OT: Schools - Then and Now

[Guest guest]

Hey John,

 

 

> Butch,

> Did you come up with all this yourself?

>

 

No sir .. I just tuned into the thoughts of most of the folks on this list

and then recorded what I read. ;-)

 

What is the problem today? Parents or sould I say lack of

> Parenting. See back in 57 when you came home from school and told

> Mom and Dad what happened at school and that the teacher or principle

> corrected you...ouch...you got it again. What happens today? The

> parents call the police.

>

 

I don't really think its the parents calling the police .. its everyone else

calling them. School administrators are afraid to not call .. they are at

risk in many places if they fail to do so. I don't believe teachers here in

Paris, TN would call the cops .. they would call the parents if kids got

into a fist fight. Even our local paper has a daily list of which kids

were late or absent from school the day before. This is but one more of the

many reasons why I chose to retire here.

 

The biggest crime to hit the papers here this week was two men stealing

copper wire from air conditioners.

 

When it comes to Home Land Security (a Travesty) how much more will

> we give up when the next strike comes. When are we going to learn

> that when it comes to Gun control it is not the good guys that you

> want to keep guns from; it is the bad guys and you know, if I am a

> bad guy, no gun control law or Home Land give up all my

> constitutional rights Security is going to stop me. Gun control just

> make things difficult for the good guy.

>

 

Agree .. guns don't kill folks any more than knives or clubs do .. people

kill people. As an ex-cop I detest the officious attitudes and behavior of

most cops in the USA today. I sometimes watch the Cop videos on TV and I

often see robots going through the motions .. with pistols drawn they are

screaming at the top of their lungs .. On the Ground - NOW! " The dude they

are sometimes screaming at might be guilty of no more than walking home

after having one too many beers. I've heard all the excuses why they do

this but I ain't buying many of those excuses. There are better ways ..

and use of those better ways benefits the cops as well as the public. The

Paris City Police and Henry County Sheriff's Department here do not use such

tactics .. it would not be accepted for routine police actions.

 

You post is very accurate and if the " then " chaps anyone hide they

> should look in the mirror, say what is wrong with things today and

> look at the answer.

>

 

America .. outside the small towns like I live in .. is not the America of

1957 .. and the cops today are not the beat cops of days gone by.

 

 

> You have a good one.

> John

>

 

Yes sir .. and you and yours. Y'all keep smiling. :-)

 

Butch .. http://www.AV-AT.com

 

 

 

[Guest guest]

We had some local excitement here last week, My Neighbor who is a

retired Chinese fella ( and in the 17 years I have known him, an all

round great guy), went to the local park to check on some sod that the

city lay last week, he watched the kids from our local school make mud

pies and move the sod all over and he decided before he went to talk to

the Principal, he would go down and see the damage for himself..One

small girl watched him walk along the path and watched as he stopped to

look at the disturbed earth, then she ran to the principal's office and

told her that a large black man tried to grab her, she spun a story

about how she was kicking and screaming trying to get away, although not

one other of the 200 students witnessed this attack, nor one of the 6

lunch supervisory who are trained to watch out for suspicious

individuals. The police were called and my poor neighbor and friend had

to deal with 6 squad cars of cops. The only thing that saved him from

being taken downtown was his mother who he looks after ( she is 103,

blind and deaf). At no time did anyone ask him what he was looking at or

if they could help him. The cops didn't believe his

 

Following day, he decided to take pictures of the damage to show the

police and the principal, he wanted to catch the kids in the act, so he

started to take pictures and was pounced on by 6 teachers and another 6

squads...I got involved by accident, I was talking to him and the school

thought I was somehow involved. The good news is that my neighbor is off

the hook, as long as he promises NOT to take any more pictures or go

anywhere near the kids and I managed to arrange a meeting with him and

the principal.. Its amazing how things get blown way out of proportion

and the little girl is still sticking with her story. Your joke

reminded me of this and I thought I would share.

Life was sooo much simpler when I was a kid, happier too ..

 

 

Carol

 

Butch Owen wrote:

>

> How well I recall the Then .. how ridiculous is the Now. Though the first

> one might rile some folks .. its still a norm in some rural Southern

> areas. Butch

>

>

>

>

[Guest guest]

, " Butch Owen " <butchowen

wrote:

 

> Agree .. guns don't kill folks any more than knives or clubs do ..

people

> kill people. As an ex-cop I detest the officious attitudes and

behavior of

> most cops in the USA today. I sometimes watch the Cop videos on TV

and I

> often see robots going through the motions .. with pistols drawn

they are

> screaming at the top of their lungs .. On the Ground - NOW! "

------------

True. On the other hand, you don't much see drive by clubbings or

knifings. And the big splashy news events of violence in schools

don't involve knives. A knife fight won't usually hit the news, and

people have a good chance of surviving such an attack. But a handgun

can be fired by any kid, and the chances of surviving are slim. As a

kid, my dad had a rifle, we all knew where it was and would not

dream of touching it. We never knew where the bullets were. I have a

rifle, but it doesn't sit around loaded.

 

But I wouldn't have a hand gun. No need for it.

 

Every time something like a school shooting happens, I have to

wonder, how the heck do kids get hold of so much weaponry? On the

street? Maybe, but this stuff is expensive on the street, so you

have to wonder about kids that get hold of that much money, and

manage to purchase guns. Fact is, a lot of them get it at home.

 

I live a few blocks from the school here in Ohio that had a

shooting a week ago.

 

In that case, the kid was a disaster waiting to happen. He was

already in the system, the whole family was in and out of trouble.

The kid was a victim of abuse, brother was in jail, lots of violence

in the home.

 

The sad thing was that in most of the cases of this stuff with kids,

someone saw it coming, but no one acted. There was a time when

social services showed up at a home and saw a kid burned and beaten,

and no father in the family, the kid would be headed for foster

care.I'm inclined to wonder if the push to keep kids like this at

home is such a good thing. But funding for social problems being

what it is, we get what we pay for.

 

>>>See back in 57 when you came home from school and told

Mom and Dad what happened at school and that the teacher or

principle

corrected you...ouch.. .you got it again. What happens today? The

parents call the police.

>>>>>>>>>>

Well back in 57 you got home and had Mom there, and a Dad that was

going to be home about suppertime. Not many kids have that today.

When I was teaching Sunday School 15 years ago, I was surprised that

only two kids out of 25 had both parents at home. Some had a step

parent, but the majority lived with mom, who worked. This was in a

nice middle class neighborhood. What happens today is that kids get

home, and no one is there. When mom gets off work she comes home

tired and ,given the statistics, there's a pretty good chance that

there is no dad in the picture until the weekend. IF he's up on his

child support.

 

>>>>>>>>>>

Its amazing how things get blown way out of proportion

and the little girl is still sticking with her story. Your joke

reminded me of this and I thought I would share.

Life was sooo much simpler when I was a kid,

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Sure it was simpler, you were a kid. Kids today live in an

atmosphere of fear. When I was a kid you hardly ever heard lurid

stories of sexual predators going after kids, I don't think that it

was not ever happening, we just didn't get bombarded with it 24/7.

Adults learned about such things in the paper or on the late news,

but beyond being taught not to talk to strangers, it was not

something we worried much about.

 

Now, parents get the gory details of every case that hits the news.

And they instill fear, real fear,in their kids. How far does that go

before a kid sees a threat everytime they see an unknown person? And

when a kid gets scared, adults pay attention, as they should. The

sad thing is the level of fear that pervades our culture. It doesn't

keep us safer.

 

As for cops today. I've done jury duty a few times. Seeing a cop or

detective on the stand being harrangued by a snotty defense attorney

makes me wonder why they do it. Like all things there's good and bad

cops. The ones that make it on TV make good theater. Not really a

good cross section of our law enforcement.

 

So that's my brief soap box. It isn't 1957. Heck in '57 teaching was

a good profession that paid well enough to support a family. No

more. The young teachers I know consider themselves lucky if they

can go three or four years without a RIF. If they are single, they

usually live with roommates, married, they count on a spouse with a

steady job. Nothing is what it used to be. I think we are seeing the

beginning of the end of a free public education system in this

country.

 

And I don't blame the parents, most of them are doing the best they

can. The reality is that the a lot of families are struggling to

make it, urban families need 2 working parents, but usually they are

lucky to have one steadily employed parent. Layoffs, downsizing, and

exporting of jobs has done a lot of damage. People these days may

have a job, but we all know the next downsizing or re-org may be

just around the corner.

The notion of a parent staying home for the kids is nice, but rarely

possible. Decent paying, steady blue-collar jobs are few. Jobs with

good benefits, dwindling. Having a job with retirement benefits that

you can count on holding onto for 20 or 30 years is extremely rare.

 

The nice thing about the fifties was that there was a decent

economy, with plenty of blue-collar manufacturing jobs with medical

and retirement benefits. There were a lot more moms at home, and

kids spent time socializing with other kids, playing outside and not

parked in front of TV or on a computer. And even though there was a

cold war going on, we did not live in fear. I sometimes wonder if

things are really so much more dangerous, or are we just much more

fearful. Sometimes you get so scared, you can end up hurting

yourself.