President Obama Is Looking To Extend The School Year

There is a difference between listening to your allies and following them. Part of the analysis will be based on what is in the best interests of your allies. But at the end of the day, any leaders ultimate responsibility is to his/her own country. There may be times when what is in one country's best interests may not be what some (or even all) of its allies want to do (because its not in their own best interests). And relative powers of the countries and inter-dependencies will usually play a role because foreign policy decisions many times do not involve black/white or right/wrong decisions.

It seems to me that "everybody's doing it" is pretty poor justification for a country that wants to lead instead of follow.

I believe the argument people have is that the US is the only one acting that way-- that everyone else wants to play nice together and get along and sing Kumbaya, but we're messing that up by being bossy and arrogant. I was pointing out that many other countries act in their own self-interest first, no matter what treaties and organizations they belong to.

It's really nothing new, Stalin took Roosevelt's ass across at Yalta, and we paid for that for the next 45 years.

GoBucks89 said:
There may be times when what is in one country's best interests may not be what some (or even all) of its allies want to do (because its not in their own best interests).

I think people underestimate the self-interest value of having allies.

I think you mean "misunderestimate". ;)

Thereis a difference between listening to your allies and following them.Part of the analysis will be based on what is in the best interests ofyour allies. But at the end of the day, any leaders ultimateresponsibility is to his/her own country. There may be times when whatis in one country's best interests may not be what some (or even all)of its allies want to do (because its not in their own best interests).

Did you forget that the invasion of Iraq was based on corporate interests?

^^^ Meaning?

OhioStater said:
Did you forget that the invasion of Iraq was based on corporate interests?

Really? Do you have any proof showing that was the case? I'm sure Bush sent hundreds of thousands of people overseas so a company could make money. Yea that makes a lot of sense.

Here's a link to some basic info of what I was referring to; the tip of the iceberg, if you will.

In your spare time, take a gander at Halliburton/KBR, CACI, Titan, and Blackwater. They are still in "Shock and Awe" over how well they have done.

You want better schools, then stop forcing children who have no interest in learning from attending (past a certain grade level). I get so ticked off when I think about how my tax dollars are wasted on kids who have no interest in learning. Not to mention the distrubtion they cause for the people who are really trying to learn. Make those kids get a real job and concentrate on the kids (and parents) that are committed to education.

Black helicopters have been reported in the area.... :)

I think it would be very helpful if schools had the ability to kick disruptive kids out (they do now but its too limited). Not sure what you do with those kids (maybe put them in trade schools though I doubt they will want to learn their either) but to me that is a lesser concern. Kids who want to learn and who are trying should be the focus.

Since when do kids always know what they want? Yeah, lets kick kids out of school if they act up, since they obviously don't deserve to be a part of society!

Never said we should kick kids who simply act up out of school. But if kids repeatedly show no interest in learning and are disruptive to the point that they keep other kids who want to learn from learning, I think they should be removed from the schools and placed somewhere else. How is it fair to the kids who want to learn and their parents if they are prevented from doing so by kids who don't?

And back to one of the first posts I made in this thread about parents. Many kids (I suspect most) are not driven to learn. Left to their own devices, they probably would skip school, goof off while there, study little and learn little. As you note, kids typically are too young to know whats best for them. But most kids have parents who care and who make sure they to go school, study and learn. And most kids who have parents who will take action if their kid goofs off too much at school. There is no substitute in terms of teachers, buildings, technology, books, etc. for parents (or another relative/close friend) who cares.

All of the kids will at some point become part of society. But our goal should be having as many productive members of society as possible. Removing the chronically disruptive kids with no interest in learning will increase the number of other kids who actually will learn (because now they can). And some of the removed kids likely will be better off as well. A new environment may benefit them. If there is a higher teach/student ratio, they may also be benefited. And having a different curriculum (one geared more towards vocational training maybe) may also benefit them. They are not getting much out of high school now (other than 4 years older) and are hurting kids who actually do want to learn (or at least whose parents will make sure that they learn).

RPM said:
I get so ticked off when I think about how my tax dollars are wasted on kids who have no interest in learning.

Isn't that pretty much most kids since the dawn of time?

Except for the wasted part.

Personally, I think this is a symptom of a larger, systemic problem.

Have you ever met a very young child who did not want to learn?

It seems to me that humans are born with an innate curiosity, a desire to learn about their surroundings, to figure out how to get along in the world. That natural curiosity is there. So what do we do to our children when we send them to school that shuts down this natural desire? If we could figure out how to exploit that innate curiosity instead of shutting it down, our schools would be quite a bit more effective.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

Teaching them to pass a test is probably more curiosity crushing than anything.

Can I get an Amen to that?

Not only is it curiosity crushing to the students, it does the same to the teachers. This is one of the ripple effects of NCLB in many (not all) school districts.

My friend Dan has been a 5th grade teacher in a rural elementary school for nearly 20 years. For the past 5 years, his homeroom activities, etc have been completely stripped and taken out of his control. His "job" is to teach the math portion of the proficiency tests (yes, I realize they changed the name because of the neg. connotation to the prof. tests).

Had he known the changes this policy would have on his career, he never would have done it.

I think the biggest difference is that when you are a very young kid, you pretty much get to be curious/learn about whatever you want for however how long you want. You can play with the box the toy or game came in because it interests you more. And when that bores you, you move on to something else. No one really cares or will dictate that. But when you go to school, you do not get to pick the subjects and the length of time you study them and cannot move on to something else whenver you want. I think the existence of a structure has the biggest impact.

I suspect that for every kid who is sitting right now in a classroom totally shut down to learning about math, science, history, etc., there is something that kid has an interest in and has learned much about. Let them focus on subjects that interest them and they probably will learn a lot more. But would they learn things that are useful? Maybe they would learn things that are at least as equally useful as much of what is currently learned in school. Maybe not. Montessori schools operate on the principle that kids should get to focus on things that interest them. But putting together different plans for every kid in the class and monitoring their progress is a lot more difficult. We may benefit though from going to more of that approach.

OhioStater said:
Here's a link to some basic info of what I was referring to; the tip of the iceberg, if you will.

In your spare time, take a gander at Halliburton/KBR, CACI, Titan, and Blackwater. They are still in "Shock and Awe" over how well they have done.

9/11 was an inside job too right?

The reason that there was so much contracting done was because Clinton gutted the military back in the 90s. The military couldn't do everything anymore so they needed lots of help. The problem was though that even though contracting exploded the staff managing it didn't grow so they got mismanaged.