Deflection

Starting Monday, I found my way up north.  On Tuesday, I drove to Copper Harbor in the upper peninsula of Michigan, but the weather has not been good.  Yesterday was a cold, rainy, blustery day, and today has not been much better.  Yesterday, I toured Fort Wilkins where I am staying in the campground.  So, if I cannot spend time hiking, at least I can study history and geology.  Today, I did some hiking and I drove to Eagle River and back.  The leaves are in full color, but there are some trees with green leaves.  Even with the high winds yesterday, the leaves held onto the trees.  But, without the sun shining, the color is joust not there.  So, with the dreaded weather, I stayed in the trailer typing/writing.

Since this is the political season, this time I wrote about the education system, and education has been a big issue in the city of Marion, Iowa, just before I moved to Wisconsin.  As with most writing, I found that the teachers unions have had a big impact on our society.  With the teachers being union members, they are antiestablishment, and we can see this antiestablishment mentality in the students.  This is not good.  But the biggest problem with education is that there is no competition.  Without competition, the education system does not grew and other meaningless issue take over.  But this is better explained in the essay below.

Tomorrow, I am moving out of this state park, but I do not have reservation at any other park at this time, so I will see what happens.  Sunday through Wednesday I have reservations a Porcupine State Park.  Since there is rain in the forecast starting on Wednesday, I will start my trip back to Whitewater.  

Roger 

US Public Schools 

From the inception of the United States government, it was founded on frame work of choice for the US citizens, and the US citizens have the right to vote for a politician of their choice, go to their favorite medical doctor, purchase the brand of gasoline to power their vehicle, purchase the brand of pizza to eat, and the list goes on and on. There are only a few items that we as US citizens cannot choose and the school to send their children is just one such item. There are politicians that does not want parents to send their children to Christian or charter schools. This does go against this country’s theme, “The home the free and the brave,” by having no competition for education. And, to make matters worse, the public schools are teaching children values that are not approved of by the parents. If we take a look at high schools in this country, the students are not being taught on how to succeed in life, but they are taught high school society for that school district. The school systems are deflecting from colonial America (The American Way).

When the Europeans moved into America, they built meetinghouses in the middle of the community where they held political meetings, Church services, social events, and school. Since everyone in the community had the same values, the was no conflicts of interest in what was being taught by the teachers. As more people came into the colonies, they were populating different area of the country and they were bring different types of religion, since they were coming in for religious freedom. But, as time when on, people were coming in to this country based on famine, no job opportunities, political freedom, and many other reasons that were happening in their home land. Today, as we view the members in our government, they are there for many reasons that may not include religious values, as there were when the US Constitution was drafted. 

As for today, there is so much diversity in the school systems that the parents have no idea on the values that the school board members and teachers believe. This leads to the parents not knowing the values that their children are being taught. If parents believe that their children are being taught values based on religion, they maybe frustrated to learn that they are being taught socialism, where religion do not exist. During the Cold War, my English professor stated in class one day that he saw no objection learning to speak Russian. This is a far cry from the school teaching in meetinghouses in colonial America.

As was found out by the Governor of Iowa this year in a private meeting, the school board has past resolution for social values that the parents were not aware of as they sent their children to school. This goes in the face of this country’s motto: the home of the free and the brave. This is socialism at it best, where a few in power control the masses of people. The reason that people have escaped socialist countries. 

But to defend the school boards, there are parents that only wants their children tough that the country should only be govern by a socialist dictator, the doctor’s political officers, and the dictator’s army. In this case, it would be best if the school boards sent the socialist’s children to a socialist school and remove opposition in the school district. (To support this claim, in the state of New York, there is a socialist candidate for US Senate.) 

After scanning in my mother’s photos, the photos of the clothing of high school kids from my grandmother through today are revealing of the changes in our society. In my grandmother’s class, they were all very well dress. If we would look at the cost of their clothing in today’s money, they would have been wearing was probably in the excess of $500 worth of clothing everyday. My mom’s class wore comfortable clothing, like skirts and sweaters. In my class in the early 1970’s, we wore cloths that reflected the rebellious time with colorful clothes and more formal footwear. For today’s teenagers, it seems like they can get by with t shirts. With one other formal note, up and through my my time in school our teachers wore more business clothing, with today’s teachers wearing more comfortable clothing. Although it seems like the teachers today want to fit in with the students, does this mean that the students today do not respect their teachers as we did years ago? It seems like the answer could be very obvious, but it seems like we would need to ask a teacher for the correct answer. 

By the late 1970s, socialism was being taught in our state universities, and today it is part of the public schools. As I was taking pre-engineering in a state of Wisconsin collage, I took my speech class. Sometime during the class, I came down with a powerful sinus infection. After I feeling better, I asked when I should give my speech and the professor stated, “since you are male, you are asking for special privileges.” Obviously, in the late 1970s, there was major opposition to white males. In the same class, one day the professor stated that affirmative action was the best thing for our country, by promoting women and minorities with minimal qualifications. The students came back and stated, “Even if they sit in the corner and do nothing?” Her answer was yes. 

For over thirty-five years I worked in a state bureaucracy. And, as for today’s work environment, the speech professor comments are correct. Women will be promoted over white males and the white males will do all of the work and receive no credit for their work. It takes strong dedicated white males to work in this atmosphere. But, if there is no recognition for a person’s work by their managers, then there is no reason to put any effort in the work. 

When I was in officers training, they stated that the US would win the next war by having the best trained military in the world. Since then, there has been a quota system put in place to eliminate white male applicants. If fifty percent of the most intelligent applicants are eliminated, then it makes it extremely difficult to win the next war. But, when troops are put in a hot battle field, they are looking for the most intelligent person to get they out of the bad situation and not for someone with a different gender or race to lead them. If we look at World War II, Audie Murphy or John Basilone come to mind as intelligent military personnel that got the troops out of harm’s way. 

With the colleges and military academies using a quota system against the white males, this can only have a negative impact on our country. The bell shaped statistical bell shaped curves for IQ does show that white males will have higher scores and since this is data, then the curves have to be accerate. Therefore, if white males IQs exceed those of women and minorities, then the most intelligent people are not receiving doctorate degrees and working in research where they can make a huge difference in the world. Also, if you look at the professor looking down on the white males when obtaining their bachelor’s degrees, there is no incentive for them to continue in college. This leaves the most intelligent people to run their own business and white males like Robert Einstein would make no contribution to the world.

The highly intelligent white males will succeed in the world, since business is almost second mature to them. But they will do their best work in research without being managed, since they will out think their managers. If they do work under strict management, not only will they bored at work but it leaves them to total frustration since their manager will be holding them back on their work, basically because the managers feel uncomfortable with employees that are coming up with futuristic ideas that they do not understand. 

Even before collective bargaining for the teacher’s union in Wisconsin passed in 1972, there was a push for socialism being taught in the public schools. I can still remember our teachers. After the passage of the collective bargaining, the union protected all teachers, regardless of their performance. Regarding the school that I attended, a husband and wife high school teachers decided one day not to follow the school board’s policies for teachers with, and the union would not them to receive any disciplinary action from the school board. In the 2000s, there was a high school teacher, in Iowa, rubbing her clothed breasts on high school boys during class and the union would not allow her to be disciplined, despite out cry from the parents, so the school board moved her to a different part of the school with different responsibilities. Ultimately, she took it on her own to leave the school district. Since then, collective bargaining has been remove from both states in 2010s. The unions would not allow teachers to be responsible for their actions. But, this is like our current state of affairs, where the words of the Bible mean nothing to some churches and the words of the US Constitution mean nothing to some politicians and US citizens. 

But, if we take a deep look at these teacher unions, there is an underlining situation going on that is not apparent to the general public. As with any union, they teach their members to be anti-establishment. So, for the teacher to dress like the students, they are not trying to be at the same level as but students but they are trying to not be part of the establishment. (They are anti-establishment against the school administration, school boards, and parents.) They are also teaching the students not to be part of the establishment. This is causing a revolt by the students. Although there has always been a disconnect between teenagers and their parents due to the fact that this was the time when antiquity that children left the “nest,” but the student now have a permanent rift between them and their parents and grandparents. We now see this all the time. Since teenagers are not part of the communication at home, they have no interest in the family history or heirlooms, as children has been in the past. Working with the Department of Development with the Mayo Clinic, they have parents and grandparents coming in to place their life long earnings in the legacy program. They are simply stating that they have worked too hard for their lifelong earnings to give them to their children or grand children to deplete. These teachers unions are having a big negative impact on our Society. 

If these teachers unions are trying to restrict the high school students from becoming part of the establishment, then why are they promoting college? Since most college students are trained to become part of the establishment, unless they feel that a person will become a teachers, as they are. It seems like they would be pushing for the student to work in a job that requires a union. But, if we want to look at this from the opposite point of view, after teacher spend so much time training a students, it seems logical that they would be interesting in pushing their students into college to obtain satisfaction in giving their students the education to succeed, but a person does not need a college degree to succeed in life. This topic just does not seem like it is well thought through by the unions. It is like the major push for wind energy: did any think about the disposal of spent wind mill blades that we see stock pilled in fields? It seems like this question has not been adequately answered. 

There are teachers that are extremely dedicated to teaching, with many of them envisioned be a teacher when they were in grade school. They are so dedicated that their pay means nothing along side of the thrill seeing their students “getting” the lesson and/or seeing their students succeed in life. But the negative environment surround schools does bring some of the teachers down, as can be seen with some leaving the profession. 

For grade school teachers that have a conscientious, it must be difficult seeing a student coming in with a high IQ. They know that they will struggle in high school, since they are bored with the slow pace of teaching. With most of them get into college, their professors will knock them down for being a white males. Regarding the confidence that the high IQ brings to the student, they will quickly learn that they can succeed without a college degree. They will never receive the potential that their grade school teacher seen in them. But, on the other hand, there are teacher and professor that are adamant that these white males never work in high level research, since the world will be better off it the work is done with women and minorities. 

As with capitalism, “The American Way,” competition is what would made this country a leader. If one company can come up with a better product that out performs their competitor, then the company moves ahead with sales. This will lead to an improvement throughout the industry for this product. Therefore, as with education, if school systems could compete against one and other, the over all education system would improve, since the parents will take their children to the school system that they feel is the best for their children. (It should be noted that there would be for no need for teachers unions if teaching companies were competing against one and other. But we can hear it now: how are you going to give the students a good education without teacher unions? The answer is very simple: teacher unions were not needed when children were tough in colonial meetinghouses and the children received a great education.) School boards could hire different school companies to teach children and the parents could choose the school company to send their children. This would force a big improvement to take this country into a world leader in education. 

I cringe every time that I hear a high school student state that the US Constitution needs to be destroyed, since it was written by slave owners. It becomes clear that they are over looking the fact that the Constitution is a compilation of the thousands of years of parts of previous governments that have worked and not worked, and that the founding fathers were extremely brilliant people for the relatively small population in North America. These students, as we were tough, the first draft of the Declaration of Independence did not mention slavery, but slavery was written in to the Declaration as a compromise to get it signed by Declaration Committee members. With the Constitution servicing over 140 years, it has lasted over many other forms of governments that have been tried through out the world. Unlike socialism that the students today feel as the best form of government, it has failed where ever it has been adopted. 

The preamble to the US Constitution states, “we the people…” It does not state we the liberals, we the conservatives, we the socialist, we the homosexuals, we the transsexuals, we the poor, we the wealthy, we the well educated, we the blacks, we the Hispanics, we the Chinese, we the Japanese, we the whites, and the list goes on and on. At this time in this country, we are more divided today than we were when Dr. Martin Luther King gave his “I have a dream speech.” The Founding Fathers realized that every time a person associates themselves with a group that they are calling recognition to that group and not to themselves. A group can become strong and powerful and “may” take the population down an evil path, and this is why the preamble states, “We the people…” For a school board to install transexual bathrooms in grade schools, they are going against the teachings of the Founding Fathers. As for the grade school students, they find more recognition in the school system by stating that they are transexuals than just being a student, with this being a sad state of affairs. 

The school systems have been totally defected since the days of the meetinghouses in colonial America. As the population grew, it was bound that values would be more diversified as the communities grew together deflected the values that was taught in each meetinghouse. But, if people would adhere to the US Constitution preamble, “We the People…,” then the living in this country would be rather simple, but it is not. A diverse community complicates our lives, since our citizens have to think with diverse minds in order to survive. It is true that the school system was deflected as soon as communities grew into one and other. But has the school systems deflected so bad that they cannot survive? Only competition in the school systems will give our country a chance to grow, but there is no way that this country will ever have the simply school systems of colonial America. But, given the diversity of communities growing together, the American citizens need and should grow into the new diverse school systems. In this case, the school systems need to deflect from colonial America, but deflect the way that they are today.