Gettin' Serious in the Classroom

Ahhh… The joys of debate. Ridiculed by actual athletes and cherished by those with no other release. Tis a sport of the ages; necessary for politically aspiring youth and radical individuals that prefer respect. But how do events turn in your everyday classroom? It’s surprising how involved a forced group of students can find themselves.

Classroom debates aren’t new to me. As a seventh grader especially we participated in debates representing everyone from political candidates to corporations wanting land. But in a middle school classroom riddled by performance anxiety and the low self-image most MACATs had, emotions and meaningful progress were hard to infer.

Yesterdays debate was different. Either people didn’t care, and thus acted accordingly; relaxed and calm, or people were way over-zealoused and created chaos for the more focused students. Surprisingly, the different personalities balanced the room out. I found the debate stimulating and educational, but regret that it ended so soon.

Looking back on the actual war, I think every party involved is guilty against their enemy. The whole international community refused any responsibility, although they claim to care about everyone. There was a serious lack of aide from capable countries like the United States and Germany (not portrayed, but definitely to blame considering previous German involvement in the country).

When the U.S. brought up Somalia for the twentieth time I was about to pull my hair out. If the situation in Somalia was bad enough to require help, then the situation in Rwanda was surly just as deserving. All that’s without even mentioning that no one cares about a stupid hole the U.S. got themselves into a few years ago. The situation was the Rwandan Genocide, and if they weren’t going to help they weren’t going to help, but there’s no way you can justify that. In fact, the U.S. looked even more chicken for not helping because of Somalia; it showed that they played favors over equally struggling African countries.

Within the country the rebel groups were just insane.

There is no logical justification for the massacre of Tutsis. The MRND said the Tutsis met their fait for invading “hutu” territory, as if the land belonged to a particular ethnic group. This isn’t Israel. The Interhamwe also offered a favorite excuse of, “ We were brainwashed by the radio station.”. Considering the systematic way in which MRND propaganda was broadcast, this claim has some validity. However, every individual must choose for themselves whether or not they will kill their neighbors because of who has what identity card.

I don’t understand why the RPF went into Rwanda in the first place. Yes, they had to protect their people, but in attempting that they lost thousands of people. Isn’t there a point where you say, okay, let’s try something else? But because they were so small of an… offensive front, I can’t really blame them for anything, or the people that helped them [Uganda ;)].

But the question still remains, and was unfortunately left for military dominance to answer in the actual conflict. What can we do now?

Today's American Scholar

We are still a society suffering from lack of mental challenge.

Yesterday I babysat for a nine year old boy. His mom asked me to make sure he did his boys scout assignment, which was read four pages about citizenship and find an article about local government. After he said he read the pages, I asked him simple questions from the sheet and he couldn’t answer them. He said the questions I asked, using direct words from the book were too confusing. He couldn’t even take information in and put it back out the same way he saw it on the page, which is the one thing we are holding on to as proof of our education system. Yes, we can ask plenty of questions as we saw in class today, but we can’t come up with supported, realistic answers. Also, we are able to ask questions because of our argumentative nature, not necessarily because we want to learn. No one asks questions in math, where they won’t get some public gain from it.

Those are just examples of kids in school, but this inability translate information into intelligent conversations exists throughout all American culture today. As Ralph Waldo Emerson says, “The state of society is one in which the members have suffered amputation from the trunk, and strut about so many walking monsters-a good finger, a neck, a stomach, and elbow, but never a man.” We can’t come together and express ideas as a culture because we’re so focused on ourselves. If people were able to understand, sympathize and relate to others, no matter what how specified our careers and lives became, we could come back together and be ‘one man’. Though I doubt we will ever be able to come back to that.

Goodbye Candy?

One of life’s most painful rites of passage is letting go of Trick-Or-Treating. I’ve said before that its one of my most favorite holidays, and that holds true, but the looming fact that one day I’ll have to give it up is uber depressing.
This year my immune system scammed me out of the deal. I had strep throat that was progressively getting worse because I left it untreated, and in fact was working myself harder than usual in spite of the stinging pain in my throat. By Saturday it caught up to me so much that I could no longer deny it. I was exhausted and in pain even though I’d started antibiotics already; so much for a rainy, windy, cold night of collecting free candy.
I already had my costume all planned out, and haven’t had the heart to accept that I missed Halloween and put it away. I also didn’t carve the pumpkin, but that, unlike my imperishable costume, is about to rot a whole through my dining room table. I can’t wait until next year and pretend this Halloween never happened, which means I have to accept that it’s not the end of the world to miss my candy snatching, feet aching tradition.
Next year I’ll probably go out anyway. My costume will probably still fit and I’m likely to look just as old or just as young depending on how high I make my voice and how eager I make my face when I say, “Trick-Or-Treat!”. But how long after that can I keep going? Mrs. Walega says she’ll give candy to anyone in costume, no matter what the age, but no way is she accepting the “This hat is my costume.” gig. Other teachers, however, talk about how we’re too old in high school to go trick or treating. So which is it? I don’t need other people to validate my opinion, but I do need an appropriate amount of research on who will actually give me candy when I ask for it.
Two years ago I probably should have known I was growing out of Trick-Or-Treating when I asked for a water bottle instead of the unopened, chilled cans of Pepsi one house had on their front lawn. Knowing what is good for you, what you need, and wanting something with no flavor but major health benefits takes a lot of the magic out of All Hallows Eve. So I don’t know how I feel about my own growing up right now, but I do know that I love Baby Ruth and Three Musketeers (who by the way always have adult women in their “guilt free” commercials) with all my heart.