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"Sure, there are bad teachers out there, but parents need to be held accountable as well. They need to read to their kids, provide them with stimulation, supplies, a learning environment." I loved this last bit. I say the same myself all too often, and I can't really understand not taking the time to read with your children and teach them things. I love sharing knowledge with both of my children. Even if we are doing a new craft so they can learn a new skill, like the Christmas ornaments I made with Garrick last year, it is a joy to watch their faces light when they've grasped what they're being taught. I think you are going to make an exceptional teacher, and your students will be very lucky to have had you in their lives for a year. Take care and much love, Meg. By the way, I hope Mason is feeling much better. I've not had a chance to really ask, but he's been in my thoughts:)

Almost stopped when I read about the snake. But I believe you have a passion to help children and a realistic view of them. Anything you do will be a help nd I admire your work with them. All the best.

These are defiant little buggers that have a look on their face that says ‘Go ---- yourself!’

There was a time when I just like one of those little defiant buggers. Some here might think I've never out grown it. Yes, I wish we could do more for those kids, but other than military school I don't know what else straightens them out. They're locked into a certain mentality.

School is mandatory, but so many people don't know what school is all about. So in a public school, you have all these kids that show up just because it's against the law for them not to be there. And then they get to school and they don't know how to behave. Their parents never read to them - and maybe they're parents don't have time to read, etc etc but that's only true in some of the cases. So, in a public school, you have to try to learn despite these distractions and it's cruel to say, but I almost wish some of these distractions weren't there in the first place. I know that's not a plausible solution at all. If there were some sort of sorting hat, and you could put all the distractions in a "daycare" program, some parents would complain because their children weren't getting the opportunity to learn...there should be some mandatory home component to the whole education system maybe. I guess you can tell me to keep dreaming. I was thinking about this when we had a highschool shooting here, and both of the kids were troubled and came from terrible home situations and there they were having a shootout, exposing all these other kids who just may have gone to school that day to learn. Instead they have to dodge bullets and worry about which bathroom they can use because the punks are getting high in one of the bathrooms...it's not fair to other kids who might benefit from an education. Some people just don't seem to want it or care.

I hear what you’re saying Shal, but I always think about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs http://www.simply-communicate.com/cg...tem.cgi?id=558 . How can they think about getting an education when they are concerned about surviving today? I don’t blame kids, even high school kids who bring guns to school. They are dealing with a world that grown people can’t deal with and they have little if any resources. Too often there is a cycle and the odds of breaking the cycle are almost zero. Sometimes I think that with enough solid social programs we could make a difference, but it wouldn’t be evident for probably three generations. It’s so complex and to change things would require so much from so many that I doubt it can ever happen. The irony is that the key to overcoming many social problems is education.

Thanks everyone.

Scary about the snake close call! Makes me worry about your kids and your pets -- was that thing after eggs?
About helping out at the school, that is kind and good of you to want to help out like that. As for getting hit and all that, well, that would be difficult to work around, for sure. I don't know what to say about the goings-on in classrooms, maybe just to say that I do feel sorry for the teachers a lot of the time (especially when they have to contend with shootings and stuff... stuff that didn't happen in my years at school, thankfully). It sure is a tough world out there... Now get your homework done! j/k ! Love K♥zzo

Originally Posted by Mom-H

How can they think about getting an education when they are concerned about surviving today? I don’t blame kids, even high school kids who bring guns to school. They are dealing with a world that grown people can’t deal with and they have little if any resources.

Mom, I've got mixed reaction to your comment above. It comes across as just pure bleeding heart. I grew up among punks and roughnecks. I don't know how old you're talking about but some of these kids are just bad people. Two memories just came back to me. One where I think I was around fifteen and I was waiting for the bus in front of a pool hall and I was just looking in the front glass window. Some kid inside made a face at me and I just shrugged it off, like to say big deal. Well five minutes later about ten or more of these punks storm out of the pool hall and surround me and started swinging punches at me. All of them were younger than me. Thank God for a bunch of people outside who broke it all up before I got seriously hurt. Second story. About three years ago I was walking over to my parents house in my neighborhood, which happens to be one of the safest around and three punks also surrounded me and robbed me. This was no more than four blocks from my house, and the punks couldn't have been more than seventeen. Sorry these are rotten people and don't deserve an once of sympathy. None. I know what these punks are like. When you are rotten from the inside you need to be thrown out.

Virgil, this boy was six at the most but five most likely. just a little boy that was small for his age. I suppose my heart really does bleed for those little guys.

Ok, six is pretty young. I would hope that at six we could help him adjust. I don't know at what age kids flip to delinquent, but it's probably not much older.