Saturday, June 01, 2013
St. Francis with an iPad
The Backlash Against Technology -- Lately in conversating with some old-timers there seems to be an anti-technology feel out there, a kind of anti-modernist vibe. It irritates me at first, can't these codgers get it that you can't have the '50s forever but then I ponder for awhile and there's a point to be had also. Some are fond of saying we were better off before the TV but as a device the TV is neither good nor bad. It's not the TV's fault that most of what's on is pure crap, it's not the apparatus that's evil. Texting and driving and cyberbullying, it's not the technology that is good or evil in itself it's how you use it. Just 'cause your relatives or friends come over with their iPads and smartphones and start using them instead of honing their social skills well that's just incivility plain and simple and in the right hands tablets and Androids are wonderful devices. There's Internet porn and bomb-making recipes on the 'Net of course but for every negative on the Web I can point to a positive, it's a yin/yang thing. I recently learned some online groin pull/sciatica stretching exercises that I'm convinced fast-tracked my road to recovery so for every old-timer who says technology, the Web/smartphones, whatever is not good for your mind I would point out the ability to increase knowledge in a good way is right now at your fingertips. I also had this thought today, I think we're in for another bubble bursting down the road, the smartphone bubble. Half the population has these gizmos it seems and it no longer seems to depend if you've been wise with your money throughout your life and have made responsible decisions to allow you the finer luxuries. I had to wait for my prescription yesterday in a lower-income part of Yonkers and you get to observing. You got teens coming out of rather seedy apartment complexes with smartphones, not cells but smartphones and I'm thinking besides the cost of the device itself there's coverage right so how can these young'ens afford it? I think something has to give down the road, it's natural economics but for now at least everyone's a technodude. The new Pope even has an iPad and the other day I saw a photo in Catholic New York of some prelate showing him how to use the new Vatican app. Point in closing -- if the dark side of Technology bothers you so much make the decision to use it for Good.
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It isn't necessarily a 'backlash against technology' (other than the
ReplyDeletebutton-pushing while driving), but
rather a growing part of the population which simply cannot keep up-
"Pew Research found that half of American adults own a smart phone and that the rate of ownership is expanding quickly in every age cohort except those 65 and older."
I can speak for that group, and note that if we ever figure out
how to program the TV recording device, we will reluctantly turn in
our landlines and try a cellphone.
(from a guy who translated thermodynamic data into turbopascal, was conversant with
DOS command protocol..and still
checked the results with a sliderule), refuses to use cruise
control and only this year upgraded to a mower with a push putton start)
I have a rotary phone sitting here next to my fancyass laptop and my wireless router.
ReplyDeleteI love my phone.
My truck has power nothing. no power windows, no power door locks, no alarm system, nothing that most cars come with 'power' standard now.
I love my truck.
I've had my iPod since 2008. It's the size of a matchbook and holds like 200 songs. It has no screen. I like it very much.
Far as I'm concerned I'm into as much technology as I can really use. Vehicles especially... I have a hot eye for cars and good taste but when it comes to something I'm going to personally drive I want less, I want something I can beat with a stick and that will stand up to me and keep on running. Simpler is better. Phone? I have my Berry but here's my rotary, and I love it for lots of reasons but the best reason is that it works when the power goes out.
So the whole thing with tech is, is it practical, is it serving an actual purpose or is it just like wanting to be the neighborhood big shot? Anything can (and will) be abused, like you said about the internet... I think on the whole the pluses outweigh the minuses.
It kind of blows my mind that I am old enough to remember when there were ONLY rotary phones and when phone numbers had words in them. Our number when I was a kid was LOrraine 7-6631.
If this were a Facebook post, I would click the "like" box, it is very true.
ReplyDeleteI would as well, Beth. I have seen some blogs that do have that. The
ReplyDeleteLike
option can be embedded in blogger,
if one has the time and inclination.
I never got power windows on my cars, ok well once a used Pontiac came with it but I'd much rather have manual windows. Saw a show on Spanish TV once, real-life emergencies and an older woman drove off a road into a lake because of inadequate warning signage and she had the standard power windows and was having trouble. Don't need the fucking power windows, what just so when I'm driving I can roll down the passenger side window and get carjacked?
ReplyDeleteHave to look into the Like feature BB and Beth and Beth if you can figure it out. People who are against modernism like I still run across Catholics every now and again who are all upset about the ecumenical thing and try as I might I can't grasp the problem but it's like the biggest problem to them.
ReplyDeleteThere will always be people who are pissed off about Vatican II.
ReplyDeleteI can see where Francis might disturb his flock...
ReplyDeleteI'm not saying he's wrong BB but why the outreach to atheists? Jews, Muslims, I get that but the godless? Who's next the Wiccans?
ReplyDeleteJust read on Drudge Democratic Gov. of NY Andrew Cuomo wants the state to provide later-term abortions than it already allows and bear in mind that's at 24 weeks. In bed with Planned Parenthood, an extreme and radical action but bringing up a point here and I've blogged about this before. It's obvious the Cuomos and he support same-sex marriage too but it's quite apparent they subscribe to hardly any official Church teachings in many areas but doggone it they stay in the Church they love and they'll continue to have their weddings and christenings. Why not do the Church a big favor and just leave??? I absolutely hated the long hard years of the first Cuomo in office and now this joyride.
ReplyDeleteWiccans seem to believe in whatever they feel like. For example, the hereafter
ReplyDeleteruns the gamut from practically
atheists to practically Hindu.
Probably depends on which grove or
coven ya pick....As for Francis,
IMO, he has a pragmatic bent, sort
of a realpolitik outlook. Probably took that to survive in S. America.
Well apparently on the new Vatican app you should be able to read his daily sermon. Outreach to gays around the corner?
ReplyDeleteDidn't we already talk about why Catholics can't leave the church?
ReplyDeletePersonally I think 24 weeks is plenty unless there's a serious problem involving the life of the mother and really I would think that probably by 24 weeks you'd know about it but there's always an exception. I refuse to paint PP as Satan though, I think they do a lot of good for a lot of people who wouldn't otherwise have any access to healthcare.
I don't know any Wiccans but yeah, I think they aren't really organized per se, like there's not a secret handshake or some kind of Doctrine Of The Faith thing happening. All glories to the individualists but if you can just make up whatever you want to believe, well, I've got some issues with that.
And why not outreach to gays? Hell, a substantial percentage of the priesthood is gay. IMO I have always felt that they should just let the priests get married and be done with it. If they WANT to get married it should be all right. In order to be a Rabbi you have to be married (I believe) and the Orthodox churches have never had a problem with letting the patriarchs get married. Of course the RC will never budge on this but I think it would clear up a lot of problems right from the get go. Besides why would anyone be taking marriage counseling from a guy who's celibate? I mean, really.
We have four 'orders' or ashrams of society... brahmacari, which is the celibate student... who grows up and becomes grhasta, married/householder... and after the children are grown becomes vanaprastha, in which husband and wife travel together to various places of pilgrimage and begin to focus on spiritual things with much less emphasis on everything else (including sex) and then at the end of life one takes sannyas vows which do include celibacy and essentially renunciation from everything. It's a more realistic and natural way to look at the lifespan in terms of spiritual practice.
Anyway.
I actually think 24 weeks is way too much when you consider on occasion a preemie is born around 20 weeks or and even survives (e.g. Renee King many years ago). If anything Cuomo should be tweaking backwards on this not forging ahead into a moral no-man's-land. The older Cuomo, Mario, when he was Guv of NYS he took pains to say he was personally opposed to the practice but son Andrew has done away with that nuance and it's just oil up the abortion machinery and line the kids up. PP is not about abortion early on, it's abortion all through the pregnancy and lately the whole pro-abortion movement gives off a real creepy vibe:)
ReplyDeleteI get your last point and sure celibacy can be a positive at certain points in a person's life (less abortions for example, less STDs, also clearing the head) but a LIFETIME? and you're right the RC Church won't budge but then tells you every Sunday let's pray for more vocations, there's such a shortage.
ReplyDeleteI mean, can I just point out here that for all the pro-life hysteria, the ACTUAL RATES of abortion have been steady dropping?
ReplyDeleteJust sayin. In REALITY, the rates have been just steady dropping.
Doesn't seem that way in NYC though. What I don't get about Cuomo and pro-abortionists in general is how many abortions are enough? I mean doesn't Cuomo look at the #'s? check out the Bronx.
ReplyDeleteIt may not SEEM it but in reality it's true, the rates of abortion have been dropping for the past ten years at least.
ReplyDeleteSEEMING is nothing really, it's a subjective perception, it hasn't got anything to do with reality.
For example, it's 77 degrees in the house, it seems comfortable to me, it seems unbearable to my husband.
So, this is the part where I say to the pro life people, wtf? Do none of yall look at statistics or do you not care, are you going to carry on in the hysteria until the day when no one on the entire planet is allowed to get an abortion? I mean, shit's been working, availability of contraceptives WORKS, sex education WORKS... yet yall keep carrying on with this business that women use abortion as a birth control method. Meanwhile, in the real actual world, fewer and fewer abortions are really actually being performed. Now, is it like a fear that if you acknowledge this then no one's going to be concerned any more, that you're going to find that people find your beloved cause kind of, you know, not as OMG WE HAVE TO STOP THIS RIGHT NOW BECAUSE GLENN BECK SAYS 40% OF THE PREGNANCIES IN NYC END IN ABORTION (regardless of the fact that Glenn Beck can NOT, EVER, unless he has a direct line to the Almighty, corroborate or in any way substantiate this statement) and maybe as something that's trending down, it doesn't need all the frothing panic? I mean, is a consistent downward trend just not good enough or something?
Let me use this analogy because abortion is still common and mainstream enough to say the rates are still way too high. It's been highly touted in NYC esp. by Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly that crime here has dropped to historic lows. Maybe that's true but every time you turn on the Tri-State news there's been a violent crime. Eleven year old black girl in Brooklyn is now paralyzed from some gangbangers stray bullet and it happened just a few days ago. Ask her Mom how she feels about the much ballyhooed drop in NYC crime. Crime is still way too high, so are the abortion rates.
ReplyDeleteBTW Glenn Beck is merely repeating the official figures and I'm merely pointing out that many times NYC is more fucked up than other parts of the country.
ReplyDeleteYou cannot have an 'official figure' that says 40% of all the pregnancies in NYC end in abortion. There is no way of knowing how many women are actually pregnant in NYC and how many of those pregnancies end before anyone knows there's a pregnancy going on and really, any statistic Glenn Beck cites is completely suspect.
ReplyDeleteSo basically you're saying that a consistent downward trend isn't good enough?
Two points: I heard the same thing for years that abortion rates have been trending downwards but last I checked it went something like this -- 1.5 million abortions/yr. to 1.3 million/yr. to 1.2 million/yr and let's be generous and optimistic although I haven't checked this but let's go with at times even 1 million per year. That's still a hell of alot of abortions per annum, go well under one million and your point becomes stronger but until then... Second point, that 40% everyone's been talking about but no one acts like Glenn Beck invented this number it's just an official number that's out there. Let's say it came from the Guttmacher Institute, let's say it came from Bloomberg's Health Dept, whatever but it's not a number that Beck just plucked out of a hat. You just don't like Glenn Beck is all.
ReplyDeleteGlenn Beck- this week I was picked by Arbitron to fill out a radio survey. I told them I didn't listen to radio, pick somebody more
ReplyDeleteinteresting. They said to make the
survey technically fair, they needed radio non-listeners too.
Yesterday I put down 10 minutes of
NPR on the way out for breakfast and newspaper and 10 minutes of NPR on the way home. If the truck
radio quits...Arbitron is out of luck....back to Glenn..is there
anyone remotely like him on the left?
So you're saying that a 33% decrease is nothing?
ReplyDeleteFun with Numbers...just like with high crime the original sky-high abortion rates were so ludicrously high that even with a couple downward trends now the rate's only ridiculous. Rate goes down a tad more the level becomes silly and point being we have aways to go before the rate is anything you'd call normal in a bc-practicing society.
ReplyDeleteGlenn Beck,
ReplyDeleteOliver Stone?
I think a 33% drop is outstanding, especially since the downward trend shows no sign of stopping.
ReplyDeleteOf course, there are those who won't be happy until no one ever has an abortion at any time for any reason whatsoever, but for the realists, incremental progress is progress.
It is an indisputable fact that red Bible Belt states far outweigh blue liberal states in unplanned pregnancies. (Isn't that odd? Not really...) For those who are forward thinking and reality based, increasing access to contraception and promoting comprehensive sex education is the way to ultimately lower the rates of unwanted pregnancies (and by extension, abortion rates). I realize you don't see decreases as progress (until the rate is zero), but like I said, reality based and forward thinking.
ReplyDelete"The number of teen births in the U.S. dropped again in 2010, according to a government report, with nearly every state seeing a decrease. Nationally, the rate fell 9 percent to about 34 per 1,000 girls ages 15 through 19, and the drop was seen among all racial and ethnic groups. Mississippi continues to have the highest teen birth rate, with 55 births per 1,000 girls. New Hampshire has the lowest rate at just under 16 births per 1,000 girls.
This is the lowest national rate for teen births since the Centers for Disease Control began tracking it in 1940, and CDC officials attributed the decline to pregnancy prevention efforts. Other reports show that teenagers are having less sex and using contraception more often. Studies have backed this up. Researchers at the University of Washington in Seattle found that teenagers who received some type of comprehensive sex education were 60 percent less likely to get pregnant or get someone else pregnant."
Personally I'm against ALL sex education in school even abstinence programs pushed by conservatives. Primarily I feel the libertarian way that schools should not be teaching about sexuality in the first place, that's the parents' job and they can push their kids in their own liberal or conservative direction that's their choice. Secondarily the controversial thing about sex education will always be what gets taught and you can't have liberals pushing a liberal view on sex and then deny the conservatives to push theirs and vice versa you can't allow chastity education in the public schools without also saying to the liberals ok so you can gear your sex ed class your way. It's problematic no matter how you slice it but that's just me.
ReplyDeleteThe downward abortion trend which I think you're magnifying to the point where abortions are becoming not all that common (???), anyway let's posit a downward trend of some sort I've a theory. Statistics show many women who get abortions, I think it's a majority around 60% are repeat customers so to speak and so maybe abortion fatigue is setting in, you know the inconvenience of making appointments in general that I talked about once. Doesn't mean society has become more moral but it's like I'm careful how I lift at work 'cause I don't want to go to the hospital and I now cut my own hair with a Wahl kit. I mean maybe a woman who already has four or five abortions under her belt has finally maxed out ya know? In other words mathematically speaking abortion rates were so absurdly high in the past that they couldn't get any higher so they had to come down sometime through sheer mathematical pressure. Make sense?
ReplyDeleteSo even though it's proven that sex education reduces teen pregnancy rates which by extrapolation necessarily reduces abortion rates, you're against it.
ReplyDeleteWell, that's the whole problem with the pro-life thing right there.
Be against abortion AND be against things proven to reduce abortion.
Yep. That makes plenty of sense.
You misrepresent me as usual. My position regarding sex education is what I just said. Most pro-lifers don't like current sex education and wanna push abstinence/chastity education instead which I'm also against. What part of my exposition above don't you understand?
ReplyDeleteYou also seem to be in denial that sex is a controversial topic (DUH) so folks don't always agree on what should get covered in the classroom. I mean I realize you do live down there in the sticks but you do have a grasp of this right?
ReplyDeleteWhat I'm saying is that it's proven that sex education reduces teen pregnancy rates which by extrapolation reduces abortion rates.
ReplyDeleteIf you would like to reduce abortion rates than necessarily you should support something proven to do so.
That's pretty ABC to me.
And like I said, very often the pro life position is to be against abortion AND against things proven to reduce abortion. Soooooooo....
Disagree, many pro-lifers are for contraception Soooooooo....I don't want the Gov't teaching about Sex. What makes the Gov't uniquely qualified to teach about the subject? Sex Ed sounds good on paper until a teacher teaches something that a parent disagrees with. Don't see the conflict?
ReplyDeleteStop talking in generalities and address the finer points. How many times are you gonna say the same thing?
ReplyDeleteUntil you get it.
ReplyDeleteI don't debate that way. If let's say we brought up health care again sure we'll go back and forth for awhile, even days but that's it, I'll cap it if need be (remember the famous colonoscopy discussion?). If you don't see the complexities of sex education I can't help that. Let's say a parent wants to instill in their child certain values and the school system seems to be going against that but then again if you're a liberal it takes a village I guess.
ReplyDeleteI don't know, I can't get past the fact that sex ed is proven to decrease the teenage pregnancy rate. It at that point becomes a no brainer to me. I cannot conceive of an argument against something that's proven to work.
ReplyDeleteI mean, ok, you're not down with it, but to me that makes the pro-life argument a lot weaker when you also go against something that research proves is effective.
I saw your comment on my mobile last night and so had time to mull it over on my long walk today. Dunno, if you're a Mom trying to raise your kid a certain way and the teacher is talking about the benefits of Slurpees and believe me some classes cover alot of ground...I'm not down with it but show Ron Jeremy in a porno and it may so turn them off it'll cool their jets at least for a while.
ReplyDeleteFor me content poses a problem, for you efficacy is the overriding pragmatic factor here so let's choose a deliberately fictitious and ludicrous example. The teacher Mr. Fink is going with oral is the best way bar none to avoid conception, no better yet he's laying anal on the class. OK so the kids in town start experimenting with Mr. Fink's advice and lo and behold the teen pregnancy rate in Mystic Creek is near zero over time. Mr. Fink's way mathematically statistic-wise and in every way has proven itself to be the best way but the local pro-lifers are protesting him and the school system. Of course the local Mystic Creek Gazette predictably tars them as being inconsistent......
ReplyDeleteMr. Fink better stick with his shop class...
ReplyDeleteyeah, they're inconsistent.
ReplyDeleteDo you want to drop the pregnancy rate (and thus abortion rate) to zero or do you want the kids to be celibate and nothing less than that is good enough?
Kids WILL engage in sexual activity. You aren't going to stop that. So if you're going to protest that the kids are engaging in sexual activity, then maybe your priorites need looking at. I mean, cmon.
WHERE in Sam Hill did you ever hear me say this??? Go back in the archives and you'll see I'm a realist, folks of all stripes are gonna have Sex. I've never said otherwise my position is simply one of can the Gov't teach sex better than the parents where it rightfully belongs? should they? During my two years at Mt. St. Michael in the Bronx we had a health class and one class dealt with sex and the young teacher even touched on birth control and this in a staunchly Catholic HS.
ReplyDeleteOK since you're still not getting it let's take drug education. Let's say you had a public school teacher who espoused the many benefits of using drugs like LSD and pot, makes you creative and mellow and so on but the parents in town want to teach their kids to stay away from all drugs. Well why should the system have the power to coopt the parents in the formation of their children's moral formation? Ultimately it comes down to you're for Bigger Government in all spheres and maybe you're also assuming most parents don't teach their kids about sex since wasn't that the original rationale for Sex Ed in the first place back in the day?
ReplyDeleteIf you could put forth to me that research proves that kids who go through a class on the many benefits of taking drugs... ultimately indulge in LESS drug use,
ReplyDeletethen I would say that the class is worth it.
The whole point is that apparently the government teaching sex IS WORKING TO BRING DOWN PREGNANCY RATES (and thus, once again to reiterate, abortion rates). It's WORKING.
That's the difference. The intervention is PROVEN TO WORK.
How do you argue with that, seriously? I mean, it. works.
You're so worried about the pregnancy rate and the abortion rate but you got issues with things that work to lower them? I just don't get it.
Let's say you had a kid, do you want the most say in your child's moral formation or the public school system? The school as surrogate parent, I just don't get it. I have to say though with Gov. Cuomo in NY wanting a China-style full-term abortion policy there's a certain weirdness to the pro-abortion movement these days.
ReplyDeleteI don't see why I can't let my kid go through a school program and augment/discuss at home as well.
ReplyDeleteI mean, isn't that what a responsible parent does with ALL the things kids learn in school?
But I think there's an attitude on the part of the liberal elites that the schools do a better job of teaching about sex than the parents. Kind of snobbish imo.
ReplyDelete..as well as an attitude on the part of fundies that the schools
ReplyDeleteare so satanic that they prefer to
homeschool. Sex ed: used to be
on the farm and in the streets, ya
know?
I dunno, my feeling about parenting in general (and I don't have kids) is that kinda everything you learn in school needs to be discussed, augmented, explained further and filtered once you get to the house. I mean, I am not advocating nonintervention here. I think that parents have a responsibility to be part of their kids' education, actively. So I would absolutely advocate my kids being in a sex ed class, and we'd be talking about it at home too, clearing up the bullshit and demystifying the hype.
ReplyDeleteBut I'm not foolish enough to slam something that's going to help, proven to help. I might get in there over the supper table and tweak it, find out exactly what they're teaching, put my own emphases and moral framework on it, but yeah, proven to work? Sign them up. Knowledge is power.
I mean in plenty of places now (Texas, Kentucky or Kansas, whichever, and other Southern places) they're taking Jefferson out of books, they're writing revisionist histories that make the Civil War sound like a bad thing, they're taking out evolution and so forth. So do you just sit there? No, you deal with this bullshit, you work with your kid at home to rectify some of this utter bullshit. People who are teaching that global warming is 'a lie from the pit of hell' or some other fundie Republican twaddle. You don't just sit there passively. You're supposed to talk to your kid, be part of their education, and teach some stuff while you're at it. There is no law that says you can't do that, hell, you ought to be doing it.
ReplyDeleteSo people get all twisted up over sex ed, but they're not so concerned that Jefferson is coming out of the history book and the science books are line by line being replaced with creationism? I am far, far more concerned about these things than a sex ed class. A revisionist history is actually a far more dangerous thing.
I also don't think kids ought to sit there passively and just accept whatever they're taught. Far as I'm concerned critical thinking is the most important of all skills for a kid to learn and at least in my Catholic school (was in Mohegan Lake, shut down now) asking 'why' was anathema. I once asked why we didn't learn about the Protestant Reformation in World Religions (since, uh, it actually did change the course of history and all) and I was told that we didn't need to know that because they were wrong. Whoopsie! Wrong answer. That one event ultimately led me to where I am today, religiously speaking. But I think kids NEED to ask why, they need to challenge paradigms, need to be able to evaluate conflicting theories based on reason, logic and rationale. So some of these comments, you seem to be saying that it's an either/or thing, either there's no sex ed and the parents do it all or there's sex ed and the parents have no input. I don't see it that way. I think the parents should be involved every step of the way, not only in this but in all subjects, teaching their kids how to process all the information they're given, because quite a bit of it is politically motivated bullshit and they need to learn to navigate between what's real and what's Rick Santorum's fault.
ReplyDeleteThere's a common misconception that conservatives are against sex ed. Actually both conservatives and liberals are all for sex ed just their kind of sex ed. I'm against all sex ed, teach a kid a trade and how to make money.
ReplyDeleteWhat you see as inconsistency I see as taking each issue as it comes. Abortion and sex ed, I like my positions and feel they're strong ones and have different reasons, different rationales, different principles applied to these two subjects. So just the way I reason things out, your mind is like a computer and I guess I've a different mental program of analysis than you two but just because my analysis of abortion leads me to Position A and my analysis of sex ed leads me to Position B they're somehow inconsistent in your mind. I say if your principles that you apply to different moral subjects are valid then you should at least get respect for your views......
ReplyDelete......Abortion being the taking of human life leads me to the Position that it's wrong and just because pro-lifers may be inconsistent left and right in your mind doesn't take away the wrongness of abortion. I'm not comfortable with Gov't getting into the whole realm of teaching impressionable young minds about a controversial subject like sex so that leads me to the libertarian position that the parents have the primary right and responsibility here. Don't like Rick Santorum's views on sexual behavior? so steer your kids in a more liberal direction or vice versa but the important thing is it's YOU raising your children THE WAY YOU SEE FIT not the government's way.
ReplyDeleteI thought I outlined how being part of your kids' education was vital, that you didn't just leave it up to someone else, that you discuss, examine, filter, emphasize as according to your own moral compass, but not that you walk entirely away from things proven to work.
ReplyDeleteDid I somehow not make that clear?
Maybe I do need to be more clear. I am not advocating noninvolvement, I am not advocating leaving all the education up to the government. What I AM advocating is that you take the information the government is presenting and you work through it. Hell, parents need to do this with the evening news. You don't just let that information sit on its own, you get in there and work through it with your kid, make sure they understand it, put it in its proper context and framework.
ReplyDeleteIt sounds to me like there's an either/or thing going on here with you, that either the parent does it all or the government does it all, and I'm not seeing why it can't be both, and why that isn't somehow adequate.
For me it is an either/or re sexual education, it rightly belongs in the parental sphere not the gov't realm. BB you clearly have a thing for the fundies but you don't have to raise your kid to be a fundie and that's my point. Liberals don't like what's being taught in some school districts, likewise conservatives don't like what's being taught in other school districts. Sounds to me like liberals and conservatives have alot in common here and it all points back to the power of the parent.
ReplyDeleteI dunno, I'm going to stick with let's get knowledge from as many sources as we can and then discuss. But this goes for all subjects in my book not just sex ed. I think every school subject needs to be discussed, examined at home and that parents need to have an active role in all the things their kids learn in school.
ReplyDeleteI have a new student starting tomorrow, this one is an LPN and she will be my first LPN. I'm interested to see what the differences will be as LPN education is so much different than RN. The thing I focus on most with all of my students (besides teaching them how to write a decent note because they don't learn that anymore with the advent of computer charting) is critical thinking. I can't really teach them procedural things for the most part because we don't do a lot of that. But I can teach them to take information and make it work for them, teach them how to make sense of a pile of discrete bits of information. One of my favorite games to play is to teach them how to tear words apart. They don't learn this stuff anymore. Basically I teach them about prefixes and suffixes and then I pull out a diagnosis they've never heard before and teach them how to use the word itself to figure out a pretty good ballpark care plan.
The easiest example to use is pancreatitis. OK, so you know what a pancreas is, and you know that 'itis' means inflammation. OK, so what do you know? Pancreas is part of the digestive system, sooo you can figure on some nausea and vomiting, so that's going to bring you to dehydration, so you can plan that you need to put in an IV and start some fluids, plus you'll want to be watching labs and vitals. That inflammation, hm, where has it come from? Possibly an infection so again, watching labs and vitals and maybe starting some antibiotics. Any kind of inflammation brings with it pain, so we have pain management to think about. Now, if we're talking about the pancreas we're talking about insulin and metabolism so we're going to want to be resting that as much as possible, so therefore the patient will be NPO or sips and chips at most, and any IV fluid we run won't have any kind of dextrose in it. Ooh my, look, you have a whole care plan right there! And then their faces light up.
Knowledge is power. The key for me is not to disparage where the information is coming from; it's a matter of filtering, grouping, examining and using it for your own purposes.
For purposes of this discussion I use gov't education and public education interchangeably as the two are often so intertwined like here in NYC quite recently the City Council passed a bill that certain sex ed has to take place in the grades. OK so let's say down South gov't education mostly falls along the lines of creationism or Intelligent Design and the role of religion in history is given undue prominence, certain things are taken out of textbooks as you've been complaining about Saty and on the other hand up North we have sex ed teachers teaching about maybe oral or anal sex and so what I'm getting at is different groups of people oppose what's being taught in the public schools for different reasons. Maybe no matter where you come from it's the gov't package that's the problem so I couldn't agree with you more about the parent filtering and discussing at home.
ReplyDeleteProbably explains the states with the highest teen pregnancies include Mississippi, Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, Georgia and
ReplyDeleteSouth Carolina; while those with the least include Massachusetts,
Minnesota, Vermont and New Hampshire.
Yeah those hicks can't control themselves. Lots of inbreeding too, kids come out with six toes on one foot.
ReplyDeleteAlligator stomping, moonshining,
ReplyDeletepossum wrestling. But RedNeck TV
is looking a bit better ...