Fun With Play-Dough

I find it hard to be a parent and not think about education all the time, every day. What am I teaching my children that they can use, how do I raise them to think for themselves? Hearing the bad statistics about children who drop out of school, I enthusiastically panic and wonder: what do we do to make sure our children don’t fall into that category?

Train up a child in the way he should go, and even when he grows old, he will not depart from it. (Proverbs 22:6)

So reads the motto of my daughter’s day school, and it is a true one; yet, it doesn’t give us many clues as to how and when this training should be given, and by whom. School is not the only place where education happens. In the grand scheme of things, it’s possible that what children learn within the classroom is an important, but small part of their overall learning.

Parents can’t educate a child by simply dropping her off at a school building; education starts when the alarm goes off and continues until the child goes to sleep. Education begins at birth, and never ends; while we continue to learn ourselves, we have to be non-stop teachers. My husband and I chose to send our daughter to a Jewish day school because we felt the immersion was important; however, even parents that choose Public School must realize that immersion of one kind or another happens regardless. The question is; what are our children immersed in? And are we aware of what influences them, and does it help them or hinder them?

Oftentimes, television and Internet are brought up as some of the worst influences that children are faced with. I’m not convinced; television can be monitored and it can be educational; besides, there’s nothing wrong with relaxing from time to time. Even if that Bee Movie is the most annoying thing ever. (Why, Jerry? Why?) Of course, that’s a self-serving thing to say; I love TV. Telling my children not to watch it would require that I give it up also, which is so not going to happen. I can’t live without my CNN fix.

As far as the Internet; well. My eldest is six; the real nasty stuff is not accessible to her quite yet. The only thing she knows how to do so far is play her Hebrew language program, which is part of her daily homework. The fact that children today are plugged in to the hilt can’t be denied, though; and I often wonder how much we can slow any of that down. Someday she will want a cell phone, an Ipod, and her own computer; all these things can, once again, be monitored and only given to her with strings attached. But maybe I’m a little naive and overly optimistic; after all, these are things that are all still in the future. (I’m sensing parents with thirteen year olds everywhere laughing in my face).

When I ask her at what age she should have her own cell phone, she answers: “Probably twelve.” Hearing this, I realize that to her, twelve is the magical age at which everything ‘cool’ is going to happen; kind of the way I used to think about turning eighteen.

Oh, help.

Aargh! Here I’ve been worried about Huckabee and Romney all this time, now suddenly there’s talk about McCain picking Thompson for his running mate. What? Say it isn’t so!

Go back to Hollywood, Fred! Go solve some fake crimes!

Still wondering why the economy is doing worse than Britney Spears’ career? According to the latest report, the military is $295 billion over budget.

The President, as Commander in Chief, should be fired immediately. If any of us pulled that kind of nonsense at our jobs, we’d be unemployed faster than you can say ‘where are my taxes’.  What do you want to bet that he doesn’t plan to address this at his next speech? Guess we should stop worrying about earmarks for a while and focus on other things. Like impeachment, for example.

I see what McCain was doing this past week. Al that talk about how brash he was as a young man, how naughty and irresponsible; he’s trying to put a firm picture in our minds of himself as ‘young’. Because, recently, there’s been some murmuring about how he’s really a bit too ancient to be the President.  He shouldn’t worry; sexism and racism are much more prevalent than ageism. Besides, if he doesn’t get elected (please!) it won’t be because of his age; it will be because we don’t want a third Bush term. We’ve had enough of that.

The numbers regarding repeat deployment, and the subsequent mental problems the military faces, are bad. Very, very bad. I wonder whether anybody can look me straight in the eye and tell me this is a surprise. It’s shown that 12 % of non commissioned officers suffer from PTSD after one tour, a number that increases to 18.5 % after the second, and 27 % after the third or fourth. It has also been announced that repeat deployments will only increase over the next year. What the hell is wrong with this government? And these numbers don’t even begin to account for the additional fall-out: the spouses and children that stay behind, the marriages that break up, the parents that have to deal with their children returning to them broken and unrecognizable.

Nobody can begin to guess the consequences of this for this nation. Nobody can assure us that returning servicemen are receiving the help they need; it’s Vietnam all over again, except worse. Any returning members of the military, whether they have gone for their first or fourth tour, deserves the absolute best care money can buy. The military’s money. The money that is now dumped indiscriminately into this war. When this war is over, which I hope is soon, we need an army of a different kind: an army of mental health specialists.

Is it time for the election already?

Read the full article in today’s NY Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/06/washington/06military.html?_r=1&th=&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&emc=th&adxnnlx=1207498343-FREgSy8pmZ3+w0djTPPbnQ

232,000 jobs were lost during the first three months of 2008; those numbers are nothing if not intimidating. CNN raised the question what McCain would do about this. The answer is: nothing. There was some talk about providing people with better mortgages; however, that’s not even the half of it. Yes, people need homes, they also need a job with a decent salary, health care, and more; they need self-esteem and the feeling they can take care of themselves. Nobody wants to depend on government bailouts. Depending on a bailout is the opposite of the American Dream.

The state of poverty in America has been an embarrassing situation for years; the poor have been ignored for who knows how long, and things trickle up. It’s a natural progression when a country is more concerned with interfering in other societies but ignores its own backyard. We’re like parents that work 80 hours a week and then wonder what happened to our kids.

I like Hillary’s comments about having a ‘poverty Czar’ (Interesting word choice by the press). If only the government would seriously consider taking this on, really taking it on, making the poor a priority, rather than sitting around with their hands in their hair. That means identifying those that need help, because the people that really need help need it yesterday. Take the South: the whole nation was concerned about the Katrina victims for about five minutes; what’s happening to them now? That’s right; many of them are sitting around in rotting trailers, are getting sick, and are seeing now way out. Millions of kids in the inner cities are getting no education, no health care; millions of Americans live paycheck to pay check, which is hard to do when that paycheck is too small to live on in the first place.  What are the candidates planning on doing about that?

How is this still the ‘wealthiest nation in the world’? How do we measure that wealth? You can’t just look at the bottom line and make that statement; you need to look at people; individual people, and treat them as if each and every one matters. We need to go back to valuing life, each individual, each person, and stop being so selfish.  Maybe Martin Luther King’s son could fill that cabinet position.  He certainly talks the talk; maybe he can do more than that?

Meantime, grassroots movement is needed; every American who can miss a dime should go and help one other American out. Let’s show this government a good example: drop off a can of food at your local food bank. Give money to a homeless shelter near you. Donate blood. Anything. Trust me, it will make you feel better.