ChurchOfBruce

I figured out the typo

I actually had very few disagreements with my parents in adolescence. I was about as un-rebellious as one can get. If they asked me what happened in school, they got a straight answer.
I certainly didn't dishonor them. I also didn't, for the most part, disobey them.

Of course, they made obedience easy. I was the *only* kid in my circle of friends that did not have any kind of curfew. I went where I wanted and stayed as late as I wanted. Guess whose parents *always* knew where, what, and with whom their kid was? Mine. They'd get a call: "I'm at John's, I'll be late, don't wait up." No problem.

My parents explained drinking--and let me drink in the house if I wanted--and let me know the decision to drink was mine.

I rarely drink, and that was true even in adolescence. It was even true in *college*.

They discussed drugs, what they do--the good *and* bad--and let me know the decision to take drugs was mine.

I'll admit to inhaling a few times in college , but that's the extent of it.

They discussed sex. They talked about the ramifications, responsibilities, etc--and made no secret of the fact that sex is fun. They acknowledged adolescent hormones, and let me know any decisions about sex were mine.

I was a virgin on my eighteenth birthday (as were, btw, my younger brother and sister.)

Contrast this with my wife, whose entire discussions of sex with her parents consisted of "Not until you're married. And if you get pregnant, don't bother coming home." She was *not* a virgin on her eighteenth birthday. It was *long* gone by then.

I never sneaked around, because I never *had* to. My wife did, because she did.

My daughters *own* their bodies. They *do* have the right to manage their own sex life, when they get that age. It is *not* my decision. And, yes, I applaud schools that teach that--because more *boys* need to get that message. They absolutely need the right to say yes, because that only reinforces an independent, internal, non-Daddy-dependent, right to say *no*. If she is saying no because *I* told her to, then it just becomes a war between "what Daddy wants" and "what boyfriend wants" with no consideration of what my daughter wants. And, here's a hint--in the adolescent mind, a war between boyfriend and Daddy does *not* always end in favor of Daddy.

When it comes to her body, she *is* accountable to no one. I can guide, teach, cajole, etc--but if she wants to ride the ol' hobby horse she *will* find a way to do it. I would rather she didn't, not at that age. She'll know that--and, more importantly, she'll know *why* I feel that way. However, it is her choice in the end. Like I said, that is *important*, because, if I try to take that choice away from her, I can not guarantee that *my* voice will be the one she listens to. And, like I said, I fear her engaging in pressured sex *far* more than I fear her engaging in concensual sex.

--Frank

Danielboy

A new perspective:

We have a simple situation of the Chicken or the Egg.

Did sexual liberation resulted in public schools having to teach safe consensual sex or did the teaching of schools caused sexual liberation.

I vote for the former.

Sexual liberation occured decades ago before they had anything resembling sexual education. Don't blame education for STD, please.

side note: Education to me is the key to all things. It is the only path to truth. 'Don't do it' requires a supported answer to 'why?'.

dk

db: If a parent has a relationship with their child? No, unless a parent abdicates their parental obligations they have a relationship that is dysfunctional or functional at several levels by varying degrees. In a functional family children honor and obey their parents because the family provides a loving, safe and protected home. Parents primarily instruct children on informal matters of faith, morals and family. Public Schools are artificial environments called campuses. School campuses are designed to provide formal education and instruction about the greater society. In an ideal world schools and families work together to seamlessly integrate informal and formal education necessary to a healthy, balanced, responsible and productive person.
dk: Blind obedience is taught at school in a 1 to many hierarchical relationship of schools
-------------
:=Authority {teacher, departments, (vice &)principle, union, superintendent, and government}
. . . . . . . . . To form a rigid hierarchy Over
:= . . Student, Class and Campus
-------------
Parents have a personal informal relationship with their children, unencumbered by rigid bureaucratic structures, policy statements, integrated curriculum and standardized tests; except those rules and policies elected by the parents. Most people are fooled by the artificial environment public schools presented. The architecture of a school campus is designed to appear egalitarian to foster a positive learning environment, but the appearances are artificial, behind the scenes the egalitarian façade is dictated by a rigid authoritative structure that stretches from the teacher’s classroom to the Triad Branches of the State and Federal Govt.; an architecture defined and enforced by the strict jurisdictions of teachers, unions, administrators, bosses, budgets, politicians, policy statements, strategic direction and in the US the most expansive expensive university system on the planet. I’m not objecting to the education hierarchy, I’m just trying to point out that families operate on a one tier hierarchy, with little if any formal structure at all. While its true a parent may be an authoritarian, even an authoritarian parent lacks the bureaucratic resources to enforce blind obedience.

I would challenge anyone to carefully observe siblings at home, then at school, and note pressures to conform (mindlessly). At home siblings tend act as their own agents staking out and defending their territory with a fierce individuality. But in school the same kid will do backflips to conform with what is “cool” and accepted. Whether it’s NIKE, books, bell bottoms, no bras, hair style or music kids are compelled to conform at school, and those who don’t are severely tested by mindless peer pressure and mindless bureaucrats. Even on College Campuses students isolate themselves at the most extrinsic superficial levels. Black dorms, jock dorms, fraternity houses and geek dorms dominate campuses. Actually it’s easy to see where the herd mentality is taught in the US, if people stop just long enough to think for themselves.
dk: Odd, I'd say you got your ideas from school curriculum, in an artificial egalitarian environment supported by a vast and rigid hierarchy. Yes, growing up there were a few teacher confident mentors who had a great impact on me, but by and large I understood the façade. I actually had a sociology teacher in college that spent a lot of classroom time playing with students expectations. The guy was great, he actually got a few of the student drones to think for themselves. Alas many in the class left frustrated their expectations unmet.

Hey if you don’t believe me, here’s a link to the Federal Department of Education with over 2,000 policy statements to public schools <a href="http://www.ed.gov/databases/ERIC_digests" target="_blank"> Federal Department of Education Policy Statements</a> on everything from eating disorders to internet security. Its called bureaucratic hierarchy.

[ December 28, 2001: Message edited by: dk ]

[ December 28, 2001: Message edited by: dk ]</p>

-DB-

dk: If a parent has a relationship with their child? No, unless a parent abdicates their parental obligations they have a relationship that is dysfunctional or functional at several levels by varying degrees. In a functional family children honor and obey their parents because the family provides a loving, safe and protected home. Parents primarily instruct children on informal matters of faith, morals and family. Public Schools are artificial environments called campuses. School campuses are designed to provide formal education and instruction about the greater society. In an ideal world schools and families work together to seamlessly integrate informal and formal education necessary to a healthy, balanced, responsible and productive person.

So what happens when the parents are not worthy of respect? Should the child still honor or obey?

dk: Blind obedience is taught at school in a 1 to many hierarchical relationship of schools

I don't agree. Give me an example of this blind obedience.

I would challenge anyone to carefully observe siblings at home, then at school, and note pressures to conform (mindlessly). At home siblings tend act as their own agents staking out and defending their territory with a fierce individuality. But in school the same kid will do backflips to conform with what is “cool” and accepted. Whether it’s NIKE, books, bell bottoms, no bras, hair style or music kids are compelled to conform at school, and those who don’t are severely tested by mindless peer pressure and mindless bureaucrats. Even on College Campuses students isolate themselves at the most extrinsic superficial levels. Black dorms, jock dorms, fraternity houses and geek dorms dominate campuses. Actually it’s easy to see where the herd mentality is taught in the US, if people stop just long enough to think for themselves.

A lot of the pressure you are talking about in the schools is generated by peers. This will happen in any society, including a school, and I don't quite see how you can fault the school system for these problems. I personally believe that the herd mentality is inherent in humans, as prevalent as it is. Also, every societal factor from birth on really promotes conformity. Being different makes you more of an outcast.

dk: Odd, I'd say you got your ideas from school curriculum, in an artificial egalitarian environment supported by a vast and rigid hierarchy. Yes, growing up there were a few teacher confident mentors who had a great impact on me, but by and large I understood the façade. I actually had a sociology teacher in college that spent a lot of classroom time playing with students expectations. The guy was great, he actually got a few of the student drones to think for themselves. Alas many in the class left frustrated their expectations unmet.

The school system has no where near as much of an effect on children as does good parenting.

dk

ChurchOfBruce, we aren’t necessarily at odds with one another. Some parents are blessed with good kids. My sister’s kid, Colleen, and my younger brother John were such kids. Colleen as toddler climbed up on a kitchen chair then fell cracking her skull on the floor, the kind of fall that puts your heart in your throat. Colleen was fine, and remembered not to climb up into dangerous places. Tell Colleen something once, she listens, asks question until she understands and then if the request is reasonable she complies. On the other hand there’s little Billy. Billy is a healthy, smart and genuinely nice kid afflicted with “no fear” syndrome. When he was 5 at a family vacation I watched him play on a steep grassy knoll. He would climb to the top of the hill, then run at a full sprint down the hill until his little legs churned so fast they lost contact with the ground. Billy had learned to fly, at least for a moment or two. Then he would crash bludgeoning his face, head, shoulders, knees, elbows and hands randomly upon the grassy knoll; he cried for 15 or 30 seconds, and climbed back to the top of the hill to repeat the stunt. Was Colleen smarter or more obedient than little Billy, no. Colleen remembered the pain when she fell, and grew in wisdom. Billy on the other hand forgot the pain but remembered the joy of flying, its uncertain whether Billy will survive to adulthood. Stranger than life Billy has never broken a bone or gotten a really serious injury, though his playmates are often the worse for wear. All this demonstrates is that kids are different and can’t all be handled the same way.

By the time I had gotten out of college I had 4 dead friends; 1 murdered, 1 suicide, 1 who was a murderer, 2 dead in car accidents, and several were hard core drug dealers or drug airheads. They came from all kinds of families. My experience is that it’s equally difficult to be a good kid and parent because in today’s complex world bad things happen to good kids with increasing randomness. I think everybody agrees public schools and families are in crisis, for some it’s a crisis of family, and to others it’s a crisis in public education. Clearly the US since the Great Society has become more litigious and formal society as families have become more dysfunctional. There’s a reason 99% of schools have armed guards, metal detectors, no tolerance policies and drug sniffing dogs. In my opinion its because we have made our public schools into garbage dumps for social ills to enable family dysfunction. The truth is we have a plethora of dysfunction families and schools, and the two events are interrelated.

In the US the very people targeted in the 1960s by the social sciences to benefit from the Great Society have suffered the most by the Great Society bureaucrats. Dead beat dads are an increasing social problem, and fatherhood is an archaic term in urban ghettos. Boys raised by single mothers are disproportionately at risk to every risky behavior our society has to offer. The US penal system now houses over 2,000,000 inmates, disproportionately with dark skin, and the biggest trend being an increase in criminally violent women. Single mothers make 50cent per dollar compared to married mothers, and across all socioeconomic lines the new poor are disproportionately unmarried mother head of household. Urban blacks still live generation after generation, 90%+, below the poverty line, in single mother homes with substandard educational opportunity. The rate kids are being prescribed psychotropic drugs in public schools has surpassed the drug cartels (industry) wildest dreams. Illegal drugs are a major social problem destroying millions of lives across all socioeconomic lines. 85% of the most common contagious diseases are STDs. Youth disproportionately suffers from all of societies social ills. Even the most devout liberal must admit the social sciences have proven to be unreliable. Today public schools are being taken over by state and federal governments because they have become incompetent, despite the $trillions spent over the last 40 years. For the kluge of bureaucratic red tape, psychobabble and social theory requirements they study (are indoctrinated with) 4year teacher’s colleges can’t graduate instructors with even a basic expertise in any subject matter, now teachers must attend post graduate schools to learn the material they are supposed to transmit to their students. Education in the US has gotten very ugly.

On the other hand, for whatever excuse, parochial schools outperform public schools on a shoe string budget. Home School has outperformed both public and parochial schools against the conventional wisdom of university elite educators and other Ivory Tower social science naysayers. Just as striking, where public schools, families and communities work together they graduate competent well educated young men and women in astounding numbers. There is a simple message here, a healthy vibrant autonomous nuclear family, planted in communities that respect, support and listen to parents are a vital interest to education, society and culture. Sex education is a gateway program for bureaucrats and special interest groups to continue the social engineering started with the Great Society. Let’s be honest now.

[ December 28, 2001: Message edited by: dk ]</p>

dk

dk: Two wrongs don’t make a right, because some parents are abusive doesn’t excuse public school bureaucrats, teachers and social workers that deface, demean and denigrate the nuclear family. In fact many bureaucrats, teachers and social workers are abusive parents themselves. The elite members of the social sciences have even less credibility to deface the nuclear family. Were I the King (hehehe), I'd enlist stable parents and grandparents as community leaders to help troubled families, whether the community leaders were atheists, ministers, Catholics, Native Americans, Muslims, black, white or pink. It should be obvious schools can’t succeed absent a vibrant involved community. Its turf and politics that isolates and alienates schools from their communities.
dk: Sure, no tolerance policies. Not to long ago two 10 year olds got hauled away by police in cuffs for playing cops and robbers on the playground. There are innumerable stories of straight A students expelled for a knife, pen knife or letter opener falling into their lunch box. In public schools teasing is now considered a capital offense. In many areas Kids aren’t allowed to play except under the totalitarian eye of an adult supervisor ready to step in and settle all disputes. Kids are regularly placed in timeout to prepare them for a life in prison. Student judged disruptive are whisked away in secrecy then drugged into submission. I’m going overboard with hyperbole but fact sometimes is stranger than fiction.
The thrust of my argument is the 1 to many AUTHORITATIVE relationship IN CLASSROOMS, under the strict hierarchy of an egalitarian public educational system. It’s the artificial egalitarian public persona elite educators mandate that makes fascism possible, fascism through better social engineering. This kind of massive façade can only serve to disconnect the experience of education from the reality of education. I envision universities as islands of free thought that study social trends and problems isolated from the pressures that cook the greater society. Then the greater society can select from universities solutions, as deemed appropriate. I have a real problem when universities become vested in solutions, applications and implementation of social programs because over time the vested interest becomes a turf war, and universities are smack in the middle of a turf war without objectivity, credibility or viability. Abracadabra that’s exactly what PC is.
I agree, therein lies the dilemma. Public Schools are dumped upon to cure all of societies social ills. This started 40 years ago with the great society. Elite educators, social scientists, social engineers, psychologists and politicians offered big $money for big promises. Schools beefed up with teachers, councilors, psychologists, administrators, bureaucrats, social engineers, lawyers and red tape. Now education meets a crisis, they have failed to deliver on any of the promises of the Great Society, public education has spent much its credibility and esteem. The reason so many good teachers and principles burn out is because public schools are tasked with busting a mountain of rocks with a sledge hammer, and year in year out more and more rocks are dumped on their plate. There is nothing more torturous than to work hard without accomplishment. Public schools need the opportunity to withdraw from the mountainous dump of social ills to refocus on the business of education. Meanwhile the vast hierarchy of bureaucratic overlords pursues and accepts more commitments, money and power, in exchange for the promise of a silver bullet to cure social ills. Promise they are powerless to keep except with a facade.

Lets be honest, secular public schools made their claim to fame by blaming the nuclear family for most social ills. Their promises to cure the family of bigotry and abuse threatens to destroy the nuclear family and public education. By and large these aren't the most reliable people to educate kids about sex and family life.

[ December 28, 2001: Message edited by: dk ]</p>

-DB-

dk: Two wrongs don’t make a right, because some parents are abusive doesn’t excuse public school bureaucrats, teachers and social workers that deface, demean and denigrate the nuclear family. In fact many bureaucrats, teachers and social workers are abusive parents themselves. The elite members of the social sciences have even less credibility to deface the nuclear family. Were I the King (hehehe), I'd enlist stable parents and grandparents as community leaders to help troubled families, whether the community leaders were atheists, ministers, Catholics, Native Americans, Muslims, black, white or pink. It should be obvious schools can’t succeed absent a vibrant involved community. Its turf and politics that isolates and alienates schools from their communities.


Well that wasn't exactly my point. What position does it put the child in when the parents are either not worthy of being respected, or are just absent? The parents should step forward in a situation such as sex education, but if they don't, then what will the child do?

dk: Sure, no tolerance policies. Not to long ago two 10 year olds got hauled away by police in cuffs for playing cops and robbers on the playground. There are innumerable stories of straight A students expelled for a knife, pen knife or letter opener falling into their lunch box. In public schools teasing is now considered a capital offense. In many areas Kids aren’t allowed to play except under the totalitarian eye of an adult supervisor ready to step in and settle all disputes. Kids are regularly placed in timeout to prepare them for a life in prison. Student judged disruptive are whisked away in secrecy then drugged into submission. I’m going overboard with hyperbole but fact sometimes is stranger than fiction.

Well I'm not sure that things like that don't cause rebellion more than blind obedience. But I do agree that the school system unjustly punishes kids. I'm not sure if they are trying to fit them in a mold by making an example out of one person or what. One of my friends had about 2 months of in school suspension for coming to school drunk. In my mind that is outrageous. As a side note, another student went to school drunk and only got 5 days of suspension. I don't really like the public school system either, but what are we supposed to do when the parents fail to do their jobs?

Sorry but I don't have much of a response to the rest of your post. I've been drinking and the first two responses wore me out. It mostly follows the lines of what I already mentioned though.

garraty

No I think nuture has a lot to do with it, wouldn't you agree?



I've been waiting for someone to bring that up for soooo long now

dk

hey garraty:
If its nature when do you think they'll find the gene for homophobia.

-DB-

And how does homophobia affect your sexual orientation? I don't think that argument holds up very well.