My kids have a flex period where they do PE, Music, and Spanish. They do three days of Spanish, one day of Music, and two days of PE. And they wonder why our kids are overweight. We used to go to PE, EVERY DAY! I feel that physical activity is much more important than learning spanish. If spanish is that important, make everyone wait tables for a year. You learn spanish a whole hell of a lot faster that way than in school. I took 4 years of spanish in school and remembered nothing. I waited tables at Pappasitos for 6 months and was fairly freaking fluent.
Not to take this off topic, but can anyone tell me while kids are still forced to take a year of Texas history? Seemed like a waste when I took it in 1979, and is even less useful now. Can't this be covered in a couple of weeks in a us history class?
I agree with Rocket River. Kids today are soft, not only in a physical sense but educationally, emotionally, etc. I teach 3rd grade. I will say that our school we do play dodge ball. It is part of the official program, as well as a station at recess. One reason why the students who go to my house don't play outside, though isn't because of video games, or fear of becoming overheated. It is because the neighborhood is just too dangerous. Kids at my school have been shot at, nearly shot, had parents who were killed, etc. just from being outside. They aren't going to be riding bikes around the neighborhood and getting exercise that way. It is a sad reality. Some kids are such babies though, it is amazing. Anyway there is a huge problem when schools do things like ban books such as Huckleberry Fin or To Kill a Mockingbird because it uses the N word or any other words. That is criminal and does a great disservice to kids. The fact of the matter is that children need to see stories of prejudice and understand that people have used and some still use those kinds of ugly names. The books don't support prejudice and actually have a message directly opposed to it. But pretending that a societal prejudice never existed or just mentioning it in vague context makes students unprepared and ill-equiped for how to deal with it when they do encounter it. For other kids they don't see the great harm using such terms and acting out in such a way can do. Literature paints a vivid picture of scenarios and can do a great job of inspiring hatred of prejudice behavior, and a willingness to stand up to the wrongs even when the rest of society seems to feel that prejudice is ok. It breeds generations of apathetic, unaware, people who don't deal well when confronted with real life situations.
I talked to a doctor once, just a random conversation, and he said when his kid walks around picking up things and sticking them in his mouth, he lets it go to some extent because that strengthens the immune system, gets the body adjusted to the billions of germs that are going to be bombarding it for life. It's obvious that sort of thing can go too far, but one can go too far in the opposite direction as well. [WARNING: An old birthday-boy musing about his youth follows from this point. Don't bother reading.] I, for one, am quite happy about all the potential doom and destruction I faced as a kid. Drinking hose water, then riding a stolen bike with no brakes (I should have picked a better one) across a still-in-operation railyard on my way to a homemade wrestling ring (made of fence posts, railroad ties, and 'borrowed' clotheslines) constructed in a vacant lot, to get the wind knocked out of me and the ocassional bloody nose from the bigger kids just for the possible honor of wearing a cardboard World Championship belt.... reading decade-old National Geographic magazines at the library and being so enamored with the pictures of naked African women and glowing deep-sea monsters, stories about bloody battles between Alexander the Great and the Persians, that I was later chased and knocked to the ground by some teenagers after bolting out the library door with an toppling armful of magazines.... Going to visit a friend just so I could hang out with his older brother, who would smoke pot and talk about the evils of government and society while I picked random punk rock records (lots of songs using the 'f' word!) from his massive collection of 45s and dubbed them to 5-for-99 cents cassettes.... For the most part, I had a great, largely unsupervised, childhood. I feel genuinely sorry for the kids coming up who aren't going to be able to have experiences like this.
I still think Dodgeball is a valuable sport..just like kickball (people have started complaining about that too). The trick is not just using it as a form of entertainment or free time, but to use it in quality instruction which is possible. Now granted, it isn't the dodgeball I used to play (hard as possible throwing, big red rubber balls, any part of the body is fair game), but a few modifications have allowed the continuance of it in an education setting. And as long as you keep the games short and permit the double switch rule, students will be actively engaged.
This is the game we used to play when I was in middle school (for some reason we called it "Indiana Jones"): We lived out in a small rural town in Southeast Texas and every family that lived on our street had a 3-wheeler or 4-wheeler. We would beat down a track around a vacant lot with the ATVs. Then one guy would drive the ATV while dragging an old ski-board behind it. Somebody would start off riding the ski-board and then it was everybody else's job to knock that guy off and take over the ski-board. When rained enough, we moved it the ditch. Also, anytime my dad had any dirt dumped in our yard to build it up, we would use the piles for ramps.
I don't care for this practice as well this is almost as ridiculous as the ideal of the HAPPY SLAVE acting like it didn't happen . . until in another 100 yrs. . . we will have people deny it happened. . .like the Holocaust there are still a good number of people who feel it wasn't that bad or actually helpful but that is another rant Rocket River
ever notice how every generation criticizes the one immediately preceding and the one that comes immediately after it?
excellent post. it's like we have to do it because it's our turn or something. it's a learned exercise.
those things don't protect them from germs, its for comfort ...not many 8 month olds are fond of sitting on a steel grate for 2 hours while mom looks for the bon bons
That's how it was sold to me. We returned it for some formula and diapers. I live in a subdivision on the NE side of Austin. There are a lot of kids around. However, the only time I ever see them outside is waiting for the bus. Other than that, they don't play outside. This is a safe neighborhood, so that isn't an issue. I guarantee that my son is going to be active once he's old enough. I can't imagine what I would be like had I not played sports my entire life. He may not end up liking it when he's old enough to know better, but I don't want an obese 3 year old.
Exactly! It is like somehow erasing a part of history(white washing it for the children) ensures that nothing like that will happen in the future? Sorry to derail the physical wimpiness with this, but I can't help but think the attitudes behind both are related. I mean I think the best way to prepare children is to be honest about the past, what it was like, why it was like that, the damage that came from it, the pain and suffering people have endured because of controversial subjects and what people have done to try and make them better. Highlight the sacrifice and dedication it takes to make changes, and why it is important enough to make those changes. Pretending like it was some vague inconvenience that only affected one part of the population does a great disservice to those that fought against prevailing racist attitudes, and it does a disservice to children today who will surely encounter various forms of prejudice in their lives. Both in a literary and physical education sense we need to send the message that students are capable and can overcome hardships, and that minor scrapes and inconveniences don't compare to the real harms and problems that they could face.
I just find it funny that there is this large group of guys, talking about the glory days. How bad ass they used to be and how tough they were as a kid. All the while sittin behind a computer. Maybe our kids are soft, because we are soft. Just maybe. Then again, I was a latch key kid that didnt really see his mom until sometime after highschool graduation. So, I dont want to put my kids through that. Therefor I overcompensate buy doing a lot of stuff with them. While doing that stuff, I see my kids doing things that I did, and got hurt doing. There fore I intervene and stop them. I guess if my kids become soft, its all on me.
Rocket River, just wanted to say I've been on CF for a long time, and you've always been one of the better reads. The title of this thread cracked me up.
I was with you guys up until,'kids should pee on the streets and the side of houses just as we let our dogs do the same'.... Yes, there's nothing society needs more than teaching the little boys of today and men of tomorrow to conduct themselves and comport themselves to the best standards of an untrained stray k-9....
Excellent copout, actually.. It's not because 'we have to do it'.. It is because every generation has it's own flaws.. they just usually end up being the most annoying, disagreeable, upsetting of flaws to the generation before it and after it... It's quite simple actually, adults are full of sh*t, deny they are, as far as one could tell they're oblivious to the fact and infact think they are not but, continue to partake of acts and attitudes that show they are full of sh*t, and the new born babe would be bringer of hope becomes tainted by it and upon realizing this in their teens, they too start practicing this wonderful art of bullsh*t.. Teens realize the bullsh*t of adults, adults realize the bullsh*t of teens, neither realizes their own bullsh*t.. and in that crazy process we gain a sort of tardy quasi- wisdom which can only be applied to our past mistakes, which are gone, and to our future progress which is yet to arrive.. but, by that time, there's a new generation and a whole lot of other flaws.. Simple stuff.
