Inspite of me,  or maybe my husband and I made a pretty good team, for out of our five – Each has excelled in school in one way or the other, and as we had our children — It was almost like having two families, for a gap of ten years went by before we had our youngest children, so when I say that I have seen it all as a parent, I can pretty much reassure you that there is little good or bad that our family has not dealt with in school lives.  For most teachers, my respect is beyond words, and I wish that I was a member of The Gates Foundation just to go around and to get some ideas as to what is and what is not working in education.  How teachers keep students from going to the internet to, “Steal,” their work is a problem which I see absolutely no end, no solution for, for the information on line now is beyond most things a child could read in a text book in a week, and there are credible web sites to go to.  I see the bookless day coming to a school near you very soon, but if this is a way that a child can learn, then let me stand back, for I have a hard time not seeing good University written information as being somewhat like looking up something in the Encyclopedia, and my question has to be — Are they learning from their choice of how to  do assignments, so I am a devil;s advocate on this one

Stealing other’s information is a little dramatic when put in context, for if they did not want to share, then why is the information there?  I write very little which I do not have some basis of knowledge from experience or for doing assignments the long and hard way–For there was no choice.  Only the luckiest kids that I ever knew had  Encyclopedias which I would have picked a whole week of cotton just to have the down payment which Mom and Dad did not back then, and when I went to houses, and I saw my friends doing their homework from them, then I thought, “You have got to know that you are among the luckiest kids on the face of the earth,” for I come from a time when books were a little more precious and and Encyclopedia and The National Geographic coming in to your home was fully equivalent to having the internet at the tips of your fingers; But we from homes with no books just tried as hard as we could to get that assignment done during recess or lunch  time, any time where some other book less child was not using these sources of all human beings should know outside of The Scriptures.  It was a fully accepted way to learn.  I get your point here though, that you gave an assignment and someone failed to do the work in a manner which you saw as acceptable, so I shall not act shallow, for as you said, “Teachers are teaching more of life’s lessons.”

There was always a central group of parents who came to the school almost daily to do all kinds of special acts for the good of the school, but something else went on, and that again was where the poor kid or the parents with babies at home saw their school child suffer, for the frequent visitors children were the first in sports, school plays, art work; You name it, for when it was even vaguely close, the children whose parents did not get to come to school were always going to be the ones with recognition until some student, and I admit to you, I was one, that if you discounted my work as a teacher or a parent endeavored to influence the outcome of something I could do better, then the dutiful come to school parents were going to get in a rowe, because, I would do a better paper, a beter project, a lovelier poem, so it would have embarased the teacher to have not given some of us who worked that way awards.  I acknowledge there were many other deserving students, but I did everything your way dear teacher, your way and 100% more for it took that much for a poor kid to break a barrier of any kind.

Parents know the score now, for they have lived it, that certain things are going to get your child in to college, and the independent child who will do it all on their own, then that child is exceptional.  The newer parents and graduates have come to a time when a four year college degree from good schools may mean one thing after graduation — What my husband and I call, “And will you take fries with that?”  They are well read, and some study how to parent during a pregnancy and through all of the stages afterword, for they know that it is impossible to be ordinary when even exceptional younger people are having hard times getting a  job, so I know their anxieties.  Just sending a child forth every day in this world where there appears to be a growing number of psychopaths as seemed to begin at Columbine, so a parent has too many reference points of fear, and it comes off as being overly protective.  It must be very hard to see that little one leave home, the big boy, the big girl, “We are making E’s and Butterflies today,” so no wonder many parents feel a need to protect. 

I’m feeling defensive for the kids and for  the parents here.  Long ago, I have thought that all children for the first three grades should  have basic manners as school and home work, for the child that comes home to the parent blitzed out in bed half coherent with the latest lover and sucking up a little more meth or whatever their choice of being stoned bears, for they learned no parenting skills, and probably the nicest any one is to them is when they are giving birth.  Strike me down, but will we come to a time when it is simply obvious that some people should not be having children.   We already know it, but we are not allowed to say it, for what kind of b–ch am I suggesting we go against nature’s way.  It can be done by not rewarding people for having children with higher monthly payments per child.  A whole new work force of Americans can be out there helping see these children are fed, clothed, and that they get to school, and if the parent wants out to do whatever they are going to do; Then I believe we have painted far too ugly pictures of places where people can see these children get 24 hour care.  Workers paid to help bring these children up would have to be monitored from the moment they began work to avoid another form of child abuse, but some kids would be happy to have a room, a bed, and a desk.

Perhaps we could stop calling this type of setting an orphanage but a home, and let the faith communities help.  Let well screened adults help, but we make it sound as if being with these useless parents who use the system for money, and the kids may have a grandmother to get them a change of clothes, but we need jobs for college graduates, and children need security, so why have we tarnished these places where there would be help with homework, and any parent who was giving their best shot at deciding they wanted a hand in calling their children back and showing they were competent enough to do so would share in the food and all basic services, but cut the money part out.  How can these children learn when their house is in such turmoil that to return home each day is filled with insecurity and no promise of even a working toilet.  It is happening right here in America, and yes; Teachers are apt to be the ones who must endeavor to take care of children who need special education, for their prenatal care added up to drug addicted babies.

Children hear the news, and they hear about murdered children by psychopaths.  They know kids disappear on city streets — Plain, in your face, kidnapping, especially among attractive young women for obvious reasons, so they want the parent right there, so independence is hard to encourage…I fear that we have to accept that we have come to this awful place, and people are talking right now about how to cut out this needless work of the Devil killing of children.  The parents of Sandy Hook are just the latest, so parents fear, and they dread hours away from their child, and it is just getting harder; So how do we divide over protective from being scared out of your wits?

I do have one suggestion, since there have been some similar characteristics of the killers as far as age and gender are concerned, and we would be talking about placing more counselors in school to get to know the kids by name.  Then, a troubled child might talk to you about grandiose plans of ending their lives and the lives of others.  I am not going to say that having an armed person or two trained to intervene if a shooter walks in and begins the carnage, and I have hard feelings about NRA and assault weaponss, but some things have got to be done.  That young boy though, who is lost in fantasy much of the time, who has great difficulty sorting out anyone to be a friend, because kids are labeling them as creepy; Yes, let us spend some money on counselors to start raising red flags, and to do what counselors can that parents cannot.  The simple act of being able to lock a room from inside will buy time.  Warning bells from low to high alert should  be practiced, but more than any thing the emotionless children must be found, and if there is any way to reach them, watching for fully inappropriate behaviors and responses;  Then, once more;  Maybe we have gone too far in endeavoring to believe we can main stream all children.  I do not know, nor do the scientist know whether or not any intervention can help, but we cannot go on pretending that there are not many similarities among the perpatrators. 

I write and think at the same time, for I am searching, thinking I should be able to say something useful about parents who defend the child who cheats, or the parents who act as if their child is the one child in a classroom, for it is selfish to presume that a teacher can spend her day on one child’s problems.  There will always be those who are seeking private education in a public school environment, over bearing parents who want more than a teacher can possibly give.  I feel deep sadness for the teacher, but with what has happened since the 1980s, I am feeling great anquish for the person who feels terror is sending a child out each day for fear they will never come home.  My answers are pathetically inadequate as I read through what I have written, but we have not learned to deal with the new realities of how children will learn with internet iinfluence, and with all of the time in the world; How can we console the parent who lives in fear and dread as their child walks out of their sight… Perhaps a little more mercy is due on each side, but the number one issue is, if we cannot stop the violence going on in schools across the map now; Then we better get soldiers home, and we need to be on guard with something, for we cannot afford to lose another child.. Let us be forgiving of those who fear, I beg you.

Barbara Everett Heintz — “Pinkhoneysuckle,” on Amazon, Kindle, and Create Space

Hello Michael,

First, please know that I understand you are in intelligent businessman with your own children.  I do not expect answers to thoughts; In fact I want to admit that all of the sudden I realize that if I want to write about such things, then I should do it on my own space, so please accept my aplogies.  I do believe that I am reactionary right now, because between Chicago and Oakland, Ca. from where we get news of on going, manical gang violence, and murders are beyond anything human, I feel so disturbed for the living.  I see Bay Bridge lit up gloriously tonight, but across that bridge today a perfect teenage girl was shot in the back– Maybe in the wrong gang territory, and it is every day, so much so I would be ashamed to have it as an address.

I endeavor to read your articles often, for I do not sit down with an Atlantic Monthly while my husband reads The New Yorker and Chronicle from cover to cover, so between the two of you, I read much that I would miss, then a prosecutor gets blown away in Miami today.  Dear God, I almost think gun control is a cover for the fact we are beginning to need far greater protection in our own communities.  I do not know, but please accept my apology for going on a tirade on your Xanga site.  You are far to generous in making it sound like I did something nice, and I have to sort out comments own we from adding such in depth though to my own weblog. It is not fair to you.  You are far too generous, and I am not Arianna Huffington!

For your generosity; thank you again, and God Bless,

Barb