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The Good and Bad of America’s Continuing Cultural Revolution – Part 5/7

08 Jun

According to Washington State Institute for Public Policy (WSIPPA – March 2005) the high school graduation rates in the United States in 1870 were less than 5% of school age teens. In 1940 that number reached 50% and by 1960 reached 70% where it started to fluctuate annually a few percent (single digits) one way or the other.

The reason for the need of a better educated population today is because we are no longer an agricultural country. In 1870, 74% of the population lived on rural farms and it doesn’t take a lot of science, math and literacy to farm [before farming became high tech].  By 1990, 75% of the US population had moved from the country to the city.

Along with this shift in rural to urban population centers, parenting methods went through a metamorphosis. In 1870, children were considered property and could be forced to work hard labor on the farms or be sold into servitude to work in coal mines or factories.

The Child Labor Public Education Project says that it wasn’t until 1938 that for the first time, minimum ages of employment and hours of work for children were regulated by federal law. Before that, children were treated as if they were property—treated as if they were slaves.

Parallel to these changes came the self-esteem movement that had its start in the 1890s and by 1960 was the  common practice of the average American parent (about 40% of all parents) to inflate a false sense of self esteem in children while pressuring the schools and teachers to do the same through grade inflation, doing away with rote learning, and dummying down the curriculum so it was easier for children to earn higher grades and feel good about themselves. In addition, having fun is now more important than merit.

The result, generations of young American narcissists that believe they are entitled to have fun and watch TV, eat what they want and not what they need, and have unlimited freedom to play video games, listen to music and spend as much time as they want social networking on sites such as Facebook.

If you have noticed that I am sometimes repeating myself from post to post, you are right. Rote learning does work and helps students remember important facts instead of forgetting them daily. Do you know who America’s 16th President was or its 32nd President and the significance of these two men?

When we ignore the lessons that history teaches us about our mistakes, our leaders (and parents) tend to make the same mistakes again and again.

Continued on June 9, 2012 in The Good and Bad of America’s Continuing Cultural Revolution – Part 6 or return to Part 4

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of The Concubine Saga.

To subscribe to “Crazy Normal”, look for the “E-mail Subscription” link in the top-right column, or click on the “Following” tab in the WordPress toolbar at the top of the screen.

 
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Posted by on June 8, 2012 in American Public Schools, child abuse, Education, family values, literacy, Parenting, politics, Public School, self-esteem, self-esteem movement, student behavior

 

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The Good and Bad of America’s Continuing Cultural Revolution – Part 4/7

07 Jun

Perri O. Blumberg writing for Shine reported on foods that make you dumb. I’ve known about this for some time. There has been plenty of reputable research on this topic for years–for decades.

In a recent animal study, UCLA researchers found that rats fed a solution of fructose had a harder time navigating a maze, a sign of slowed learning and memory loss, compared to a second group of rats who were given the fructose solution as well as omega-3 fatty acids, which are thought to have a brain-boosting effect. The researchers suspect that the fructose-only diet decreased brain activity because it affected insulin’s ability to help brain cells use sugar to process thoughts and emotions. Certain omega-3 fatty acids may buffer the brain from the harmful effects of fructose.

A diet high in “bad” saturated fat may hurt brain function, according to new Harvard research published in the Annals of Neurology. When researchers studied the eating habits and tested the brain function of 6,000 women for an average of four years, they found the women who ate the most saturated fat scored lower on tests of brain function and memory.

A recent British study published in the Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology found that chewing gum during a memorization exercise impaired participants’ short-term memories.

After teaching for thirty years, this is what I learned from about 6,000 students by working with them and through obeservation. In addition, I discovered (by asking questions of my students) that the average American child/teen does not eat breakfast, hates water, loves soda, loves French fries and cheese pizza, hates to read, hates to do homework, uses the excuse that the teacher was boring not to study or pay attention in class and then most of America blames the teachers when the child does not remember what he or she was taught.

In addition (and I’ve written about this in detail before on this Blog), studies also show that the average American child/teen spends about 10 hours a day dividing his or her time watching TV, listening to music, playing video games, spending time on social networking sites such as Facebook, sending endless text messages, etc. If this is true, when do those children and teens find time to read, do homework and study?

At the one high school where I worked, after the soda machines were installed, the students were drinking about 2,000 cases of soda a week. There were 24 Cokes to a case and about three thousand students. Do the math. How many Cokes did the average student drink a week at that high school while classes were in session? It cost $1 for one soda and the district was paid 50 cents for each sale.

If you do the math, it works out to three Cokes a day per student. One 12 oz can of Coke has 39 grams of sugar x 3 = 117 grams. However, one 20 oz bottle of Coca Cola, which is what they sold out of the vending machines at the high school where I was a teacher, has 65 grams of sugar or 195 grams for three bottles.

Meanwhile, the average American parent (about 40% of all parents representing an influencial block of voters) continues to inflate a false sense of self esteem in his or her children while pressuring teachers to find ways for the kids to have more fun, feel successful in class by inflating grades and dummying down the curriculum while doing away with boring rote learning, which is necessary for some subjects such as spelling, the rules of grammar and mechanics, math, science and the history of the United States in addition to how the US government works.

How does a child/teen know what the Constitution means when he or she cannot remember what it says?

Continued on June 8, 2012 in The Good and Bad of America’s Continuing Cultural Revolution – Part 5 or return to Part 3

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of The Concubine Saga.

To subscribe to “Crazy Normal”, look for the “E-mail Subscription” link in the top-right column, or click on the “Following” tab in the WordPress toolbar at the top of the screen.

 
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Posted by on June 7, 2012 in child abuse, Parenting, self-esteem, self-esteem movement, student behavior

 

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The Good and Bad of America’s Continuing Cultural Revolution – Part 2/7

05 Jun

An example of America’s continuing Cultural Revolution was reported on ABC News: “The mother of an 8-year-old Arizona girl who was presented with a “Catastrophe Award” for apparently having the most excuses for not having homework believes her child was humiliated by her teacher.”

So what!

When you scan the comments for this ABC piece , many sound like these, which I copied and pasted from the ABC News piece:

  1. “Where has this MOTHER been? why hasn’t she been      aware that her daughter hasn’t been doing her homework? Why is she going      on t.v. to complain about this issue?”
  2. “The mother wasn’t aware that her daughter had a      problem with homework? Maybe she should have gone to a parent/teacher      conference or two. But no. She goes on TV to cry and complain. At least we      know where the daughter gets her talent for making excuses.”
  3. ” It is not the teachers responsibility to have a      child do homework.. it is the parents! If a parent is having trouble      taking time in the evening to help her child than she needs to hire a      tutor.”
  4. “The mother should be more aware of what her child      is doing at school……I’m sorry but kids have homework every night maybe the      mother should go through her back pack once in a while. I’m so sick of      parents no being responsible for their children’s ACTIONS!!!!!”

As you can see, it is obvious that this mother was not doing the best job she could but she is not alone. In fact, she represents the average American parent as you shall discover. If you are reading this, I hope you are not one of those average parents.

Liberty.edu says, “Overall, most findings have shown parental involvement, whether at home or at school, have a moderately significant relationship with higher academic achievement, and this relationship has been found consistently across demographics (e.g., ethnicity, sex, or socioeconomic status) and measures of achievement (e.g., achievement tests, grades, and grade point averages). Research points to the conclusion that “parental involvement is an important predictor of children’s achievement in school” (Englund et al, 2004, p. 723).”

In addition, “A 1999 survey of St. Louis kindergarten students revealed that while 95% of the parents rated reading as very highly important, only 16% of the parents were reading to their children each day… .

“Parental involvement tends to diminish as children move to higher grade levels. In 1996 and 1999 surveys, 86% of parents with children in grades K-5 reported attendance at a scheduled meeting with their child’s teacher. Contrastingly, among children in grades 6-8 and 9-12, only 70% and 50% respectively had parents who attended meetings involving their child’s teacher (U.S. Department of Education, 1994).” Source: Parent and Teacher Perceptions of Effective Parental Involvement – A dissertation presented to The Faculty and School of Education Liberty University

 

A few comments criticized the teacher for giving the child an embarrassing award but most were similar to the few examples posted here.

What will it take to educate the average American parent to understand a parent’s responsibilities to raise and educate children?

However, there is another aspect of this topic that is more important than an eight-year-old that earned a negative award for not doing her homework.

Continued on June 6, 2012 in The Good and Bad of America’s Continuing Cultural Revolution – Part 3 or return to Part 1

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of The Concubine Saga.

To subscribe to “Crazy Normal”, look for the “E-mail Subscription” link in the top-right column, or click on the “Following” tab in the WordPress toolbar at the top of the screen.

 
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Posted by on June 5, 2012 in American Public Schools, Education, family values, Parenting, politics, Public School, self-esteem, self-esteem movement, student behavior

 

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The results of parenting gone wrong – Part 2/2

22 May

As a teacher, I used brainstorming activities in my classroom. After all, I was taught and told to use brainstorming. The concept was to accept what anyone said as correct and worthy of being written down, so we wouldn’t bruise or injure a child’s self-esteem.

However,  Lehrer writes, “Keith Sawyer, a psychologist at Washington University, has summarized the science: ‘Decades of research have consistently shown that brainstorming groups think of far fewer ideas than the same number of people who work alone and later pool their ideas.'”

In fact, in Does Brainstorming For New Ideas Really Work? (Business Insider, March 27, 2012), it was reported that experiments where it is okay to debate and criticize (constructive criticism no doubt) generated nearly 25 percent more ideas and findings show that debate and criticism do not inhibit ideas but, rather, stimulate them…

These results prove that the self-esteem’s brainstorming mantra of refraining from judging or negating ideas is wrong. In other words, brainstorming (a product of the self-esteem movement) did not unleash the potential of the group. Instead the technique suppressed it, making each individual less creative.

In addition, Stephanie Hallett writing for the Huffington Post reported, “Barely half of Americans over the age 18 are married, according to a new report from the Pew Research Institute. The number of couples married in 2010 dropped a startling 5 percent from the previous year, and the overall number of married couples has declined by more than 20 percentage points since 1960.”

Now, let’s look at the face in that mirror again. The self-esteem movement among parents gained serious momentum in the 1960s and by the late 1970s, it was a force in the public schools leading to grade inflation and a feel-good atmosphere for students. At the same time, marriages declined in addition to an increase in a weakening of parent-child relationships, while creativity in America isn’t what it could be.

In conclusion, it is obvious that self-esteem parenting led to the weakening of the parent-child relationship, is responsible in the decline of traditional marriage and has inhibited creativity, which will hurt the United States in the long run.

Is this an example of the domino theory in practice?

Return to The results of parenting gone wrong – Part 1

______________

Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of The Concubine Saga.

To subscribe to “Crazy Normal”, look for the “E-mail Subscription” link in the top-right column, or click on the “Following” tab in the WordPress toolbar at the top of the screen.

Learn more from  Recognizing Good Parenting

 
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Posted by on May 22, 2012 in family values, Parenting, self-esteem, self-esteem movement, student behavior

 

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Not a Pedophile by a Long Shot

19 Apr

James Hooker’s poor judgment (he could have waited a few months until after Jordan Powers graduated) cost him his job and now he has been accused of having a sexual affair fourteen years ago with a 17 year old (this is an alleged accusation and may not be true although the details are compelling).

However, Jordan Powers is 18 and in California 18 is the age of consent (the average age of consent in most states in the US is 16). Regardless of opinions that she is still a child, she hasn’t been a child since probably the age of 13, and her mother doesn’t have to like her daughter’s choices of who to love, but she should drop the pedophile accusations. A 41 year old man having an affair with an 18 year old is not being a pedophile. The definition for pedophile is: The act of fantasy on the part of an adult of engaging in sexual activity with a child or children. Powers stopped being a biological child four to six year ago and I’m sure she has a mind of her own regardless of her judgement falling in love with a man more than twice her age.

I taught middle and high school for most of thirty years, and believe me, once a young girl becomes an adolescent capable of being pregnant, most are not the so-called innocent child we want to believe in.

_______________________

Lloyd Lofthouse is a former U.S. Marine and Vietnam Veteran,
who taught in the public schools for thirty years (1975 – 2005).

His third book is Crazy is Normal, a classroom exposé, a memoir. “Lofthouse presents us with grungy classrooms, kids who don’t want to be in school, and the consequences of growing up in a hardscrabble world. While some parents support his efforts, many sabotage them—and isolated administrators make the work of Lofthouse and his peers even more difficult.” – Bruce Reeves

lloydlofthouse_crazyisnormal_web2_5

Lofthouse’s first novel was the award winning historical fiction My Splendid Concubine [3rd edition]. His second novel was the award winning thriller Running with the Enemy. His short story A Night at the “Well of Purity” was named a finalist of the 2007 Chicago Literary Awards. His wife is Anchee Min, the international, best-selling, award winning author of Red Azalea, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year (1992).

To follow this Blog via E-mail see upper right-hand column and click on “Sign me up!”

Stacy Lynn Kingsley's avatarBazaar Daily News

MODESTO, CALIF: According to Yahoo News,  18 year old Jordan Powers is stupid enough to have actually taken James Hooker back as her boyfriend even though he was arrested for oral copulation of a minor from back in the 90’s.,

Yahoo notes that the two have moved back in together despite the wishes of her mother Tammie Powers, whom I might add is knowingly soaking up the attention she’s received on Facebook.

I don’t condone this kinds of relationships, but this mum just irks me. She’s loving every bit of attention she’s getting.

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Posted by on April 19, 2012 in American Public Schools, child abuse, family values, media, Parenting, politics, Public School, student behavior, Teaching

 

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Modern-Day Witch Hunts and Vigilantes — the politically-correct Mob’s (sex) War against Teachers – Part 6/6

16 Apr

There may even be a benefit for an older man or woman to marry a younger person.

For three examples of famous relationships that have survived the test of time, there is Woody Allen, Celine Dion and Rupert Murdoch.

In 1991, when Allen’s relationship with Soon-Ye started, she was 21 and he was 56, and they are still married even with a 35 year age difference.

Woody Allen and Mia Farrow, who adopted Soon-Ye, had a son outside of marriage, and Ronan Seamus Farrow said of his biological father, “He’s my father married to my sister. That makes me his son and his brother-in-law. That is such a moral transgression. I cannot see him. I cannot have a relationship with my father and be morally consistent… I lived with all these adopted children, so they are my family. To say Soon-Yi was not my sister is an insult to all adopted children.”


Robert Murdoch (81) and Wendi Deng (44)

Then there is Celine Dion (born 1968), who married René Angélil (born 1942), her manager—a twenty-six year difference.

By all accounts, these marriages are doing well even with the age disparity and when a relationship doesn’t work out, there is always divorce, but a “UK study showed that while marriages between older men and younger women were more predominant in 1963, overall numbers have increased, including the number of marriages between older women and younger men. Although divorce rates continue to rise in the UK, divorce rates among married couples with an age difference do not show a disproportionate increase.”  Source: eHow.com, divorce rates age differences.

However, how can a relationship such as the one between James Hooker and Jordan Powers stand a chance when there is so much media attention and public pressure condemning this couple? When love is true, it transcends age.  When it is false, it doesn’t matter what the age is of the man and woman involved.

Internet and Psychiatry says, “An interesting study by German experts revealed that men who marry younger women enhance their chances of longevity, and those who tie the knot with older women meet a premature death. The analysis was carried by a research group at Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Rostock, Germany. The researchers looked at the deaths of the entire population of Denmark between 1990 and 2005. Danish men who marry women much younger than them live longer.

According to research, if a man marries a woman 15 and 17 years his junior, his chances of dying early are cut by one fifth. Also, it suggests that men cut the risk of premature death by 11 percent if their wives are seven to nine years younger. Another aspect highlighted by the study was that men who opted for older wives have an 11 percent higher chance of dying earlier.

Return to Part 5 of the Mob’s War Against Teachers or start with Part 1

_______________________

Lloyd Lofthouse is a former U.S. Marine and Vietnam Veteran,
who taught in the public schools for thirty years (1975 – 2005).

lloydlofthouse_crazyisnormal_web2_5His third book is Crazy is Normal, a classroom exposé, a memoir. “Lofthouse presents us with grungy classrooms, kids who don’t want to be in school, and the consequences of growing up in a hardscrabble world. While some parents support his efforts, many sabotage them—and isolated administrators make the work of Lofthouse and his peers even more difficult.” – Bruce Reeves

Lofthouse’s first novel was the award winning historical fiction My Splendid Concubine [3rd edition]. His second novel was the award winning thriller Running with the Enemy. His short story A Night at the “Well of Purity” was named a finalist of the 2007 Chicago Literary Awards. His wife is Anchee Min, the international, best-selling, award winning author of Red Azalea, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year (1992).

To follow this Blog via E-mail see upper right-hand column and click on “Sign me up!”

 
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Posted by on April 16, 2012 in American Public Schools, child abuse, family values, government, media, Parenting, politics, Public School, student behavior, Teaching

 

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Modern-Day Witch Hunts and Vigilantes — the politically-correct Mob’s (sex) War against Teachers – Part 5/6

15 Apr

According to the New York Times (2009), “An analysis of census data on age difference in marriages showed that the number of marriages between women who are at least 5 or 10 years older than their spouses is still small, 5.4  percent (about 6.5 million people) and 1.3 percent (1.6 million), respectively. But both rates doubled between 1960 and 2007, according to Andrew A. Beveridge, a demographer at Queens College, who conducted the analysis.”

If these statistics are true, then why did the police conduct an investigation of James Hooker discovering that fourteen years ago, he may have had oral sex with a 17 year old (when he was 27)?  His accuser is 31 today.  The police must have done a lot of digging to come up with this alleged victim of statutory oral sexual rape, which may have been illegally consensual.

If the police are going to investigate one relationship between an older man and younger woman, why not investigate them all—why was James Hooker singled out? In the US, millions of older men are having intimate relationships with younger women.

If the alleged oral sex did take place, was Hooker married at the time?  Did he meet the 17 year old in a bar and did she have false ID?  Did he meet her at all and is this woman lieing because she wants to break up Hooker’s relationship with Powers and punish this man by sending him to jail because he doesn’t live by her moral standards?


Breezy – Directed by Clink Eastwood and starring William Holden and Kay Lenz

Directed by Clint Eastwood, this is the story of a May-December romance between divorced middle-aged Frank Harmon (William Holden) and ditzy teenager Breezy (Kay Lenz). Frank finds Breezy sleeping on his porch, and eventually a friendship develops that leads to an affair. All goes well until Frank’s friends put pressure on him, and he ends his relationship with Breezy. But, when a friend dies, Frank realizes how important Breezy is in his life. He apologizes, and they live happily ever after.

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No matter what the verdict may be if this alleged crime goes to court, we will never know if this claim is true. What we do know is that Hooker has bad judgment, and he was a public school teacher. Falling in love with his former student before she graduated from high school and moving in with her was not a crime but it is turning out to be a nightmare for him and maybe many future teachers that fall in love with consensual adults that were once a student.

By the way, “alleged” means that Hooker has not been found guilty of what may have happened fourteen years ago. He claims he is innocent. In fact, if it is just his word against his accuser, how do we know the accusation is true?

In fact, if a judge and/or jury find Hooker guilty and send him to jail for twenty years to life, he may still be an innocent man. Innocent people are convicted of crimes all the time. The Innocent Project.org says that since the year 1989, two hundred and eighty nine convicted criminals serving prison sentences were found innocent due to DNA evidence… In addition, “False confessions and incriminating statements lead to wrongful convictions in approximately 25 percent of cases.”

In Hooker’s case, there is no DNA evidence—only the accusations of one 31 year old woman for something that may have happened 14 years ago.  Any expert of human memory can tell you that over time, our memories are not exact and accurate and often change. However, when tried in the court of public opinion, it doesn’t matter what the truth may be. What counts is the mob’s opinions.

Continued on April 16, 2012 in Part 6 of  the Mob’s War Against Teachers or return to Part 4

_______________________

Lloyd Lofthouse is a former U.S. Marine and Vietnam Veteran,
who taught in the public schools for thirty years (1975 – 2005).

lloydlofthouse_crazyisnormal_web2_5His third book is Crazy is Normal, a classroom exposé, a memoir. “Lofthouse presents us with grungy classrooms, kids who don’t want to be in school, and the consequences of growing up in a hardscrabble world. While some parents support his efforts, many sabotage them—and isolated administrators make the work of Lofthouse and his peers even more difficult.” – Bruce Reeves

Lofthouse’s first novel was the award winning historical fiction My Splendid Concubine [3rd edition]. His second novel was the award winning thriller Running with the Enemy. His short story A Night at the “Well of Purity” was named a finalist of the 2007 Chicago Literary Awards. His wife is Anchee Min, the international, best-selling, award winning author of Red Azalea, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year (1992).

To follow this Blog via E-mail see upper right-hand column and click on “Sign me up!”

 
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Posted by on April 15, 2012 in American Public Schools, child abuse, family values, government, media, Parenting, politics, student behavior, Teaching

 

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Modern-Day Witch Hunts and Vigilantes — the politically-correct Mob’s (sex) War against Teachers – Part 4/6

14 Apr

The worldwide age of consent ranges from age 12 to 21.

The male-female age of consent to have sexual relationships in most of the United States is 16. In China—which is supposed to be a so-called brutal dictatorship that suppresses individual freedoms—the age of consent is 14 and in Taiwan it is 16.

However, in Angola the age of consent is 12/15, and in Argentina it is 13/16, which must mean when a woman starts having her period and is capable of having children between those ages, the age of consent applies. In Botswana the age of consent is 16 for girls and 14 for boys.

In fact, the most common age of consent around the globe is the age of 16—even in the United States where the age of consent ranges from 14 (one state, Arkansas) to 18, only seven of the fifty states have 18 as the age of consent. California is one of them.

In France, the age of consent is 15. In the UK it is 16. In Yemen there is no age of consent but the couple must be married to have sex. While it is legal for men to have sex with men and women to have sex with women in the US, there are many countries where this is illegal. Source: Avert.org, Age of Consent


“Harold and Maude” – 1971 cult classic movie – the sexual relationship between an 80 year old woman and a young man in his early 20s.

In the News: American Idol judge and superstar Jennifer Lopes (42) is dating a man that is age 25, and Chris Noth (57), the “Sex and the City” star,  married Tara Wilson age 30. When Noth started dating Wilson she was 20 and he was 47.

In 2010, Harrison Ford married Calista Flockhart. He was 67 and she was 45. Then there is Clint Eastwood, who has fathered at least seven children by five different women. Eastwood’s current wife is 35 years younger than he is.

James Hooker (age 41) and Jordan Powers (18), with 23 years between their ages, exercised poor judgment in acting before she graduated from high school. If the couple had waited a few more months until after she graduated from high school, the media uproar probably wouldn’t have happened and the politically correct mob led by Powers’ vengeful mother wouldn’t be supporting California’s Bill 1861whitch is threatening another American freedom that also discriminates against teachers.

Jordan Powers is not the first young woman to fall in love with an older man. In fact, younger men sometimes fall in love with older women.

Medicine Net.com says, “While no statistics are readily available, older man-younger woman couples have long existed and may be becoming more prevalent and more socially acceptable. In certain Hollywood and corporate circles, especially among financially successful men, the practice is so common that these younger women, usually second wives, have been given the disparaging nickname of ‘trophy wives’.”

However, MedicineNet.com was wrong. There are statistics.

Continued on April 15, 2012 in Part 5 of  the Mob’s War Against Teachers or return to Part 3

_______________________

Lloyd Lofthouse is a former U.S. Marine and Vietnam Veteran,
who taught in the public schools for thirty years (1975 – 2005).

lloydlofthouse_crazyisnormal_web2_5His third book is Crazy is Normal, a classroom exposé, a memoir. “Lofthouse presents us with grungy classrooms, kids who don’t want to be in school, and the consequences of growing up in a hardscrabble world. While some parents support his efforts, many sabotage them—and isolated administrators make the work of Lofthouse and his peers even more difficult.” – Bruce Reeves

Lofthouse’s first novel was the award winning historical fiction My Splendid Concubine [3rd edition]. His second novel was the award winning thriller Running with the Enemy. His short story A Night at the “Well of Purity” was named a finalist of the 2007 Chicago Literary Awards. His wife is Anchee Min, the international, best-selling, award winning author of Red Azalea, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year (1992).

To follow this Blog via E-mail see upper right-hand column and click on “Sign me up!”

 
7 Comments

Posted by on April 14, 2012 in American Public Schools, child abuse, family values, government, media, Parenting, politics, Public School, student behavior, Teaching

 

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Modern-Day Witch Hunts and Vigilantes — the politically-correct Mob’s (sex) War against Teachers – Part 3/6

13 Apr

According to About.com, eighteen is a magic birthday, a milestone into adulthood accompanied by great privileges as well as serious legal implications. At 18, a teen can vote, buy a house or wed his high school sweetheart (however, if Jordan Powers’ mother has her way, that list will not include former teachers). Once one is eighteen, he or she can also go to jail, get sued, gamble away his or her tuition via online poker, and make terrible stock market investments – just like anyone else that is the same age or older. That’s because an 18-year-old is considered an adult in nearly every state in the union (except for the mother of Jordan Powers).


Young Women – Older Men

To prove the fact that teachers are discriminated against, on Snopes.com message board you will discover comments that provide evidence of this double standard that has plagued teachers in the United States for more than a century.

It isn’t as bad as it was a century ago, but the discrimination against teachers still exists and may be getting worse.

For example at Snopes.com (find the link in a previous paragraph), you will read: “When my grandmother married my grandfather in 1928, she resigned her position because ‘married women could not teach school'” … “A schoolteacher must never be seen patronizing a tavern or ale house.” … “Some of the articles I dug up quoted people who maintained that they had female relatives who, as late as the 1950s, had to resign their teaching positions when they got married.” Source: Snopes.com

In fact, when I first started teaching in 1975, the Southern California school district where I worked did not allow dating between teachers that worked at the same school, and if two teachers working at the same school did marry, one of them had to transfer to another school in the district. Later, in the 1980s, that rule was abolished.


Older women looking for younger men.

In the first half of the 20th century, the Lewis Country Board of Education in West Virginia adopted the following policy: “That no married woman will be employed by the Board to teach during the school year 1934-35, and if it is discovered that any lady teacher was married at the time of her appointment or gets married at any time during the school term, her position will immediately be declared vacant.” Source: wvculture.org

These examples prove that America has always had a double standard where teachers are concerned, and it is obvious that James Hooker is a victim of this discrimination, which is similar to how many loving gay/lesbian couples are often treated by many mainstream, average Americans (according to the latest US Census data, about 132,000 same-sex couples are married in the United States, while 515,000 are unmarried but live together).

Continued on April 14, 2012 in Part 4 of  the Mob’s War Against Teachers or return to Part 2

_______________________

Lloyd Lofthouse is a former U.S. Marine and Vietnam Veteran,
who taught in the public schools for thirty years (1975 – 2005).

lloydlofthouse_crazyisnormal_web2_5His third book is Crazy is Normal, a classroom exposé, a memoir. “Lofthouse presents us with grungy classrooms, kids who don’t want to be in school, and the consequences of growing up in a hardscrabble world. While some parents support his efforts, many sabotage them—and isolated administrators make the work of Lofthouse and his peers even more difficult.” – Bruce Reeves

Lofthouse’s first novel was the award winning historical fiction My Splendid Concubine [3rd edition]. His second novel was the award winning thriller Running with the Enemy. His short story A Night at the “Well of Purity” was named a finalist of the 2007 Chicago Literary Awards. His wife is Anchee Min, the international, best-selling, award winning author of Red Azalea, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year (1992).

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Posted by on April 13, 2012 in American Public Schools, child abuse, family values, government, media, Parenting, politics, Public School, student behavior, Teaching

 

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Modern-Day Witch Hunts and Vigilantes — the politically-correct Mob’s (sex) War against Teachers – Part 2/6

12 Apr

America’s Founding Fathers warned the American people about the dangers of the democratic mob when they created a republic (not a democracy), but we didn’t learn from them and allowed the United States to become a democracy early in the 20th century.

Now thanks to one furious mother that refuses to let her child have the freedom the law provides when a child becomes an adult at 18 years of age, California may join 23 other states where some may lose the freedom to fall in love with an older man or woman that is a former teacher.

Should falling in love with a consenting adult age 18 or older be a crime?

“Almost half of the world’s prisoners are in the United States (2.29 million), China (1.65 million sentenced prisoners), or Russia (0.81 million) – countries which account for just over a quarter of the world’s population…” Source: Prison Studies.org

The US is listed as # ONE with 743 prisoners per 100,000 people, the Russian Federation is # FIVE with 534 prisoners per 100,000 and China is # 117 with 122 prisoners per 100,000. Source: List of Countries by Incarceration Rate – Wiki

Since America is a country that often loudly announces it is the ‘land of the free’, being number one in this category should be an embarrassment casting a serious doubt on this claim.

It isn’t as if older men having relationships with a younger woman is anything new. These types of relationships may be rare compared to the average, but there are individuals that do find love with an older partner and it works.

How is this different from a relationship between two consenting adult gay men or women?

However, if Kristin Olsen’s Bill 1861 becomes law in California, 18-year-old high school girls or boys may still fall in love with any other older man or woman—no matter how old—as long as he or she isn’t a teacher.

If California joins the states that have removed this freedom of choice for legal consenting adults, 24 states may then send teachers to jail just because he or she had the audacity to fall in love (or lust) with a consenting 18 or older adult that was once a student.

I know of one teacher that worked at the same high school where I taught for almost twenty years. He married his wife soon after she graduated from that same high school.  He was in his late twenties when she was his student and they started dating the following year, with the parents’ consent (the parents also acted as chaperones—the two never went on a date alone), when she was sixteen. That was in the 1980s, and that couple has had several children and are still happily married almost thirty years later. In fact, that older teacher wanted his younger wife to stay at home and raise the kids so he worked other job besides teaching to pay the bills. He sacrificed for the younger woman he loved.

In addition, I knew another teacher at the same high school that married a 19 year old former student that attended the same school, and when they married a year or more after the younger woman graduated, the teacher was in his 50s.  A few years later, that marriage ended in an amicable divorce. The older man even voluntarily requested that the judge make the alimony higher.

Isn’t that what we have divorce for? If we make a mistake and/or fall out of love with someone we married (no matter what age they are), we have the option of divorce. Being age 18 or over means we have the right to make mistakes and learn from them without a parent interfering by pushing for punitive laws that will send more people to prison.

Continued on April 13, 2012 in Part 3 of the Mob’s War against Teachers or return to Part 1

_______________________

Lloyd Lofthouse is a former U.S. Marine and Vietnam Veteran,
who taught in the public schools for thirty years (1975 – 2005).

lloydlofthouse_crazyisnormal_web2_5His third book is Crazy is Normal, a classroom exposé, a memoir. “Lofthouse presents us with grungy classrooms, kids who don’t want to be in school, and the consequences of growing up in a hardscrabble world. While some parents support his efforts, many sabotage them—and isolated administrators make the work of Lofthouse and his peers even more difficult.” – Bruce Reeves

Lofthouse’s first novel was the award winning historical fiction My Splendid Concubine [3rd edition]. His second novel was the award winning thriller Running with the Enemy. His short story A Night at the “Well of Purity” was named a finalist of the 2007 Chicago Literary Awards. His wife is Anchee Min, the international, best-selling, award winning author of Red Azalea, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year (1992).

To follow this Blog via E-mail see upper right-hand column and click on “Sign me up!”

 
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Posted by on April 12, 2012 in American Public Schools, child abuse, Education, family values, government, media, Parenting, politics, Public School, student behavior, Teaching

 

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