Shows the magnetic card reader
Shows the PC-100C Print Cradle
Posted on 11/13/2007 4:47:43 PM PST by Clintonfatigued
I go back some years, but we didn’t have backpacks. Some kids had bookbags, but most poor schlups like me carried the books on our arms. And we had a lot of books since we had a lot of homework.
I also tend to think that some kids might be nutritionally deficient and that could be more the cause of all this pain and what not than the heaviness of the bags. When I was a kid, we drank milk by the gallon and my mother made sure we had three healthy meals a day. Now, I see kids with potato chips and soft drinks on the way to school. Those sure help to build strong bones. (she said sarcastically)
Prayer in school. Bookbags. Homework. One bogus side-issue after another. The real issue is SCHOOL. It’s a fraud. If God had meant children to be raised in gigantic litters, they would be born that way.
You should make that your tag line.
I’ve gone blue in the face saying that the publishers of e-books and the manufacturers of the readers have completely missed the boat. They’re never going to get any traction selling $40 bestsellers for full list price. But if they could sell $75 textbooks for $50, the readers would fly off the shelf. And if school districts buy in bulk, they could probably distribute them to students at a pretty substantial savings over distributing new textbooks every fall. And they’re always up to date.
Our students aren’t allowed to carry bookbags in the building, and most seem to think they are constitutionally unable to carry more than one book at a time.
I haven’t figured out why they all need backpacks. When I was in school, the only people who used those were hikers...there were a few students who had the old briefcase-style bookbag, but those weren’t “cool” so most people carried their books in their arms. We survived.
Shows the magnetic card reader
Shows the PC-100C Print Cradle
That is a real treasure!
It is also about 12 years later than my slipstick days. I still have my 5”, a couple of 10”, and my circular, “just in case”.
I still have fond memories of punching keys on the 20-decimal Marchant ka-chunka-ta-ka-chunka-ta-ka-chunk calculator.
My next employer, 1968, “let” me use the IBM-360/40 once a week to run lab data. I wish I had a years worth of the electricity it took to run & cool that sucker & its peripherals!
Ping...for the old days! ;^)
The textbook companies are starting to get a clue. About 1/2 of the books in our middle school are now available on a DVD that can be reproduced unlimited times so that kids can take that home, use it and leave the books at school. Doesn't matter - most kids still lug every book around to every class, even though the lockers are RIGHT THERE!!! and there is time between classes. Using lockers is very uncool for some reason. I'd say less than 1/3 of the 8th graders in my school have even opened them this year.
School directly occupies at least 8 hours of the average child's day (from 7-3). Add three or four hours of homework, an hour of TV, and there is no time left for family life. Home becomes a place to hang one's hat. School is where the "important stuff happens." At least that's the lesson I learned.
And to take this in another direction, consider the implications for a child's spiritual life. A child spends at least eight hours each day in a mandated God-free zone. His homework doesn't contain references to God, but probably contains negative descriptions of Christians. What conclusion can a child reach about religion except that, at best, society judges it to be unimportant, especially when compared to the important stuff in school. That's another lesson I learned.
Finally, how does forced schooling conform with the First Amendment to the US Constitution, specifically, the right of freedom of exercise of religion? Are parents and children free to exercise their religion when the government forces children into a godless world for 8-12 hours per day?
Carrying 30 pounds worth of clubs upwards of 4 miles across hill and dale keeps you lean and mean.
I would expect to see lawyers taking a keen interest in this national crisis.
Ha! It's the truth, but you've probably had as much luck selling it as I have. Oh well, at least my kids have skipped it.
At worst, people think that schooling is a waste of time. But it's far worse. Schooling instills anti-life skills that sometimes require a lifetime to undo. Because children never suffer real-world consequences for poor decisions, they remain in an immature, childlike state well into their twenties. Schooling instills intellectual dependence, instilling in children the habit of waiting for experts to tell them what to think. Don't believe me? How many times have you heard the phrase, "They say..."? School children learn decision-dependence, waiting for authorities to tell them what to do with their lives. School children are alienated from themselves, and therefore further hindered in forging their own path in life. They are slaves to their animal passions, being taught that "if it feels good do it," and that they're little more than thinking animals. Their crude habits alienate them from the rest of society once they enter it, bound and gagged, at age 18 or 22.
But don't take my word for it, ask the 1991 NY State Teacher-of-the-Year.
Public education needs to be marginalized. It should be something of last resort, like public housing.
And to take it in a different direction, most of what they study after the 5th. grade will be of no use to them after they leave school, and no one will care whether they remember any of it. And in the time they’re in school, they’re subjected to a combination of anxiety and boredom, and will do virtually anything to relieve it. That is the largest contributor of the drug problem we have.
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