RECENTLY ON TOL:
TOL Our Town
- A tumblr site dedicated to the people and places that make up Oregon and Southwest Washington.
TAGS:
mahalu's comments:
on The Role of Unions
Scott,
What a informing perspective you have presented. I hadn't thought about this and yes it's true for me too.
For myself I think most real learning is done outside of the "enforced classroom time" these days. Kids (and adults) learn from so many sources now, so much more exposure to so much.
And the real critical ingredient to me is the quality and quantity of time in the personal relationship with a teacher. This mostly does not last for any length of time in the school building environment.
posted 2 years, 2 months ago
view in context
on The Role of Unions
Unions served a purpose and now they are the problem. They drag down everything they are involved in. They are ruining our state and nation. They serve themselves.
Take a look at the people you know in a union and ask yourself if they are even remotely happy and satisfied in their jobs.
The union protects the long term survivors and incompetent at the expense of promoting a independent creative work place for all its workers. The union has to keep control of it's money trough which are the mandatory dues paying members. You don't keep your job without paying your dues. There are work rules, etc. And the union indoctrinates it's membership in how to think and encourages their dependency on them.
An individual is not evaluated on their own merit.
Unions couldn't care less about the quality of education or the other services/products it has control over.
What passes as public education is little more than control over parents right to educate their children so the union keeps control of the money flow.
All the public employees that hate corporations and their waste of monies should look in the mirror at their corporate unions.
posted 2 years, 2 months ago
view in context
on Sealing the Cracks in Foster Care
One immediate action that could be taken to help foster kids would be to grant them and their foster families a choice in schools. Right now they are moved from school to school. Just when they need stability they don't have it.
If they had school choice, including private options, a school system could develop that would be able to provide more hours of education, recreation and all around stability. Perhaps more families could step up to be foster parents when they had more support for the daily care and development of a child put in the situation of needing state intervention for protection.
A school choice that had longer days and a more constant schedule would help working parents take on the job of fostering a child.
These kids need a chance to develop stable relationships with mature people that can only develop over time. Right now that can't happen with the large, quixotic school system and at minimum yearly turnover of teachers.
Today in Salem there is a vote to allow people to donate so scholarships can be provided for kids, including foster kids, House Bill 2291, to have more choice in education. Anyone who cares about these kids should let their reps know they support this choice. It will actually save the state dollars.
posted 2 years, 2 months ago
view in context
on Live from Salem
There was a time on line school saved our child and family. When our son was in a 'mandatory seat time school' he needed a Special Ed plan, thus lots of more costs to the tax player but of no benefit to our child.
On line school was great, we had a teacher guide who watched over his academic progress and he made far more progress on line than in the 'sit down' school with its erractic schedule.
Please school choice is great for children, for families, for society and the tax payer.
posted 2 years, 3 months ago
view in context
on Closing & Consolidating Schools
Education has changed since the model we have going now was established. The acquisition of knowledge/information is not sufficient anymore or even the most important thing. The internet puts more and better data/information at everyones fingertips.
What kids need to learn is reading, writing and math. They need to learn critical thinking, assess data and do something with it. No one learns these higher functions except in long term relationships.
Families, kids and parents need year round solutions in learning.
The dinosaur system we have needs to die.
And putting more kids on fewer campuses is a recipe for disaster.
posted 2 years, 3 months ago
view in context
on Football!
On the tragedy in Arizona I think it needs a lot more attention than a football game. We have to change the way things are discussed. I say this because the morning after the shooting. I was shocked to receive an email from a relative (with strong anti government leanings) that she labeled as "Lol This is too funny" and then when I opened it it was a animated sketch of another politician getting pounded on the head by a very large gavel until she disappeared.
This has just got to change.
posted 2 years, 4 months ago
view in context
on Bullying in School
One of the root causes of 'bullying' is the depersonalization that happens in the large schools we have. No body belongs anywhere. Everyone is stressed out by all the other people and stuff going on. Bells ringing at least every 50 minutes, lots and lots of kids rushing through halls to get to the next place they need to be for the next 50 minutes and this is repeated 5, 6, 7 times a day with a different adult with different rules and expectations in front of them each time.
There is no relationships built because there isn't any time for it. The system is set up like a factory. Human beings are treated like you can just dump information into them. If you treat humans with no dignity and not worth knowing they learn that. Bullying is what happens when the society's veneer wears thin.
We are getting more super large schools, the outcome will be more bullying. It's sad I know and the people in charge know too. Cliques and football teams are just slightly tamer versions of street gangs. In seeking to belong somewhere they have to hate the outsider to protect their status.
Parents need to not support a school system that does this to human beings. If enough parents just say no to the system it will change but if we keep sending our kids into what ever they offer it will not change.
posted 2 years, 7 months ago
view in context
on Bullying in School
Bullying is not something that just happens to Gays and Lesbians. And there is actually a lot of support for them.
I think we need to address bullying and the causes of it from a much larger perspective. Don't make it a me against them thing.
Also it is kinda disturbing your statements. "Many of the girls had identified numerous closeted boys in the school. Being called gay, whether real of perceived gay for a boy, is the worst form of bullying." That seems like bullying itself, to say that one can identify someones sexual appetites and call them closeted. How is it any of anybodies bussiness but the individual?
Let just all give each other some space. And not be so quick to categorize people.
posted 2 years, 7 months ago
view in context
on Day After the Debate
Everything you said about the Conservatives should be changed to those in power, Democrats and Republicans alike. There is no real difference in what they do when they have power.
The best we can do is try and keep it balanced. The Democrats in Oregon with no Republicans to balance them will not do what is right in the long term because the special interests that got them elected won't let them. Good government is best with opposing forces to help the best ideas move forward. A Republican governor will have a lot of counter balancing forces. I expect good things.
posted 2 years, 7 months ago
view in context
on Day After the Debate
I gave to the Kitzhaber campaign, now I am voting for Dudley. As a strategy we need more balance in Salem.
I am liberal, Dudley is ok on the social issues and he will give us more school choices. And a better shot at keeping on line education available to all who want it. Kitzhaber has to protect the unions.
posted 2 years, 7 months ago
view in context
on Going to School Online
No, we need more options, not fewer. And the best schools are smaller schools. There are lots of different kinds of learners. More choice is what we need.
Even teachers would vastly appreciate more varied work environments.
posted 3 years, 2 months ago
view in context
on Going to School Online
Our son was educated on line after the local school district completely failed him. All I can say is it was a great learning experience academically. Also it made our day so much more relaxed he was able to do lots more extra curricular activities he never would have had the energy to do if he was in a 'regular high school'. Akikdo, ball room dancing, drum lesson, table top gaming, and field trips exploring the city.
He also did a lot with home schoolers including such things as making up a survey to evaluate awareness of policy issues and went around, (during mid morning-early afternoon), interviewing and surveying the adults that would talk with them.
Our whole k-12 system was developed to support US workers movement away from the farm to needing to be in a factory. The industrialization of the 1900's no longer is a good model to prepare young people for the world.
The real problem is political. The teachers union does not support students learning if it doesn't make their system and teachers more money. All one can do is quit sacrificing their children's future and remove themselves from the system it is impossible to change it.
We need to teach reading, writing and math and then let kids develop along their own lines and abilities.
posted 3 years, 2 months ago
view in context
on Facebook Comes to Prineville
An interesting aspect of these new jobs that are the future is that they don't require or need for you to have a college degree. Running a data structure requires aptitude and skills that one does not acquire in our school system. This infrastructure is so important that employers must look for a particular kind of person and their skill set. They don't care if they graduated from college if they prove their abilities. Abilities that they cannot learn in a college.
These are good jobs and ones you won't be spending your earnings paying off college loans.
posted 3 years, 3 months ago
view in context
on Tax Measures
This is incredible, your saying God wants us to vote Yes, that is truly absurd. You have NO direct line to god. This is your opinion. really how dare you
We need complete separation of church and state, ahm I thought we had that, how dare you, use your position of esteem and authority to tell people what God wants.
It is obviously debatable what 66 & 67 will do.
FYI I think God would reject this money grubbing.
posted 3 years, 3 months ago
view in context
on Tax Measures
writerjoe,
I believe in taxes. I don't believe in giving alcholics more drink and that is what we are doing when we bow once again to our inept gov't officials and just give them more money.
Part of the problem is that an education delivered by government is bogus. The antiquated lecture style is still the predominant mode of inprisioning, ahm holding our children, in our k 12 system. The whole thing is designed for the benefit of a people that died and now is being perpetuated by the benefactors of the system, not for the needs of the people. Have you talked to a current student lately? for most kids schools is a drudge or a place to be bullied.
We need education/prison/government reform. Feeding the monster is wrong.
posted 3 years, 3 months ago
view in context
on Tax Measures
I want to vote NO so that we can talk about the changes needed in education and how the public powers that be fight a lot of good changes, like charter schools, like on line schools and other alternatives. I would like students AND teachers to have more choices.
Public schools are where they tell you what to think, not how to use your own mind.
Also I want to see the state deal with the studded tires in the Portland area that ruin roads every year to the cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars and don't work well in the majority of our winter weather anyway.
I want to see gov't have to learn/be incentivized to work with the different levels of gov't so we don't have jail space at one level underutilized and at another level crowded.
Public employees are just out of touch and more taxes are not the way to go. We need to open up to our real problems.
posted 3 years, 3 months ago
view in context
on Tax Measures
I think you can change your vote until the day of the election. Can someone validate (or not) if that is true and then what the process is to change your ballot.
posted 3 years, 3 months ago
view in context
on Measure 66
On the surface, just like the politicians in Salem believed, it should be easy to vote to tax others. Neither of these measures would affect me directly. However I see how our state is controlled by corporate/Democrats single interest politics of protecting their own as the primary driver in everything they do. And then most of the state workers feel resentful,unappreciated and underpaid, constantly broadcasting how hard they work.
There is so much waste and abuse through out government. Downsizing seems like the best idea. The way the governor held onto his gifts to the energy providers, does anyone not expect him to go to work for them at the end of his tenure?
Abuses of power are entrenched in the state and prevent improvement and transformation. This year the teachers union has worked hard to shut down Charter schools. Holding them to standards they don't hold themselves. Now through legislative rules the teachers union is also conniving to force the death of the growing on line charter schools. They are creating death by paperwork by establishing deadlines that are impossible to meet.
Oh and should we expect to again see the state take a part of The Oregon Cultural Trust funds, the money that people donate under the idea that it is for specific purposes, again be taken to fill their own wishes.
So it is with this despair at the extent of the failure of our leaders that I will vote against these additional taxes. Giving more money is just enabling those in power.
Lots of families suffer now under the tyrannical out dated education system we have. Teachers by allowing their Union to destroy alternative ways to educate have failed themselves. I don't even see teachers having a meaningful voice in their own representation. Alot of the changes that citizens try to enact into the education system would benefit teachers by giving them more avenues to practice in but the powers that be are too entrenched.
We need to downsize the bureaucracy. The sky will not fall down if Salem doesn't get more money. Relax, breathe, everything is going to be ok and we can hope to have less folks interfering with reinvention and alternatives.
posted 3 years, 4 months ago
view in context
on Police Matters
Since the rule was changed some years ago that Portland Police did not have to live within the city boundaries more and more of our police come from outside. They only come to Portland to work.
It is a us vs them attitude because that is what it has become. Many police don't disguise their disgust for Portland. We need to police ourselves. We need all new hire police to have to live in Portland like they used to be.
This is good economics (the taxes we pay stay in the city), good for the environment (less commuting), and better knowledge of the community (their our neighbors).
posted 3 years, 5 months ago
view in context
on Cuts to Corrections
Having a close relative who is a career criminal, he's been in jail most of his adult life, I see the problem in a different way. The one thing that never happened for this kid was to take responsibility for his actions. Even when he spent 9 years in a row on one charge he never accepted any responsibility for his actions (armed bank robbery). He (and his mom) spent his whole time working on trying to get off, get out on a technicality, good behavior, anything but admit he had made a mistake and needed help repairing his life. Oh he did become a raging born again christian and racial bigot, even though he himself has mixed blood.
The system always returns him to his mother and they are a totally poisonous relationship. Returning him to family is a big mistake and hurts all the other members. Also no one in the family can help him everything is too complicated. I know he will commit a crime to go back to jail, he has been out 6 months now. I think it is the only place he feels safe. It contains him. Lots of bad things happened to him but he has never dealt with it. His mother protects him and won't let him grow up even though she doesn't know it.
He actually does pretty well in prison because he has the structure and disclpiline he needs.
He scares me. He is the kind of guy who picks fights and gets beat up at the same time.
Oh and it is so easy to scam a parole officer even though harder than before.
posted 3 years, 7 months ago
view in context
