-A- Prescription for America - Some Thoughts. 9/4/17
Attacks on America
from within & from outside leave us vulnerable. And with all the
acrimony in politics, social media and cultural differences these days, its
hard to remember that we are all more alike than we are different. We are all people.
I'm old. Grew up in Chicago. At 7 & 8 years old, walked a mile to
school past a high school by myself every day.
No worries, no issues. A few
years ago, students got into an argument outside that high school & a
shooting took place. Way different than
my childhood.
These days a lot
of attention is placed on testing in schools.
But we really need kids to learn citizenship. And that seems missing. We
need kids from early on to learn about some things regularly; not just
once. We expect this to be done by
parents, but that isn't working as it needs to be.
This is a big
order, but:
School Curriculum's nationwide need to be standardized to include these topics:
- American history. Why we exist.
- Respect. Yourself & others. Attitude.
- Morality. What is it? How do we show it?
- Personal Responsibility for yourself & your actions.
- Critical thinking.
- Continuing civics, democracy.
- Our Constitution, bill of rights, amendments
- Conflict resolution, Ways to de-escalate arguments, Over-reacting
- Cultural differences. Tolerence, of others & different ideas
- Working w/ others, teamwork
- Resolving problems & differences
- How to compromise & why it's important
- World political systems, what each brings
- What is democracy & what it means to us
- Hazing, bullying & why it's damaging & wrong
These need to be
incorporated & stressed & repeated from grades 1-12.
No years off. No waivers. No excuses.
We need to get Our
America back on track.
As Walt Kelly's
Pogo stated:
"We have met the enemy and he is us".
"We have met the enemy and he is us".
