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Back to the Weekly Notes
Archives Recently, the state of Michigan release a list of Michigan's K-12 schools which they say are not doing well. The intent is that the state will take over some of these schools. They measure how the schools are doing with these rather stupid tests. There is a SAT test. This is a national test that is the favorite of our current President. In addition, Michigan has its own test called MEAP. Currently, we teach the kids to memorize stuff so they can pass these tests and satisfy some artificial standard of knowledge. We pound them over the head and intimidate them with test, ad infinitum. I insist that education is not about passing tests. Passing test is about satisfying political hacks to get blackmail money. That's all it is. It has nothing to do with learning or understanding. If the state takes over these schools and runs them as well as they run the state bureaucracy, we will have a total disaster in education here. Operant conditioning of kids to pass tests will become the standard for Michigan. We will have gangs of performing parrots. It is already bad enough without some fat headed political hacks mucking around making it worse. What we really need is more community and citizen involvement
in the educational process. A state takeover will not increase
that involvement. It will have the opposite effect. The citizens
who are involved will give up in disgust. If the state is going
to urinate tax moneys away pretending to aid education, there
is a better way to spend it. Spend the money in a campaign to
get the local citizens involved in education. Spend it at the
local level in community advertising and community activities
designed to involve parents and even old Gaffer's like me. Liberation: There is no way I would have the courage to advise his wife, but I did have some thoughts. At one time I was a person who accumulated stuff and kept it long after it was obviously useless. I suppose I was more or less emotionally attached to these thing. I think part of it also came out of the puritan ethic. Use it up. Wear it out. Make it do. Do without. And, of course, never throw anything out. It may be useful someday. All this stuff was becoming a problem for me just in the space it was taking up. I finally bit the bullet and did something about it. Here is my own advice, which I followed. Rather that suffering a long term trauma, I actually felt better afterward. The actual experience was dreadful, but afterward I felt liberated. Go through your house and look at everything there. If you have not used it in the past 5 years, you are not going to use it. So, either give it away or throw it away. When you are done with that I promise you will feel liberated. You will feel 50 emotional pounds lighter. Giving up attachments is really a lot like losing weight. It may be difficult, but it feels very good afterward. My wife also feels great every time she makes a trip to the Goodwill place. She is helping someone at no cost the us. Now, about my friend, I would trust him with my wallet. However,
it is important to remember that I am not talking about my wallet.
I am talking about stuff. Stuff is very personal, and I cannot
help but wonder, does all of that stuff in the way really belong
to his wife? Could it possibly be that some of that stuff is
his stuff. Maybe it's kind of like, "The garage is my place.
If it wasn't for your stuff, there would be plenty of room for
MY stuff in MY garage!" The Next Case For War:
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