Shot in the Dark

Category: Losing My (State) Religion

  • Losing My (State) Religion – Part IX

    The road to hell is paved with good intentions. It’s an aphorism that’s become a cliche, and for good reason; it’s so applicable to so many things. In the first seven parts of this series, I detailed a string of events that helped me on the way from being a public school proponent to a…

  • Losing My (State) Religion – Part VIII

    I was originally going to write my big, earth-shattering conclusions in this installment of this series.  But I find that I have both more to write than I thought, and some loose ends to tie up. So today, let’s tie up loose ends.

  • Losing My (State Religion) – Part VII

    (Read the whole series)  Let’s sum up what happened in the previous episode: A child, “Nate”, had made up a story; that Zam, my son, was late for homeroom because he was in North Dakota, “getting a sniper rifle” to shoot a teacher.  Zam was, in fact, standing beside me in the Assistant Principal’s office…

  • Losing My (State) Religion, Part VI

    (Read the whole series) Note: I have been changing the names of all Saint Paul Public Schools officials so far.  I’m adding real names to the story now.  The actions that took place as part of this story need to be attached to real school officials, who are agents of a system that needs to…

  • Losing My (State) Religion, Part V

    (Read the whole series)  In the last installment, we talked about my daughter Bun’s problems with…  …well, no.  Let me stop right there.  Go back and read Part IV of this series.  The problems were not my daughters!  Oh, the creeping emotional trauma in her life was real enough.  But the schools’ response was too…

  • Losing My (State) Religion, Part IV

    (Read the whole series)  There was a time I felt that the biggest problem with public (and much private) education was that it was a “one-size-fits-all” approach to teaching children.  I’ve learned over the years that that is a distant third, of course, but we’ll get to that. Still, the fact that the goal of…

  • Losing My (State) Religion, Part III

     (Read the whole series)  As I noted a while ago in the first and second parts of this series, I didn’t start out as an opponent of the public school system. As the son of a teacher and grandson of two more, Education was one of those issues where, even as I swung to the…

  • Losing My (State) Religion, Part II

    (Read the whole series) As I noted last week, I didn’t start out as an opponent of the public education system [1]. No, in fact the school system had to work pretty hard to make me what I am today – a fierce, intractable, and deeply cynical critic. It really didn’t start that way. One…

  • Losing My (State) Religion – Part I

    Note:  This post has nothing to do with religion, per se.  At least, not in the sense that a person of faith would recognize.  When I tell you I’m a Republican, those of you who don’t know me most likely resort to stereotypes; I’m white, male, Christian, anti-tax, anti-big-government, pro-defense (so far so good), anti-gay…