willbeurdaddy -> RE: Millionaire tax called 'class warfare' but..... (9/19/2011 3:28:55 PM)
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ORIGINAL: defiantbadgirl quote:
ORIGINAL: willbeurdaddy America has fallen behind the rest of the world because of bad parenting. Period. You can throw as much money as you want into "infrastucture", grants, curricula etc, and it wont do a fucking thing until parents instill and support educational values in their kids. Kids from families with cultures that have supported education do just fine. I agree that parents should instill educational values in their kids. I think a lot of the problem is lack of time. Service job salaries often force parents to work more than one job. In the days of strong unions, jobs paid more and one paycheck easily provided enough income to support a family. The other parent could stay home and had plenty of time to oversee their children's education. Another hinderence to a child developing good educational values is bullying. Homeschooling is usually the best solution, but how can parents homeschool if they're working 2-3 jobs? I also believe the reason American kids have fallen behind in math is new teaching methods. The old way of teaching math made sense and was much less confusing. It has little to do with strong unions and a lot to do (and I guarantee this comment will be mischaracterized by some here) with women's "liberation". That social dynamic where women were told they could "have it all" led to a marked increase in women in the workforce, lowering wages for all due to the increased supply of labor. As you are pointing out (indirectly, not trying to put words in your mouth) you really can't "have it all" at the same level of quality. And of course the rise in single parent households thanks to divorce or parents who just skip out hurts that as well. so you are correct that there are time constraints for a lot of families, but I guarantee that in most cases there's an hour a day pissed away that could be spent at a table with the kids. Home schooling has pluses and minuses. Home schooling in groups is far better than single household from the families Ive seen. And I also agree that teaching methods have hurt. There is a lot to be said for rote/memorization to get the fundamentals down, and then enhance it with theory and "understanding" for those who need it for higher education. But there has also been a socialization effort in many schools/classrooms, where "nobody fails", "everybody's a winner" and so on that hurts a lot of the self-motivation for kids that they would have had even without parents around.
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