Guns don't kill people, schools do.

It sure would be nice if parents had the option to send their kids to a school that 'thought outside the box' when it comes to student safety and education.

Innovation ends where monopolies begin.

"Guns don't kill people, schools do."

Guns don't kill people, clowns do.

What temperature was it in John Wayne Gacy's basement? 33 below.

I have 2 bad jokes about clowns, but I think posting them would earn me a place in SITD hell.

But they make ME chuckle.

Mitch, can you explain this claim? "but stupid enough to demand that boys, 50% of the population pretend they're girls."

Mitch's kids must go to that new transsexual magnet school.

No, I think Mitch is referring to the fact that boys learn in different ways than girls. They are more active and need more freedom to burn off that energy. Some learn better when active and futzing with manipulatives. They cannot be expected to sit quietly for long periods of time. A lot of girls are have the same issues but it is more prevalent in boys. I have two ADHD boys, and they learn completely differently than their sister.

Lori basically got it - but there's more to it still.

Girls develop verbal skills earlier than boys. Boys remain tactile and physical longer; they (generally) *need* to be able to run, play, burn off energy, and express themselves physically and through things like head to head competition in ways that girls deal with verbally and socially.

Boys also learn to socialize aggression through physical activity in ways that girls learn through social (verbal) interaction.

Now, if you force boys to try to deal with both their less-developed verbal/social skills in the same way that girls do at young ages, it not only gives them no means of channelling their more-tactile, more-physical need for expression - it also sets them up as inferiors in a system they're not yet developed to operate in.

Which is, as it happens, what the current academic-industrial complex wants. The educational academy as been heavily feminized in the past twenty years, with the result being an ascendant belief that boys' innate behavior is a pathology that needs to be cured, rather than a normal personality trait that needs to be not merely accomodated, but used to the boys' advantage.

Forcing boys to act like girls in the verbal/social sense, while stifling their tactile/physical sense, is no more rational than forcing gay kids to act like straight kids. We know what kind of damage the latter does - but a good part of the academic-industrial complex believes the former is just fine.

It's not. Which is why I've seceded from the public school system.

Used to be that kids who didn't do well in school were called "bad students." I guess even "conservatives" will make with the sociology double-talk where their kids are concerned.

"My kid isn't dumb. He has Understanding Deficit Syndrome."

"Mitch's kids must go to that new transsexual magnet school."
"My kid isn't dumb. He has Understanding Deficit Syndrome."

You're getting tired, aren't you?

How Ritalin... and other mood-altering drugs are systematically foisted on our kids by teachers who, while they canoften barely teach their own subjects, feel themselves qualified to act as surrogate psychiatrists

That is very accurate from a number of standpoints:
1) State law,thanks to a bill put forth by our current education commissioner as well as Dem Mindy Greiling, requires teachers to obtain "further preparation in understanding the key warning signs of early-onset mental illness in children and adolescents," in order to retain their certification. So, teachers are supposed to learn in an hour or two each year what it takes mental health professionals years to learn and by their own standards admit that their criteria are "subjective" and "value judgments based on culture."

2) There is a 265 page state mental health system transformation plan, knowingly or unknowingly endorsed by our current governor and screening upheld in rulings by Hatch's AG office that calls for, among other things, "Earlier identification and intensive intervention for students with diagnosable mental health disorders;" and "Earlier identification and intervention for students at risk for mental health disorders" and use of a federal grant program that will make sure that "all children ages birth to five are screened early and continuously for the presence of health, socioemotional [mental health] or developmental needs."

3) All of the psychiatric drugs in independent study after study are shown to be ineffective and cause very serious, if not lethal side effects, including psychosis, violence and suicide.

This can be stopped by parents knowing what laws protect them from mental health screening and coerced psychiatric drugging, a summary of which is available at http://www.edwatch.org/updates06/090906-pss.htm

It may also be stopped by holding politicians' of both parties feet to the fire in the election and the next legislative session.

thanks for the follow up admiral berg