The Greatest HOAX

The greatest hoax ever played on the American people is not president number 44! It is the slow poison of modernity, dispensed to every American through TV and movies. It has shaped our lives and our attitudes so completely in the last 75 years that we can't even imagine living without it. Yet, it gives us small, incremental, steady, doses of all the "isms", such as relativism, hedonism, consumerism, etc. So if the Muslims are winning, buying up large portions of America, building Mosques and businesses and taking over American franchises, this is why. We are too busy drinking in our fun and filth to pay any attention. They are loyal to their faith enough not to listen or watch the perverted comedy and parade of sex that pours through our airwaves today. But we love it and we have been conditioned to accept just about anything. And now we are trapped in a slowly closing noose of our own making. We suck down show after show; movie after movie, and like little newborn birds, waiting for mama to fly in and feed us, we clamor and scream for more! Only the "more" we get is poison, artfully administered. Just one of hundreds of examples - when we will excitedly dress for football and proms, in all the paraphernalia for the games, and skimpy, revealing dresses for homecoming and proms, but we won't dress modestly everyday for Jesus - we, as a Christian society, are losing.

IT"S ALMOST OVER! TOO MUCH COMPETITION!

How can teachers help students whose minds are too jittery to concentrate? Slug them down with medication, you say? Nope. Counter-productive. Drugging kids down so that they can "focus"(ha) on only one thing, stiffles creativity and critical thinking skills. But all of that is irrelevant, really, because the days of teachers teaching lasting knowledge is almost a thing of the past. When young people from pre-school age through college consume a steady diet of comedy, cruelty, sadism, masochism, sexual perversion,fantasy, science fiction, propaganda and pure hype they will never settle down to the calm learning of the old classroom. You can watch them sitting in the classroom, twitching, stroking themselves, staring, making erratic movements, their minds on tunes, movies, games and parties. The learning environment is already gone! Soon you can read about it in the history books. Have you been in a public or parochial school classroom lately? Have you walked down the halls of the local school and heard the noise, seen kids sleeping, yelling at the teachers, acting out their favorite shows or music, texting in their pockets? There is no such thing as a learning environment anymore. Parents feed kids a steady diet of entertainment, or should I say perpetual immaturity, always seeking the next new thing to keep them from getting bored. They do this for twenty-plus years and then expect them to push a button and become responsible. Well guess what, it's not working. We now have several generations of self-indulgent,entertainment-seekers who are "perpetually imature"! Hedonistic parents are raising hedonistic kids and the "focus" is NOT on education or productivity or making the best use of what God has endowed them with. Who is He anyway? It's about where the next big thrill is coming from. So school is out, a thing only to be endured. Sad part is, neither the law or the government can do nothing about it. As a matter of fact, they have hastened the process by their extremely low standards and their new fix-alls each year. In all honesty this is where we are. Maybe a few more years to try and salvage a few kids with the inner drive to learn positive, charitable things. But there is very little evidence today of self-disciplined kids who really want to learn. For those who realize that they are really behind and want to do something about it - THEY STILL CAN - but they are so used to mommy and daddy making excuses for them that most won't.

Lazy and Illiterate Teachers

I still remember the bump on my finger caused by so much writing. Cursive writing! In fact, I still have the bump bacause I have never stopped writing. But now that we are in the 21st Century it has just become too much for teachers to take the time to grade students handwritten work. So in comes the 20th Century buzz word "technology". Forty-one states have adopted the standard English core curriculum which does not require cursive writing. The ACT test also does not require cursive writing. So today, in our modernity, we have grown men who print their signature, who can't read cursive, and think that being a big baby is no big deal! Well,it is a big deal and the lack of writing and reading skills creates a huge disconnect with the history of the English language,the history of literature, the art of letter writing, and the history of education; with history period! How are students to study copies of the Declaration of Independence, the writings and personal journals of our forefathers, even the journals of their grandmothers? This is pure laziness and sloppiness personified in our teachers. We are getting fooled on every side and bombarded with psycho-babble. The great American posture of today is head down, shoulders humped, looking down at a smart-phone, fingers flying! Why not put those flying fingers back into the true art of flowing hand-written reports and letters to lovers. Cindee Will, assistant principal at James Irwin Charter Elementary School of Colorado Springs, maintains that choosing to teach cursive is not about aesthetics or preference, but about giving children the mental tools needed to read English. She explained to the Denver Post that the threaded letter strokes help guide students' eyes left-to-right and definitively correlates reading with writing: "When kids get to third and fourth grade, when they're supposed to be composing, they can use more brain space for content than mechanics," Will says. That rationale is intensely applied at Camperdown Academy in Greenville, S.C., a private school that teaches dyslexic children how to cope with their learning disabilities. WYFF reports that Camperdown teachers use cursive handwriting extensively, as the built-in mechanics of the craft teach students how to group words in the proper order and make it more difficult to swap letters. One teacher told WYFF: "They do so much better if they can interact with what it is they're learning." An article in the NYT recently stated: Jimmy Bryant, director of Archives and Special Collections at the University of Central Arkansas, says that a connection to archival material is lost when students turn away from cursive. While teaching last year, Mr. Bryant, on a whim, asked students to raise their hands if they wrote in cursive as a way to communicate. None did. That cursive-challenged class included Alex Heck, 22, who said she barely remembered how to read or write cursive. Ms. Heck and a cousin leafed through their grandmother’s journal shortly after she died, but could barely read her cursive handwriting. “It was kind of cryptic,” Ms. Heck said. She and the cousin tried to decipher it like one might a code, reading passages back and forth. “I’m not used to reading cursive or writing it myself.” Also whatever happened to the wisdom that writing help to hone fine motor skills? How about filling out applications? Are you going to print your signature? Plus many employers require sample hand writing of a paragraph. They can tell alot about the type of person you are just by your writing ability, the preciseness and neatness of your work and the pride you take in your work. Lack of writing skills may also be one reason for plunging international rankings across all 'academic' categories. Well, as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord (Scrolls and all)! As for me and my school, we will continue teach cursive and to require cursive in workbooks, reports, sentences, etc. etc!