Murdering Our Children

Since 2000, 500 kids have been shot and killed in Detroit.  I believe that's just the city, not including the suburbs, which would add to this appalling number.  That's almost 3 a month!  What is with us?

The latest was an 8-year old shot while sleeping.  Some derelict, who has learned to believe that he can shoot somebody if he is "dissed" or isn't given something he wants or you name it, opened fire with a high-powered rifle.  A bullet struck the kid.

I know the argument about guns--far too many of them out there with far too many people who shouldn't have them.  But does anyone think that if we move to get rid of guns, these derelicts will give up theirs?

What about--and I'm continuing to beat this horse and will until it's dead--changing the culture of violence, of thinking so little of human lives that it's permissible to take them for so trivial reasons?  Someone has shoes or a jacket you want?  Just shoot him or her and take it.  Someone insulted you or you think insulted you?  Just shoot him or her to take back your street cred.

I have no data, none, but I must think that television, movies, video games, and even some types of music have heavily influenced this culture of violence.  We know advertising on television, etc. influences people's actions and attitudes.  So, why then wouldn't all the violence in these media and games also influence people's actions and attitudes?

Where are Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, and their ilk on this?  Why aren't they leading the black communities out of this morass?  For that matter, where is the President?  Wasn't he a "community leader?"  Isn't a President supposed to lead?  How can they find issues more pressing than the epidemic of shooting and killing our kids??????  Of course, I have my ideas where these so-called "leaders" are.  I won't offer what I think, but I think you can guess.  They are some of the reasons why we have reached a state of moral mud.

Violence?  How about in Gaza?  And what are the LameStreams and the Obama Administration doing about that?  (I will omit the United Nations, for obvious reasons.)  For one thing, they are rewarding terrorists.  Hamas, a terrorist organization, engages in regular/periodic attacks on Israel and Israelis and it's the Israelis of whom demands for concessions are made.  How irrational is that?  It reminds me of a local elementary school principal and his way of handling bullies in his school.  When the bullies disrupted games on the playground, instead of punishing them, he let them pick the teams and make the rules!  I am not making this up, not at all.  This was his solution, to give the bullies "ownership," whatever the heck he meant by that.  And by rewarding the bullies, did this principal end the bullying?  Of course not; he encouraged even more of it.  And some of us wonder why our schools are in the sad shape they are......  Look no farther than your local administrator.  (OK, some of our teachers, too.)

Speaking of schools, when did it become "smart" to make education resemble video games?  That's what is happening, you know.  Oh, the euphemism is "technology."  It's taken over classrooms and whole schools.  There are virtual schools, where students don't have to take off their pajamas for class.  (Oh, for that matter, many schools let kids where their PJs to school now and not only on special days!)  I've written about the new god, "Technology," and how anyone who questions it immediately dismissed as a Neanderthal, Luddite, or worse.  (There is a place for technology in education, but it's not the place it's now given.  It is where it is now because, well, "follow the money.")  I know, I know, we have to make education "relevant."  Courses/Classes need to touch students, to grab their attention, and all that rigamarole.  Students have to learn at their own paces.   Hogwash!  When did it become smart to allow students to determine the parameters of education?  What do students know?  Of course, we might ask this question.  What do educators know if they let this occur and, in fact, encourage it?

And I wonder why I get headaches!  (Actually, I don't believe in headaches; I don't get them.)