like...worse yet, that could be turned to vote for others we don't want, for whatever purpose.

This practice was taken up a long time ago, and is out-dated.  What's more, it gives congress the power to over-rule us when voting in the most important election we have.  We need to remove it from being what it is.  A way to over-rule whom we want to see running our country.

On the subject of Electronic voting, people, this is a no-brainer.  Get rid of it, vote against it, whatever you like.  Just get it gone.  With something as important as the popular vote, the main thing democracy is known for, this is way too big of a thing to get wrong and shouldn't be left in the hands of a computer...especially since the possibility of messing things up is so prevalent.  This system of voting fairly screams non-tamper-proof.  Virus codes, one of the things we computer users fear the most have been shown to totally discredit the software of these systems time and time again.  Why anyone went along with it to begin with is beyond me.  Sure, our old way of voting was slow and tedious, but the accuracy and tamper-proof-ness of the older way is much more trustworthy.  Vote tampering, candidate tampering, and group-tampering will never be completely extinct, but the more we put our votes in the hands of machines, the more we can bet that our votes will never completely be guaranteed to be what we really want.

Now, as to Education?  This one is huge.  I'm embarrassed to say that I don't believe we're ever given the education we need anymore.  We push everyone through.  I know this from personal experience, both because of my wife's high school education as opposed to her knowledge and success in college (she finished one term of college prep classes with a .34 grade average), and also because of my experience with acquiring a pre-law degree/certification.  Most colleges seem to be more about the money they get for tuition than the subjects they teach and the ways they teach them, and, in order to keep attendees coming, are given to pushing their students through with passing grades rather than failing them.  Worse though is the OBVIOUS pushing through in our public schools.  People want their kids to pass, therefore the schools are pressured to throw these students to the harsh world with passing grades, whether they deserve them or not.

When the "No Child Left Behind" program came to fruition, I remember visibly shuddering and shaking my head, waving bye-bye to the ability to swear that our students were prepared for any curve our world might throw at them.  Illiteracy is up to record levels, and math skills are as good as out the window.  No, they have calculators and computers that do all that for them now, so what do we need traditional math skills for? One of the biggest mistakes we currently make is thinking that all the lights will never all go out, and that those skills might, at that time, be desperately needed in accordance with our survival.  Each generation that passes by and that hands off more and more of their harder-thinking tasks to computers may someday wake up to a country deprived of its electricity...and where then would they be?  How many of those students do you imagine have the girl-scout/boy scout training we had when the majority of us were graduating?  I'd be curious to find out the knot-tying-type survival skills known by the average high-school graduate today.  I'd have to say I'd be scared to death to depend on the leadership abilities of any of them that might someday be in charge of...well, anything.

Education and learning is more crucial to our existence and survival than just about anything else we humans do for ourselves.  Every time we Google anything, it's been proven to lessen our ability to recall.  And that, I'm sure, is only the tip of the ice-burg.  Our brains get lazier and lazier with each new do-it-all device that comes out on the market.

See you manana...:D