Do you need to be smarter than a fifth grader?

Schools in America are broken.  Ask anybody.  When the study countries we're like the top 25% but we spend like double what the top ten pay to educate their kids.

Didn't we invent the idea of universal education?  Kids in England were working in factories 30 years after the US wrote the Northwest Ordinance.

In America 25% of students don't graduate.  In urban settings it's normal for less than 60% of freshmen to graduate.  How many graduate without the ability to read?

I've subbed at some rough and tough schools and the expectations aren't high.  I've seen really good teachers create a fun and engaging atmosphere.  The students fought engagement.  The students couldn't be bothered to learn.  The students had reviews.  The students were coaxed and cajoled and pleaded with.  The students failed the very easy tests.

I've seen students disrespect their peers and their guides.  I've heard the "N" word more in one day than years outside.  Their leaders and school professionals do not get their attention or their interest.  They muddle through.  They are defined by apathy.  Apathy is their superpower and they are great at utilizing 

Teachers don't always use the best pedagogy.  Teachers are fighting this apathy and guess what, sometimes it's easier to fight apathy with a stick than it is to fight with the carrot.  The carrot takes a long time to prepare.  The stick doesn't.  They both take a lot of emotional energy.

Teachers don't always teach to all the modalities of learning and all of the seven different types of intelligence because they have to cover a large amount of content in their best modality and intelligence.  Guess what the students don't respond to any of them anyway.

Students sometimes couldn't be bothered to copy what the teacher writes on the board.  Look I did this.  And I analyzed their refusal based on certain premises.  First, maybe they thought that they wouldn't be graded on it.  Wrong.  I told them they would be.  Maybe they thought that that which was given freely was of little value.  Maybe, but 30% copied incorrectly.  Maybe they thought that succeeding in math was unnecessary because of social promotion that they had been experiencing several years of their school careers.

Students don't read their textbooks.  School textbooks are big business.  14 Billion dollars a year on school textbooks that aren't even read.  The teachers don't assign the students to read them.  Maybe they'll assign sections of the social studies and/or English Composition books.  A lot of schools have paid $10,000+ for class sets that are never assigned, books that aren't read cover to cover, and students who don't use technology to supplement their education.

Students have access to all the classes almost any college can offer.  They can read Wikipedia and other online materials all day everyday.  Students now have the ability to create, learn, experience, engage with, more sources of information, more teachers of skills, more experienced mentors than ever.

Students could go to school and learn four languages and three instruments and more information in one year than we used to learn in a decade before the internet, but they just don't.  They could watch teachers teach every section of knowledge imaginable from several different teachers and they can do all that without leaving bed.

Schools in America are terrible.  I know English, Aussies, South Africans, Korean, Russians, Ukrainians, Czechs, Pakistanis, and Thai.  Maybe a couple of other countries and they're not really much better than ours when you strip our incongruous disabled population.  But even if this is just about us.  American schools are bad.  Ask anyone.

But how good do they have to be?  What if the main thing we need to concentrate on is primary school?  Okay, lets say the the goal should be to learn and I mean MASTER a content test for all the information you should learn when you're in the 5th grade.  Now, spread the content of 5 years + Kinder out to say 8 years of schooling.

So if we concentrate on reading, writing, and arithmetic then you never let anyone graduate without getting that content.  Anyone doesn't want to pay attention and get that content.  They can go home.  Self-induced expulsion I call it.

What about High school?  I am well aware that there is a need for some students of every ethnicity, socioeconomic level, and gender to have the opportunity to try computer science, higher level math, chemistry, biology etc.  We must offer to find those who would make their careers in those fields, not to mention, those who would truly revolutionize those fields.  But need we offer it to everyone or just anyone?  Huge difference.  I posit that universal education is follows the proverb, you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink.  Education is on offer if you will but take it.  Teachers in a school with these expectations don't need to be as engaging, but still interesting and entertaining.  These educators are the people who are taking our best and brightest students and finding out if they are so.  The work should be challenging enough to see if they are passionate about the content and capable enough to succeed in the pursuit of a higher education.  Send all kids to school.  Kids get 5th grade educations by 8th grade.  Kids graduate or drop out.  Kids who graduate can attend these high schools.  High school is like college in this reality, demanding and difficult.  Maybe high school becomes collegiate, but you dabble in everything.  College becomes a place where you take 101 classes.  You take introductions.  You survey.

Students who do not graduate the 8th grade go to remedial high school.  This is a second chance to learn the content of the first 8 years.  This place has teachers that specialize in being engaging.  These teachers always follow best practices.  These teachers have small class sizes and may work with an aid for instructional.  These students are special needs(lower capabilities not severe disabilities), but aren't behavior issues.  Behavior issues don't go to school.

People who don't want preparatory college high school and didn't need remedial can begin to learn trades.  They can start working as bus boys, dishwashers, lawn mowers.  Start teaching them about compound interest in middle school and find them a job at 15 they can save $100/month doing.

Students who don't want to work or go to either kind of high school do not get welfare.  Now, here in lies a crux.  I think the welfare culture and the failing schools are connected.  I could be wrong.  I believe there are some in both industries fudging the numbers to change the perception, but this is my belief.  If the flow of benefits runs dry then I believe people, not all but most (95% is a guess), will go back to school or the work force.  Social security and SSI disability were supposed to be about 5% but now it's way higher.  I know Romney got destroyed for saying it was 47% on some sort of assistance; that seems legitimate if not precise.

Two reasons we NEED kids to graduate.  75% of crime in the US is committed by high school dropouts.  And a high school dropout will make $200,000 less over a working career than a graduate.  And a dropout is three times more likely to fall below the poverty line and be subsidized by the government.  It's in our economic interest to make them graduate.  And it's in out penal interest to make sure they earn it.

So there is my plan for a revolutionary education overhaul.  Be amazed.  It really was a lot of verbal mental diarrhea I've been thinking about since I really thought about what students needed to learn in high school.  And what they do, but don't.

I have decided to do this more often...again.  For some time now I've been caught up in trying to get a a job and not working on the kind of job I want to have. 

This year I've been a substitute teacher.  I've had more students this year than most teachers will have in a fifty year career.  I admit that I don't know these students as intimately as their teachers do.  However, not knowing them as intimately as their teachers also should afford me greater authority on the whole of education.  Shouldn't it?  I mean if we say I can't say things about any teachers kids that they can refute because they 'know them better.'  Shouldn't I be able to say things about the entire education system because I, 'know it better?' 

So this year I substitute taught at over 25 schools.  I spent more than one day at about 10.  I spent over two weeks at three.  One of the three long term jobs was kindergarten generalist.  One was Essential Academics (read severe disabilities), and one was as Educational Assistant (read teacher's aide for classrooms with a lot of special ed students at a high school.  All of my jobs span two districts and one private school.  I would have gone to Austin ISD, but at the time I told myself I should specialize so that fewer administrators got to know me better.

So hopefully I'm going to write several things I've learned about school.  Several meaning if I'm not lazy or forgetful than several others will follow.  I've learned them to be true from my experience.  Some other people could refute my experience with metadata.  And the first thing I've learned is...

1. Social promotion doesn't work.

I was with a teacher in her class.  It was a class for students who failed Algebra I and Algebra II.  We received to standardized tests from the district over the period of three weeks.  They were to diagnose low performance.  In one class of twenty.  Three worked on the test.  In one class of 25 three worked on the test seven or eight copied it with a level of stealth that I would describe as elephant ninja.  It didn't matter. 

The teacher took me through there scores from years past.  What she was doing was probably less than legal.  She showed me that they had all been failing math since the fifth and sixth grade.  They had kept failing and kept on moving on to the next section. 

Now they were taking this coarse to help them buff up their math skills to help them pass the STAAR exam to get their diploma.  The teacher felt like that was impossible.  How was she supposed to teach them Algebra I and II in a year when they couldn't learn it in two?  How could she get them to work when they hadn't worked, but had still been promoted?  How could she get them the skills they needed when they didn't know their times tables?  There was a hole of knowledge she couldn't get back to and around and catch up before their time was up and if she had the will the students didn't.

One day the teacher wasn't their.  I became normal substitute instead of just aide.  Homework was assigned.  The teacher told me to give it out and pick it up at the end of class.  With her permission I did ALL the problems on the board.  I wrote out all the problems and how to do them on the board.  I told them to copy.  The assignment wasn't worth a lot to their final, but it did affect it so why not copy.  In a class of 20, ten students handed in the assignment.  Only two got a hundred on the assignment.  In another class of 25 almost 20 turned the assignment in.  Ten got hundreds on the assignment.  I'm not sure which is scarier.  That so few could copy, or that some didn't even copy.  I didn't do this on the board because I wanted to know if they could copy.  I figured they'd retain some of the process if I did a lot of step checking and understanding checks.  It didn't.

A lot of these students will graduate.  I taught three sections of this class with the same teacher.  There were 65+ students.  The school graduates over 75% of the students who go all four years.  That means that some of the students who couldn't even be bothered to copy will walk the stage.  The school is graduating a lot of students so that it won't appear to 'leave children behind.'  But they're being left behind anyway.  Now they're left behind adults. 

Social promotion doesn't work.  It doesn't incentivize kids to achieve.  It doesn't incentivize them to work hard.  They just go to school and collect attendance (Which the school still cares deeply about because that's how they get paid).  The talk with their friends.  The don't learn.  If possible, a sport might pressure them to succeed, but how difficult is achievement in classes where all you have to do is copy the stuff off the board?

Now, there is also a lot of evidence that failing students doesn't work.  Did you know that?  There are white papers about it.  There are randomly selected test subjects in pools of thousands.  There are data sets and control groups and PhD's.  Wow! I'm convinced.  I read this for the first time in an Education Week article.  I did a double take.  Most of the teachers that I know don't think so.  I did a triple take.  I started doing some online research.  It's true.  There is evidence that this doesn't make students work harder.  Except for me.  And you.  And like every other kid of a particular generation before social promotion.  It isn't true.  Studies like this may have been done without polling.  But I studied harder to make sure I didn't fail.  I heard other students, friends and acquaintances say this.  These studies may be saying that it didn't work because some students still failed, but how many didn't because they feared failing.

And now the numbers are skewed.  There is no way in my mind that I can believe high schools are graduating only students who have achieved a satisfactory understanding of Texas essential knowledge and skills.  Colleges are agreeing with me since most have increased or invented for the first time remedial programs on campuses of higher learning.  Can you get the results that social promotion is working?  Yes, if you graduate students who haven't achieved.  My question for those schools is that diploma.  It is a certificate of achievement.  And how can we in good conscience certify that students have achieved all the requisite knowledge and skills if they haven't?

So.

Stop passing those who fail.  Maybe not all at once.  Maybe schools should for a very short period of time one to two years only fail the students who make below 50 rather than 60.  Later, when children will skip on party a month or one Netflix binge a week in order to not fail then you can reorder the amount of failings.  Give teachers a free pass to give to one student who they can certify tried but didn't succeed.  Let Principals give some out for extenuating circumstances.  Let kids go to summer school.  My way out is that you tailor the way out to each individual student.  I hate a solutions that are supposed to fit every student in every school in every city in every state.  I'm willing to admit failing doesn't always work as a disincentive.  If we can all admit that not leaving any child behind pushes some adults way too far ahead.

There's a very old quote, "If I advance, follow me.  If I retreat, cut me down.  If I fall, avenge me." Source unknown, but I've heard it was Napoleon.  This seems to me to be the single solution voice when the problems are legion.  There is no one size fits all.  There is not cookie cutter solutions.  We need all the tools.
 

Am I too nostalgic?

I'm trying to get a job as a teacher.  I also have a stepson who has teachers.  I also work at schools as a substitute and those schools...you guessed it, have teachers.  It may be that I'm hypersensitive to problems because of the job I want to have, or it could be that my problem is thinking about the past with rose-colored glasses.

Obviously that statement has a ton of different directions I could be taking this.  I'm talking about the two emails I sent to my kid's teachers last week.  Now school has been going on over nine weeks and this is the first time we've talked to them.  And we initiated the communication.  However, we initiated the conversation because of some small issues.  In truth, we still haven't contacted his other teachers because we only call if he has a 'B.'

Obviously, my aggravation should be seen in light of my failure to get a job.  But, I told myself in grad school that when I was a teacher I would contact.  One reason is because the only calls my parents ever got from the school is when I had misbehaved.  I hated that.  I hate it now.  My parents could have gotten a short call every time I got honor roll.  School could have called to tell them that I was voted to be Key Club president and I wasn't even Catholic.  But no.  Do you think my wife got a call to tell her parents that she was top ten in her school?  No.

I wanted to be different because if you need to have your student's parents increase their investment in their child's education then you would have to invest in your relationship.  And in a lot of schools I know this is a changing principle in America.  I know a lot of elementary school teachers contact parents every six weeks.  I think that's great.  I know that when I was in Korea I called all of my students twice every quarter and gave them a little over the phone quiz and then their Korean teacher would discuss these and other results with their parents.  That was a lot, but it was private school.  We were expected to be in closer contact.  Public schools seem to be expecting more communication.  One of those things that teachers are expected to do above and beyond teaching like discipline, life skills, nutrition, manners, phonics, and teamwork.

So how much communication is good enough?  I think a short call to the parents once a six weeks and a form letter/news letter home every week to the family isn't asking a ton.  Specific e-mails about strengths their students have would also be great.  I've always dreamed about having a picnic at a park on a Saturday and inviting all my student's families.  I like the idea of making the class/teacher relationship more communal and less professional.  I feel like that's something we've lost.

Now, there is this meme/cartoon of the difference between education in the seventies and today.  In one box the parents are standing with the teacher and yelling at the student, 'What are you going to do about these grades?'  In the other box the same words are being shouted at the teacher by the parents.  Have you seen that cartoon?  Does that match your perception?  Isn't this losing a professional respect for what the teacher does?  Is this what's wrong with our educational system?



But wait didn't I say we've lost the communal to the more professional?  Yes.  I do think we've lost a certain amount of respect for the work of societies professional teachers.  But I think we gained that appreciation after we lost the teachers' communal investment in the society and life of children.  This may sound a little pie-in-the-sky-ish, but a long time before teachers were professionals weren't they a part of our society?  Before there were unions they were paid by the parents and the parents had input.  Teachers used to be allowed to participate in corporal punishment because they were so closely tuned with the disciplinary system of the the parents. Later on their professionalism didn't allow that closeness.

Now, I'm not saying professionalism was bad.  These days we're expecting more holistic education.  These days we demand more inclusion.  These days everyone has their own "special" education.  We're making modifications and specifications and teaching to standardized tests.  We're putting square pegs into round holes.  We've cut out professionalism and replaced it with post-modernism.  We cut out cold hard facts and shoved in amorphous feeling-based modules.  We're creating a peacock of education.  This is a mosaic approach to education that we used to think was possible when we had parents communicating with teachers.

However, I may not have my historical principles correct.  I may be too nostalgic about the past.  I may see a lot of genuine community when there really was underpaid, badly-treated teachers misused and disrespected by their local communities.  Maybe I'm miss-remembering rural communities graduating high school students who couldn't read.  Maybe I'm miss-remembering state hospital lobotomizing an Asperger's Syndrome that we'd give daily inclusion to.

So if you read this and you have an idea about community and professionalism please comment.  If you have an opinion about how much communication is good then leave a comment about how often you'd like a teacher to communicate with you about your kids.  Maybe you would like to delineate between fair and unfair expectations between primary and secondary education.  Do it?  Would you go have a hot dog picnic with your kids if your kid's teacher invited you one Saturday a semester?

You were right. I am wrong.

Why is it that in an argument we interpret the phrase, "I don't care enough to argue," as... "You're right.  I'm wrong?"

That was a long sentence.  You understand?  Like Peanuts characters hearing adults talk as, "Wah Wah Wah."  In the real world sometimes we feel as if the phrase, "I don't wanna argue," really means, "I give up."

I've felt this way when I've heard this white flag from my argument-sworn-enemies.  I've felt like this when I was arguing something and thought, who cares, but relentlessly held on to the argument.

Here are some examples.  My mother and I were arguing today about a box that I had taken out of my father's van and put into her house.  My contention was that it was 'my van' while I worked for him and he should clean it up.  Moreover, he likes to keep this box of both trash and sundries that I feel he should go through regularly or irregularly.    I put the box inside the home so that he'd be forced to deal with it.  I'm using the box to manipulate him to do something I think he ought to.  *I admit this is stupid.
My mother's contention is that it's always his van so he should get to leave the box in there and if not then it shouldn't get put into the living room because I might as well be manipulating her to manipulate him to clean it.  It isn't fair to her and it isn't my place to manipulate anyone.

I hope I'm giving her side a polite and genuine retelling.  I'm not hoping to get people to rule in either of our favors.  I am lamenting the time and energy I took to try and convince her that I was right.  We even continued the argument after my father had sorted the box into trash and usable stuff which took five minutes.  My pride, my black-as-night desire to be correct, wouldn't allow me to help clean out the box.  Sin that pervades my life wants me to be right.  It wants me to throw up barriers between my mother and me, thorns on our good soil choking our relationship of its life and peace.  I couldn't say that this doesn't matter because my heart told me that saying that would be admitting she won the argument.
*"Mom, sorry to air our dirty laundry.  You were right.  I was wrong.  I shouldn't have tried to manipulate Dad or recruit you to help."
*"God, teach me that this humility I seek actually does mean becoming the LEAST of these.  Teach me when to fight tooth and nail for the kingdom, but let it go when all I'm protecting is my own pride. 

Another example.  My brother Dan sent me an article about who would win in a fight:  Star Wars vs. Star Trek.  I have spent so much time thinking about energy-based galactic economies I don't even want to make it public.  It actually has been what I think about while I'm drifting off to bed a couple of nights this last week.  It's tragic.  I haven't even talked to my brother about it.  My strange breed of neurosis wants to have a fully fledged answer before nonchalantly tossing the article's argument into the trash bin of scientific lore.  I hate that I'm losing the debate with the article writer.  It's terrible.  After trying to get some information on how food synthesizers and holo-decks work on Star Trek I realized... this is fiction.  It doesn't matter.

My pride got in the way again.  Not even a pride in myself but simply pride over which fictitious Universe I liked more.  Since I liked it more it had to be the one more capable of destruction.  I know I sound like a crazy person, the truth should be that I like one more or less if it was so.  Trying to decide who would win a fight, was pathetically outside the mission God has for me in the world.  Figuring it out doesn't matter.
The answer isn't THE answer.

*Daniel Fryar, Star Trek would win.  Unless you disagree.


*God, I don't like golf, video games, or sports.  I thought this made me relatively diversion-free.  I was oh so wrong.  Fill me up with things that matter.

Last Summer some men who help me to be better from time to time offered me a challenge.  The challenge was to NOT argue when I disagreed with someone.  This didn't help me much because it was a challenge for biting my tongue.  The true challenge would be to not care about that which God doesn't care about and to let opinions stand up without scrutiny.  I should have seen the other person's feelings rather than a chance to be right, to show God's love rather than my debate and logic skills.

I know I don't have a lot of readers.  To those of you who do read, I'm trying again to create 50 posts this year.  Last year I hoped for one a week and succeeded at once a month, sort of.  I am leaving Ecclesiasticus behind but am hoping to stay on the theme of Wisdom.  I think it would be smart of me to never lose an argument, but it would be wise to argue much less.

We all need more Joy.

Ecclesiasticus 30

²¹ Do not abandon yourself to sorrow, do not torment yourself with brooding.

²² Gladness of heart is life to anyone; joy is what gives length of days.

²³ Give your cares the slip, console your heart, chase sorrow far away; for sorrow has been the ruin of many, and is no use to anybody.

²⁴ Jealousy and anger shorten your days, and worry brings premature old age.

²⁵ A genial heart makes a good trencherman, someone who enjoys a good meal.

Listen up, all you Goths and Emos, you Greasers and Beatnik poets.  Listen to me all of you nihilists and anarchists.  Let me give you a new vision, Hipsters.  Hear me out Gangsters who listen to rap, or a long time ago listened to what, Opera (I’m talking to the acolytes of Al Capone.)?  I've got a message for the people losing their minds because Obama didn't want to release his birth certificate.  Anybody have an ear to hear a message anybody who wants to impeach Obama or prosecute John Boehner.   If Fox News is a place for a bunch of RINOs, in your opinion, you may want to take heed. 

You NEED to be happy.  It’s here in the Apocrypha written by a Jesus who didn't die for your sins.  It’s actually in the other Bible, too.  Dennis Prager calls it a moral imperative and he’s right.  It’s also a spiritual imperative.  God want Joy.  It’s one of the fruits of the Spirit.  It makes the world a better place.  We’ll all like you more.  Now here are some made up statistics to help you all believe in the importance of being happy:

Happy people bathe more often.  (This is totally true when it comes to Hipsters, am I right?  *High five!  Goths and Emos, too.  You’re ripe, you morose little nincompoops.

Happy people get better jobs.  I know you’d like to be a gangster like 50 cent, but he got shot like a bunch of times and now that he’s insanely rich…well now he’ll happy all the time.

Happy people get better women.  Yes, I admit it.  Marilyn Manson married Evan Rachel Wood and Rose McGown and Dita Von Teese but do you wanna look like this...  

Happy people make others around them happier.  Happy people help others who work around them do better work.  Happy people are more capable with Katana Swords.  Happy people read more books but fewer by Sylvia Plath.  Happy people have more fun in the bedroom because…they’re happy?  Happy people absorb vitamin C better than saddies.  That’s why you should be sad. 

Am I promoting the idea that we should fight terrorism with happiness?  No.  I’m content to let happy people kill terrorists.  Am I saying that you should do anything to achieve momentary joy?  No.  Short term joys; sexual, leisure, culinary, etc. can often lead to more sadness later.  There is also the idea that short term Euphoria and long term satisfaction are different things.  I’m not comfortable classifying them as either happiness OR joy because I want to leave those to rhetorical flourish.  I simply understand as adults should that there is a difference between happiness found in another’s bed or in a candy bar isn't always making you happy, but it is only temporarily making you happy on your way to a sadness crash.    

So watch some of those annoying videos of people redoing their own version of Pharrell’s “Happy” song.  Yes it’s a stupid hat.  Roll with it.  Squeeze the earth and sucks its juices.  Make faces in the mirror.  Go eat a good meal in moderation but joyfulness.

I am not suggesting that there aren't world problems.  I’m not suggesting that we see those problems with rose colored glasses and not pay attention to the suffering in the world.  I'm not telling you to get over some real-world terrible stuff that has happened to you.  I'm saying be more joyful.  It's nigh impossible to argue that you've got enough. Tiger from Winnie the Pooh books has enough Joy.  And joy is contagious.  Joy breeds hope and that’s still, if I remember correctly, one of the three greatest things. Joy would or would help to make sure people do a better job of getting along.  There is of course monumental challenges in the world and America has a very polarized political system for handling those or some of those problems.  Joy may help.  Africa is war torn and disease torn and maybe joy would help and medical supplies and cooler heads.

I want more joy in the lives of the God-believing, God-fearing.  I want to have more joy about his word and his church.  I want my joy to translate into enthusiasm.  The church used to talk about inner joy.  We had songs like, "this little light of mine."  The world could see something different about us and it was joy.  Mormons still got it.  They have a sense of happiness in long-suffering.  I want that.  I want joy about my savior and I think you do to.  Cultivate it and achieve it.  We can compare notes on how and what kind of happiness you've been pursuing.

Jesus beat his kids.

Ugh.  I think I might actually write about something going on in the NFL.  I’m sick about it, but it sort of matched a passage in Ecclesiasticus so I thought if I didn't at least address the topical story that I would be considered tone deaf.  The point of this blog is that world needs more wisdom and so I hope this will be my deposit into the world's shallow conversation about child discipline.

Have you heard that Adrian Peterson hit his son with a switch?  Not only did he switch him but the man opened up the behind and caused bloody whelps.  Peterson has admitted to losing his temper and going too far.  Society wants to universally denounce the behavior as reprehensible.  The much less hurtful spanking with an open hand and pants on is being equated with Roman treatment of Jesus on national news.  The 40 lashes minus 1 is now the new finger rapping.  This leads me to the simple conclusion:

Society is very bad at seeing shades of gray.

Every time I watch a news report about militant Islam I always have to hear the phrase, “Not all Muslims,” as if that message hadn't been heard a million times.  The idea that you have to keep saying that, in order to not be accused of making overly broad statements is proof that the world wants to see things in black and white and news people are cognizant of it and act accordingly.  Jesus never hedged when he spoke, is that weird?  Paul, too.  Not on just the stuff that was universal.  Of course all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God; but Christ doesn't say Woe to the Scribes and Pharisees, SOME of you are open tombs. 

Society is very bad at thinking it's right.

Christ Carter harangued his mother on the news Sunday because she used corporal punishment on him and his six siblings.  He hasn't hit or spanked his kids and his mother was wrong.  That strikes me as arrogant.  I’m not saying that we can’t make assumptions about other peoples’ styles of parenting.  I think Female Genital Mutilation is wrong and that’s happening a lot all over the world.  I’m saying that there is a difference between saying what you think is wrong and saying something is wrong.  I know to be careful when making moral equivalents and Chris Carter doesn't seem to be.  Is Chris Carter such a terrible paragon of how not to raise children?  Well maybe other than the fact that he’s on TV and a millionaire.  It strikes me as so arrogant to say that your parents did a bad job and to also assert that you are doing a good job or are a good person.  The proof, after all, is in the pudding. 

Society cannot fathom disagreement.

Charles Barkley says that this issue is a north-south divide.  But it’s not.  Society spanks.  Some of society I think lies about it.  Media centers are living in a vacuum if they think only some parts of the old south are spankers.  People are spankers.  Rural, urban, suburban:  Large swaths of society are discipline-centric whether or not you are.  All of your black and white statements on the subject alienate your viewers who’d rather you not make simplistic assumptions about how to raise kids when you have none. 

The truth is, in education, in single parent households, in overpopulated prisons; there isn't ENOUGH discipline.  Jesus, the writer of Ecclesiasticus and not our personal Lord and savior, thinks so too.

¹ Whoever loves his son will beat him frequently so that in after years the son may be his comfort.  ² Whoever is strict with his son will reap the benefit, and be able to boast of him to his acquaintances.  ³ Whoever educates his son will be the envy of his enemy, and will be proud of him among his friends.  ⁴ Even when the father dies, he might well not be dead, since he leaves his likeness behind him.  ⁵ In life he has had the joy of his company, dying, he has no anxieties.  ⁶ He leaves an avenger against his enemies and a rewarder of favours for his friends.  ⁷ Whoever coddles his son will bandage his wounds; his heart will turn over at every cry.  ⁸ A badly broken-in horse turns out stubborn; a son left to himself turns out headstrong.  ⁹ Pamper your child and he will terrorize you, play along with him and he will bring you sorrow.  ¹⁰ Do not laugh with him, or one day you will weep with him and end up gnashing your teeth.  ¹¹ While he is young, do not allow him his freedom and do not wink at his mistakes.  ¹² Bend his neck in youth, bruise his ribs while he is a child, or else he will grow stubborn and disobedient, and hurt you very deeply.  ¹³ Be strict with your son, and persevere with him, or you will rue his insolence.

Don’t we know that this is more true than false?  Children need correction.  I know I did.  I have very good anecdotal evidence that corporal punishment works.  You do too; I’m assuming.  The world is filled with such anecdotal evidence.  Strippers with daddy issues, inmates with daddy issues, politicians with daddy issues, serial philanderers with daddy issues are all proof we have huge problems with discipline emaciation.  We are discipline deficient; discipline as a Moral Form in the Platonic vein.    

Now is it the same for hitting your grown wife?  No.  There’s that pesky word, ‘grown,’ along with wife.  Ray Rice is a jerk.  I don’t think he needs to get kicked out of the league, though.  But children are still malleable.  I've heard some say that this is no different from Michael Vick's dog fighting but that was for enjoyment, not discipline.  Dogs can receive discipline too.  In the form of noises, smell, or pain; they learn from it.  So, you may ask, is it appropriate to hit my kid with a belt or an iron because I sincerely want to discipline them?  First, check out the word, ‘sincerely.’  One thing that my parents did when I was going to be spanked was to explain to me why.  It made me crazy when I was young but its power was to make sure they weren't angry and that I understood.  This might calm you down or take away your inclination to use a weapon.  Or it might not.  There are, after all, crazy people.  But crazy people aren't a reason for society to say that corporal punishment doesn't work.  Is Peterson crazy?  I won’t say yes or no.  Courts will assess his history of violence and decide whether the child is in danger.  Maybe someone who loves Peterson needs to explain that when you cut a switch and whittle/prune its branches you might want to use that time to cool down a bit.  Peterson might want to have a conversation with the kid at that time about why he’s getting a whipping.  Heck, part of me is stoked that Peterson lives with his kids.

Some of you are getting better results by sitting your child down and having conversations with her.  Some of your kids would rather get 40 lashes than endure a day without phone or internet.  That’s fine.  I’m not making judgments about your discipline.  Can we all stop making statements about how hitting kids is wrong?  You are using loaded language to exacerbate what could be a valuable conversation.  Or else, you are guilty of religion bashing, cultural ethnocentrism, painting with too broad a brush, arrogance; you name it; you got it.  

And you know what?  I agree that hitting or spanking isn't the best way to discipline.  The best way to discipline is having a child that knows you will punish bad behavior so you don’t have to.  My brother John and his wife Nola, whom I disagree with them on a lot, but they've got two great kids:  JDOC and Toks.  Mom and dad are doing a great job of training them up in the way they should go.  John and or Nola count to three if the boys are doing wrong.   Actually, I've seen them count to two a ton and the boys quit what they’re doing.  The boys have learned what comes from disobedience and there is less need for discipline.  Fear of discipline is the best discipline.  Does that mean I agree with Adrian Peterson?  No.  He doesn't agree with himself.  He admits he did wrong/went too far.

Finally, some of this stuff in Ecclesiasticus 30:1-13 I don’t agree with.  That’s fine, right?  It didn't make it into the Bible cannon, after all.  For example, if I had a son I would want to share his laughter and his tears.  I want my heart to overturn at the sorrows of any little girl I may have.  The passage ends up sounding like a path to sensibility, parenting at arm’s length.  Maybe the aim wasn't a perfect bull’s-eye, but notice that the frequent beatings are about the child’s adulthood not yours.  I happen to read this as a thinly-veiled altruism.

We Need More Wise in our Old

Ecclesiasticus 25

³ If you have gathered nothing in your youth, how can you discover anything in your old age?

⁴ How fine a thing: sound judgment with grey hairs, and for greybeards to know how to advise!

⁵ How fine a thing:  Wisdom in the aged and considered advice coming from people of distinction!

⁶ The crown of the aged is ripe experience, their glory, the fear of the Lord.

When I decided to write a blog it was with some trepidation.  The world seems filled with blogs and I wasn't sure that they were often all that valuable.  They sometimes devolve into vapidity and error.  So I wanted to use someone else’s voice.  Someone that I knew wouldn't devolve.  Someone that I knew has a voice that was needed today.

 

I picked well, I think, with Jesus

(not THE Jesus), the writer of Ecclesiasticus.  I may not be doing it justice, but we need wisdom.  We need old age in a way we haven’t ever needed it. 

Let me give some examples of where youth is elongating and why.  First, adults are playing too many video games.  Yeah, I said it.  I know I sound like an old fuddy duddy.  But it’s a strangulation of life out of those doing it.  Yes, you can argue that you only do it two hours a night which is less than some people watch Real Housewives of Orange County. You may say that you only watch two hours a week which is less than most people spend commuting to work.  You may say that you got a Wii to play with your kids and grand kids.  But this gaming culture is an infestation and any amount is a symptom of immaturity while a great deal is something more dire to the whole of a life.

Have you seen those tramp stamps?  They’re pretty sexy, huh?  There’s some vaguely tribal design on the small of the back of a model.  There’s some dolphin on an ankle.  There are full sleeves that used to never be seen outside of carnivals but now somebody is sporting one at every fast food place you visit.  Every person thinks these drawings really bring out their personality, or look good, or mean something to them.  I’m not saying that every tattoo is silly but my guess is four out of five are.  It is a misjudgment of future consequences.  These days people between the ages of 18-35 are more likely to have tattoos than not.  And as eventually happens to us all we get old and the tattoos sag and look ridiculous but our old people are seemingly less embarrassed than they've ever been. 

Girls are having children without husbands.  Boys are impregnating women before they’re ready to be fathers.  This is the most detrimental societal epidemic in our country.  Out of wedlock birth perpetuates a cycle of meager school performance, low moral behavior, and high poverty.  Poor DOES NOT create crime but with a few other key ingredients like rap culture and no moral compass, you've got a recipe for disaster.  This is also, in many people’s opinion, a failure of our maturity.  We think we don’t need two parents because some of us didn't have two parents or because we didn't like either of our parents.  We’re skipping that section in our lives when we found out our parents were wise through the accident of living.  Maturity is humility towards the knowledge of the world.  It’s a worldwide Socratic prophecy by the oracle of Delphi.  It is that knowledge of one’s own ignorance is further along the spectrum of enlightenment than assurance that one ‘knows it all.’  Knowledge of ignorance beats ignorance any day.

And why are we dying later but not getting older of character and mind?  I think it’s twofold.  One it’s a cycle of disconnection.  We move to the cities and there is less extended family interaction.  A hundred years ago did you live in the same city as all of your cousins?  Two hundred years ago did you?  We disconnect from out extended families which makes the disconnection from our nuclear families all the more inevitable.  It is our kids needing us to be adults that makes us need to be adults and the less they need that the less we need to grow up.  The less there is an outlet for knowledge of the world in our children, the less we need to doggedly input data into our worldview database.  The less often boys stay with their children, the less often they learn about life and grow up all the more through raising children.  It’s difficult to be a full-grown man without being a father.  Trust me. 

Second reason is that we need less these days.  Life is easier these days with power companies and central air.  There is no fight for survival.  This makes a person mature.  The fight against the elements of the world prepares the heart for almost any simple dealings in the world.  When a person must dig his own latrine he seems to be more even-keeled to the world’s swells.  No, I don’t think we need to go back there to a Laura Ingalls Wilder world where there isn't electricity or showers but we need to teach our children and ourselves to strive.  Video games, premium cable, foodies, and fun runs:  They all blind us to the fact that we’re still locked in a battle to survive.  These lull us to sleep but we have a storm of survival bearing down.  We need leaders who are the oldest most seasoned individuals who AREN'T individuals to tell us stories and help us become great.  We stoop at the edge of world precipice and we need the cooler heads to tell us where the cliff leads.

It used to be our politicians.  We used to elect wisdom, I think.  Wisdom used to find its way to the top pushed by those around it.  Now, it’s simpler to elect people that look certain ways and talk and vote certain ways.  But simple isn't wise.

This time I've got no homework that I think might help you get wise.  Let me remind you that anyone who seeks wisdom finds it.  No this post was a meandering rant against a generation of children with gray hair, Baby-Boomers who never left the ‘baby’ behind.  I used to think I was kind of oddly annoyed by ‘kids these days.’ How much worse that I’m disgusted by old people these days?

God, grant us grandfathers and grandmothers, patriarchs and matriarchs, advisers, and leaders.  Grant our old people ripe experience.  Teach them to fear you, is true glory.