CRAZY RULES

                                                 

I saw in the paper, the other day. where a school district in the twin cities now has a no touch policy for the kids on the playground. I’m not sure if it’s the media blowing things out of proportion or if we live in a world that has gone way beyond politically correct. How do you play games without touching someone? Explain baseball with no tagging, and touch football with no touching. Tag with out touching anyone. Even ring around the rosy is in trouble with these rules. These are playground rules run amok by a frustrated administration that say’s we will just make a zero tolerance policy and be done with it. Were sick of being parents to these kids too.

Now I know that they are saying this is just an attempt to keep bullying and violent acts down, but back when I was in school if you got out of line the teacher either boxed your ears, or sent you to the office. Either way you were on your own. Parents did not challenge the school administration when it came to making you be a better kid, and less of a smart ass. In fact what went on in school when I was being punished was best left in school, or my father would try you in his own kangaroo court when you got home, where justice was swiftly dealt out because he too had little patience with ill behavior.

But we supposedly live in a more perfect world now and some parents of supposedly perfect children have an attorney on their payroll that is looking for work and everything has changed. It used to be that schools educated your children and had little tolerance for students who were disruptive. Now they walk on eggshells every time they have to tell parents that their little angel is acting out again and wasting everybody’s time and talents, just by being there. We have parents now days that blame the schools for their kid’s academic problems, when the kid isn’t even there most of the time.

Education is the most important thing we do to prepare our children for life, but the schooling is only part of the process. True they have the books, and the teachers to get you started, but parents’ getting involved in their child’s education is essential to their offspring’s success. It’s the schools job to put the material out there; it’s the parent’s job to see that it gets absorbed. Don’t have time for that? Then try home schooling, or get a tutor, either way they are your kids to raise, not the schools. Better yet, just have your kids behave. There comes a day when they have to go out in the real world and well-behaved kids become well-behaved adults. As a parent isn’t that what you would want?

People, who say I ignore the good kids and just complain about the bad kids, have criticized me. Let me say this. This isn’t about the kids as much as it is about the parents and I don’t like people from my generation who complain about the bad kids now days as if they had nothing to do with it. I acknowledge my part in failing our kids and want to change it. That’s what this letter is all about. As for the good kids, and yes-- there are more of them then the failing ones. Congratulations, you succeeded despite the mess we created and some day when you are out in the world and on your own, you too will be disgusted by the pandering that goes on in our schools and hopefully you will do something about it, because we seem not to be able to.