What’s this about Andrea in a Catholic School Girl outfit? Between that image and KfK oiling up her new leathers (in a thong), I think I’m heading back to my bunk.

In all seriousness, I still keep ties with my high school as my English teacher (the one who inspired me to write) is still there, still teaching English. I’ve gotten a hint of all this from the teacher’s perspective…and it would astound you how many parents expect teachers to RAISE their kids. Not teach, RAISE!

As far as the whole “English-challenged” populus, I will hold my tongue as my “inner-Limbaugh” comes out when I get on this rant. But get a few beers in me and yeah, I’ll go Dennis Leary on you!

Finally, Andrea…please, please, please…avoid mohawks in the future. You give good hair.

Tomorrow we get back to prevert talk

Word!

Anyway- I am going home and I just wanted to thank you all for this discussion today. As Spock would say: “Fascinating”

I gotta take a break…

I believe that and that’s why P.C.U. will always be one of my favourite movies.

I apologize for my comment which started this

and to prove a point, I may have done the flirting with the boys after school but I, unlike many of my highschool girlfriends, did not graduate highschool pregnant.

Mmm…angry…bad…schoolgirl…

Andrea, I second your emotion. But around here, since we have a huge migrant population, if you even utter a thought like that youre deemed as racist. I dont get it. I really dont.

and becasue of these kids they have cut out music and sports…. oh that makes me angry. You wont like me when Im angry (hee hee)

I was all over that!! And I say we need some pictures of that Andrea! LOL

I’ll be in my bunk!

Yeah, it is about where you went to school. Thats very, very true. Right now, Colorado is in heep big trouble because they dont have the money to correctly teach the “traditional” students along with those who cant at the moment speak English. An amazing amount of resources is going into helping these kids get an education (which is great) but things like music, sports, and other extracurricular activities are being chopped out. In the past this gave the kids something after school to do instead of being bored and fucking shit up. I know. I was a fucker upper of shit.
My delightful state, as of last year, was above only (if I remember) Alabama in terms of monies given to schools. Thats ass. I mean really, we could go on and on about our specific regions and the shit theyre in, but it all comes down to a public theme addressed already. Parents + heads out of assess = a better chance for success. Thats obvious I guess, but its sad that kids cant get a bit of nurturing in school anymore.

This is depressing. I like making boob and fart jokes better. Ah well. Dont let no one say us Wingin It fans is dumb.

The public school being where my husband went to school. I remember the sunny spring day we met. When a bunch of us girls rolled up our skirts, unbuttoned the top buttons of our blouses and went to go flirt with the cute boys at the public school. HA!

Andrea that was good.

Messed up is pretty much going to an all boys catholic school for the latter part of the high school and knowing that the all girls school was just a couple of blocks away.

i know thats pretty vague, but, really i just think that that has to do with where you went to school and the dynamics of your neighborhood and classes and stuff. But i totally get what your saying, alvie

I miss my cardboard race car/spaceship/race boat.

I bought my 5 yr old nephew Tinker Toys!

God I hate school talk. It makes me weep for my children…

Just the other night, some friends i grew up with and i were talking about how much we LOVED to play with cardboard boxes when we were children (we were quite poor, but very happy)
it sounds lame to say it now, but we really could do SO MUCH with just some old boxes, and tape! oh god we loved tape… tape made the whole world right, cuz then stuff wouldnt fall down. haha

what happened to that? I mean, we used to ask for boxes and tape for christmas!
i wish i could get that imagination back.

but youre right, poor kids today are overstimulated.
a friend of mine has a two year old and is about to have another baby, and her poor son is so overstimulated — she has him watching baby einstein and going to kindermusic things and this workshop and that workshop…

the hell with that, give me some boxes and some tape anyday

Times two! LOL

In an imperfect world, we have an imperfect system. (and I don’t just mean the school system) It’s going to be an ongoing battle for a solution to this. Ultimately, it’s the parent’s responsibility to guide their kids. Unfortunately, things like Columbine happen and it’s hindsight when we say: “they should have done this..”. I love my nieces and nephew and I thank God their doing well in a far more complex world.

How’s that for being vague? LOL

I have a sister-in-law who has a lot of personal issues, she has several children that very often get dumped at our house for days. Those poor kids are so messed up I cannot even tell you. Then on top of it, their mom has now decided they are Jehovah (spelling?) Witnesses, which, I am not saying anything about religion, but they now cannot read any sci fi / fantasy books which is something I was trying to get them to do. Becasue the books are “evil”. I actually was able several times to get them all to sit and listen to me read them Harry Potter but that is not allowed now. BUT they can play video games- tell me someone how in anyway that is helping these children. I fear for these childrens future. They also live in a very bad neighborhood in Chicago where they basically cannot play outside because they will probably be shot and forced to join a gang. My husband and I have tried to take the kids, adopt them or even just get guardianship but they love their mom and wont leave her. So they are dumped on us and on the schools and we are all supposed to care for and raise these kids but their mom is off the hook. Maybe in some ways the schools are just trying to get some control. These crazy rules are decided becasue they are given these thousands of kids everyday that they are supposed to rasie and teach. They need to have all the kids pass the exams so that they can stay open.

Just another side of the story I was thinking about……

My parents were and still are awesome. They taught me the single most important thing that any parent can teach their children, and that is to think for oneself. I understand the importance of a school having a code of conduct, but I find it repugnant that code follows a student home after hours, especially (and I’m speaking of America here) education is compulsory. The internet is nothing more than a conduit for ideas, the only difference is that sometimes those ideas come to the surface where they can be scrutinized by others. The hate, violence and all the other ugly things were already there, the internet didn’t invent them. Obviously, if you stumble on a Columbine style plot, you have a moral duty to report it. But if school authorities are constantly invading the privacy of their students, then they are basically teaching them that they can’t be trusted, and if students feel they can’t be trusted, then they grow up without a sense of personal responsibility. In my opinion, that is the single greatest disservice we have done to our children. Ok, I’m returning the soap box back. Next.

Who knew Jesus monitored the Wingin It posts.

Yea, it was well put and thoughtful and lo, I agree with much of what you say.

Verily, why do you think I wanted my Father out of public schools?

Verily and lo.

My high school was 50 percent lower and upper middle class black families and 50 percent upper middle class white families. We had a brand new facility, a large sports budget, an award-winning very large marching band, and dedicated faculty and staff.
My high school was, five years ago, and remains today, the best place to buy an 8-ball.
My high school ALSO had a homicidal police officer living on-campus, and working as the schools resource officer.
My high school has a large, “public” field of pot plants in the forest behind the football field.

Where were the background checks?
Where are the parents when their kids are out doing and selling coke in the parking lot at 7am?
Where are are the school officials getting rid of the pot on the back field?

They are avoiding the whole situation by instilling ludicrous plans to “monitor kid’s online activity” instead of DOING something about the drug and violence problems at school.

Seriously, i was the epitome of a cross section of high school students, i was even brought in as part of a research study group on high school safety. Kids DON’T need to be monitored and disciplined, they need to be TAUGHT RIGHT FROM WRONG.
and the time to learn right from wrong is from the moment the child can comprehend those concepts…. and the people who need to take responsibility for that are the PARENTS.
I think all of that is on the parents …. parents need ot be the primary teachers.
That’s why this nonsense talk of disciplining kids for posting “innapropriate material” on the internet is just … totally misguided.

Seriously, i do think kids online habits should be monitored, but the SCHOOL is not the place to do that. Regardless of whether its working that way right now or not, it is the PARENTS responsibility. And if anyone should be discipline for high school students posting inappropriate material on the internet it should be the PARENTS

“the school” .. the collective group of somewhat unaffected adults who feign a genuine interest in the child’s well-being (i know some people do really care but, come on — its a job.) cannot possible attend to the needs of each individual child.

And then, come on, all of us were weirdos in high school, and most of us were (for the most part) pretty sane, normal, and happy. Yet its the kids with the weird hair and the slipknot song playing ontheir myspace whose activity would get monitored, when WE knew (back then, in high school) that is was the preppy kid with the hot car and the perfect blond girlfriend who was more likely to commit an act of violence. (ok maybe that image is pushing it, but face it — the weird kids get picked on, just becuase theyare weird).

I just have ot look at it from the standpoint that if i were still in high school, it would be MY internet activity being monitored, not the cute cheerleader who probably has quite a few more enemies and anger issues than i do, and that just pisses me off.

(sorry for the rant… told you, hot spot)

When I came home with my head shaved into a mohawk my parents sat me down and asked me what was going on… those parents of those kids in Columbine should of paid more attention.

Ok Im done. Sorry

I think as soon as you keep allowing schools to police your children parents are going to just keep expecting everyone else to watch their children and never take the responsibility. We have lazy parents- we need to end that. We expect the schools to handle these things and yet we keep taking more and more money out of schools.

Gil, the fuck do you really think?

Actually that was well put.

But then again, with the school shoot outs and things of that nature being found on such blog sites sometimes, you do have to wonder, would they have caught the latest set of teens who had threatened to go postal at their school if no one was looking through those sites? Threats, whether they are just jokes or some other deep seeded plan have to be looked at now a days because of previous incidents. At some point, a precedence has to be set and maybe this is it. You already have metal detectors showing up in schools and the way that schools are being designed these days as far as how spaces are created lend to the fact that they are trying to respond to some issues.

Yes, it is well and good for parents to say that knowing what their children are doing online is their business, but how many parents are really committed to doing that unless they are called on about it? And when they are, how long do they watch what their child is doing before dropping back into the lax state of things? With all the technology and media that is available it is difficult to draw a definitive line where one responsibility starts and another ends.

Sure, people are retarded, but sometimes, retarded ideas get developed and become useful.

Sometimes.