Disqus - Latest Comments for Micah

Re: Another Reason for Home Schooling

Micah — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 08:44:38 -0000

A sacrifice, sure, and not always a bad one, but a luxury nonetheless. Most luxuries are sacrifices, which is what makes them luxuries. My point is, though, a low-income single parent doesn't have the luxury to sacrifice for a home-schooling for his or her children the same way most middle class families have. In all of my years of listening to people tout the benefits of homeschooling, I've never heard anyone suggest any kind of program that would make it possible for low-income single parent homes to homeschool.

Schools and school systems are run by school boards, which are made up of elected folks from the local community. They have some quasi-governmental functions in that many can set tax rates, but the fed gov't funds and sets the standards. The actual work of running schools is left to local communities, which often depend on non-profits and Universities as much as anyone else for help.

The real tragedy of public education is not that gifted students get left behind, although that's hardly a good thing, but that we find ourselves in positions where our schools hand out chemical birth control to middle schoolers. A deplorable state of affairs to be sure. But it very much is a learning issue--pregnant and parenting middle schoolers probably don't participate in the learning process. I don't suspect that this decision was made for anything other than practical reasons, depressing though it may be.

As someone who lives in a low income, inner city environment, who now does a considerable amount of professional work in inner city environments, and who most likely will send his kids to low income inner city schools, the operative question isn't why would I want to (I don't know that I do want to), but how I can I faithfully care for the neighbors who have no choice but to send their kids these schools. There's certainly nothing in the Christian faith that would suggest caring for my children while ignoring my neighbors is a good thing--in fact, Jesus would suggest the opposite. Not a lot of black and white in this issue.

Re: Another Reason for Home Schooling

Micah — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 14:32:11 -0000

SVD is my brother in law and a friend since Jr. High. "attacking the person" would imply that I had, in fact, attacked SVD, which I clearly didn't. "attacking the blog" would imply that I had, well, attacked the blog, which I didn't even mention, much less attack. I actually took the issue considerably farther than it was originally presented. So, not real sure which of my comments you read.

My points were all, I think, quite concise and clear. If there's a specific one you have issue with, please feel free to mention it directly. I clearly stated my thoughts on whether or not handing out chemical birth control is a good thing or not.

I suspect that you could get many inner city public school officials to say the same thing about parents.

And I can assure you that second only to my fear of being labeled a conservative is my fear of being labeled a liberal. Just because I brought up Jesus doesn't mean you have paint with such broad strokes, you know...

Re: Another Reason for Home Schooling

Micah — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 23:18:00 -0000

I thought the Jesus comment was funnier...

Re: Another Reason for Home Schooling

Micah — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 10:13:41 -0000

Hi Todd,

After the fact, I figured that must be you. Hope you are well.

My initial point wasn't that Shawn isn't qualified to discuss this (its his blog, after all), but that he was overreading the statement concerning parents. The administrator in Portland isn't saying that all parents are worthless, but that with regards to this issue, they don't expect much help from the parents of the children in their school(s). So, to move from that to a position that says all schools think all parents are stupid is a bit of a stretch.
Which led me to my next point, that though public schools are gov't funded and monitored, they are very much a product of their communities. This is as basic as it gets--why else do school zoning laws have such an affect on property values? What happens in one public school system isn't necessarily indicative of any other public school system. So, again, what happens in one school/district doesn't out of necessity indicate anything else about any national trends. One administrator admitting that they don't rely on parents to help them with an issue doesn't allow for instant generalizations about all public schools.

I've said that I think its deplorable and depressing to hand out chemical birth control to any students. And yet, I've also tried to communicate that I *think* I understand the thought process--school systems, as we all know, are under extreme pressure to score well; all teaching and class activity is geared to the standardized tests mandated by NCLB; that which can't be quantified is useless for most schools anymore (thanks to this administrations butchering of public education). Abstinence takes character; not having sex before marriage depends on a complex matrix of convictions, narratives and character formation. You can't teach those things, *especially* when your primary focus is to get kids to score a certain number on a test so you don't lose what dear little funding you have. Pregnancy rates, however, are quantifiable and easily solved. So, given the circumstances, it makes total sense to address that issue. If the federal government were serious about abstinence, it would evaluate not just sex ed programs but the whole of public education. But, that's not ever gonna happen.

I didn't say Jesus instructs us to ignore our own children, and sending them to school actually requires its own special kind of parental vigilence. I said to care for our own kids at the expense of our neighbors was unchristian. Jesus never says anything good about the family or family structures. This is why James Dobson & Co never say anything about Jesus.

Ok, tangents, tangents now. Hope that clears up....

Re: Another Reason for Home Schooling

Micah — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 22:53:29 -0000

Glad to do my part--I thought this blog might use a healthy dose of Jesus to balance out its conservative bias...:)

Actually, I think I've exceeded my annual online discussion quota by about 27 words, so I'm probably back to lurking. Fun stuff, though.

Re: The Rubber Mallet Fix

Micah — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 09:13:43 -0000

This happened to ours as well; I took the cover off of the steering column and smacked the shit out it with a real hammer; that worked quite well, as it never did it again.

Re: There’s Big Money in the Holy Spirit

Micah — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 22:39:19 -0000

that's why you should stick with big name brands like Binny Hinn.

Re: A Little Song and Dance

Micah — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 16:19:34 -0000

Ben is like a young Violent Femmes.