Admittedly, it's been awhile since I had to prepare my (now adult) kids for the beginning of the school year. But today, I was quite shocked to find a local retailer's ad for "Back to School Essentials" -- with photos of 1) an iPod, 2) a cell phone and 3) a personal Nintendo game player.
Not 10 minutes later an ad ran on TV stating that amongst all countries, the United States is now number 25 in Math and 23 in Science...
C'mon parents -- where are you?!? Times can't have changed all THAT much since the late 80's and early 90's. Are you actually allowing your child to take a cell phone to school? or an iPod? or a game player? Tell me it's not so... A neighborhood parent explained to me that her daughter
had to have a cell phone to call home when she needed a ride after activities. Do schools no longer have pay phones???
And school administrators - where the heck are you? You sure were good at making rules when I was in school -- when and how did that change? Is education no longer your priority? Are you SO bent on being politically correct that you don't have rules against cell phones and iPod players? Shoot, we couldn't even chew gum in school without being threatened with expulsion... I can't imagine there's a whole lot of learning going on if the high school kids are sitting and texting each other or have earplugs clamped on their heads.
This is all just getting too silly for words. I swear, common sense just doesn't come into play nearly as much as it used to. Don't want to go to jail? Don't do anything against the law! Want to have a good future? Get an education! Want to get a good education? Study! How hard is that to figure out??
For the very first time, I swear, I understand why so many people are homeschooling -- and Bravo to you who do.
(OK, all of you except those who bought the book HOMESCHOOLING FOR DUMMIES -- if you had to read that book, you shouldn't be homeschooling.)
3 comments:
I so agree with this post!! Cell phones are supposed to be a no-no at our schools-but its not inforced. Even after kids in high school were caught texting the answers to tests and sending not nice pictures the phone issue still hasn't been fixed. One thought was if they were caught with a phone at school-the phone would be took until the next semester started. But parents said no way-they paid for the phone and the school couldn't keep it. So the school system backed down. But I'm like you-make the rules and then inforce them!!! Drives me crazy too.
You know how I feel on this subject! Cell phones and IPods are evil! They try to enforce it at our school but it's hard because there are just so darn many of them. For the first offense they are taken away and the student must pick them up at the dean's office and get a detention. Second offense the parent must come to pick it up. It still doesn't help.
All my kids are academic achievers and received college scholarships to boot. Yes, they have cell phones and I-pods...and, guess what... I have them too! Nothing wrong with listening to music to and from school and conversing with your friends outside school hours. The I-pods really equate to the kids listening to their CD players - remember those? Anyway, my opinion is they are not evil and quite useful. For those kids where they get in the way of learning, parents need to take control, obviously. Evil? I don't think so. And, no, there usually aren't payphones in school or anywhere else. Welcome to the 2000s!
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