Partial mystery solved and a concept a long time coming...

Any of you remember the young man that Hubby nicknamed, ‘Walkie Talkie’?
He’s the fellow that had become a staple in our neighborhood walking our circular block several times a day. Anywho… Hubby’s old deputy buddy stopped by a while a go and so Hubby mentioned the young fellow to his old cop chum. And today he stopped by while Hubby was on his riding lawn mower out front cutting our lawn and told Hubby about the kid.
It turns out that ‘Walkie Talkie’, does have a name but both men could not remember it and that really doesn’t matter what does is to know that he is not homeless. The young fellow lives with his Mom around the corner from us, and he is heavily medicated due to being mentally ill and his psychiatrist had told him when he became anxious to go for a walk, and so I guess he is anxious often. In the long run though it was determined that he was basically harmless. The deputy was invited into their home and told that he could examine whatever he wanted to, and he found only the prescribed medication.
Let’s put it this way…If I had been outside, at the time I would have been more detailed in acquiring the information about the young man, you all know about nosey me.

New topic…
The other thing that has boggled my mind for years and years is teachers with tenure.

“The act, right, manner, or term of holding something (as a landed property, a position, or an office) especiallya status granted after a trial period to a teacher that gives protection from summary dismissal.” Thanks to Webster’s Dictionary Definition.

I knew when my sons were students back in the late 1970’s and during the 1980’s that it had gotten out of hand when one of the teachers hurt my six year old child’s feelings so bad by calling him stupid he wasn’t able to sleep at night for weeks and when I told the principal of his elementary school and the response was a cold one that their hands were tied since that teacher had ‘tenure’!
I complained regularly whenever I saw or was told about injustices in our schools and even was on top of that bully thing way back then; our sons were popular in spite of what many may think about that with many friends we had over often. And both did very well in school and are college grads today, so no harm no foul. I think parents are as intimidated as some of their children are made to feel, but may I suggest, don’t be, they need your smart loving intervention at times. Or get them out of that class or school even move if you have to; remember your child comes first!

Now, this week we have a new movie, “Waiting for Superman”, which if I understand correctly is all about that and how our American schools and children are failing due to not enough parental, teacher and student support of each other. We are down to ninth in the world for students graduating from high school. And how too many bad teachers have gotten away with continuing to do their best to undermine the success of the students for their personal gain of not being able to lose their jobs due to tenure or due to falling through the cracks by intimidation of others or whatever. And that some city school systems feel that their hands are tied in respect to hiring better teachers! Well, I am happy to say the film addresses all of this and more, hallelujah, and it’s about time I say!
May I suggest all parents and grandparents go to see it even if your child goes to a ‘good school’, it is a documentary style 'true' movie; Here’s the link to the New York Magazine‘s article on the story: copy and paste: http://nymag.com/news/features/67966/

As I said my sons were students in decades that have past and also so far I have no grandchildren, believe me if I had any say in that I would have had them years ago! LOL!
But even so I do believe awareness and some shame goes along with this reality of our failing school systems.
And we as taxpayers and voters should be made more aware of what is what and try our darndest to do whatever we can about this obscenity in our public education system!
Ninth, we were at one time first in the world in education.
Sadly, with as poorly as we think we are doing economically this is even more shameful when we let our children down. What can we do about it? I hear you all yelling!
Well, first of all…see if you have a neighbor in need of your help and start there, then we can volunteer to help parents who are overwhelmed with too much this or that, or perhaps too little. Sometimes parents need a break, and teachers do too.
When I first moved to this state our sons were ten and fourteen years old and they had a program in the schools called VIP which is an acronym for Volunteers in the public schools and so I got involved. There are programs all over the country for parents to get involved on their day off from work or even after school, just ask.
You all remember the controversial comment which for some became a mantra; ‘it takes a village”, quote from our Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. Well, I don’t know who agreed or not, but she was right when it comes to our schools and children we all should feel the need to pitch in.
Let’s put it to you this way… a well educated child rarely if ever ends up in jail or on welfare.
And so if we put the time in to these young men and women our lives not only theirs will be that much better for it if you want to go the selfish route, but I say whatever works!

Who doesn’t want a better world with more people involved in contributing to its success!

On that happy note and Mark Zuckerberg’s who is the CEO and founder of Facebook and was responsible for his generous donation of 100 million to Newark New Jersey’s school system for them to fix their schools where their children now only 50% graduate and so I will wish you all a happy good night and to all suggest counting those blessings and perhaps share some, and we will too!

Next time be here or be square, OK?