Can We Get Back to a Classical Education Now?

Tired of young adults running around in the streets rioting, looting, murdering, and burning?

You are not alone.

A K-12 curriculum based on the United Nation's Agenda 21, Common Core, and Social Justice has destroyed our educational system. Young minds now believe in the opposite of sanity, which has led to having adults who have no idea which way is up. Chaos has become the norm.

Some say that corruption was by design. Some do not know anything about such insinuations. Nonetheless, Americans can see the results.

It is time for us to have a conversation about what Americans value in public education. Do Americans value social justice, revisionist history, comprehensive sexual education, and activism? Not really. Most of these topics are age inappropriate to childrens' ability to absorb, weigh, and analyze them.

Would you give your kindergartner a bottle of booze, a cartoon of cigarettes, and the keys to your car? How about your eight year old? Or, a ten year old? A twelve year old? Most people would not even give their licensed sixteen year old that combination.

Yet, educators have decided to "adult" children with mature content in their classrooms. Anyone who is thrust into adulthood without an adult mind would be piles of dry timber ready to combust. And boy, are these fire starters on a rampage. That is educators' fault.

Children view adults as authority figures. When these authority figures betray young minds, how would those children know the difference? Most adults cannot; so we cannot ask it of our younglings.

We need a counterbalance to negate the irresponsible education Americans are seeing in our public education system. We need to lay down some common sense and agreed upon tenets for pedagogy:

-Mathematics
-Physical Education, Health
-Science
-Social Science
-Foreign Languages, Culture
-Geography
-History
-Art
-Music, Band, Orchestra, Choir
-English, Literature

With an outline of what curriculum should not present to students:

-morality
-religion
-activism
-social justice
-criticism
-sexuality

Educators have overstepped their bounds and decided to become other people's children's parents, religious advisors, and life coaches. Instead of education, our children were indoctrinated by authoritarians. 

Life is our morality play. Each day with each interaction, we learn what is acceptable in our society and what is not. For most people morality is based on their religious upbringing. That is where parental guidance in such matters is of the upmost importance. 

Social justice and activism have been brought into the classroom. Why? Children are unable to vote. Until eighteen, children are in studying and learning mode, not direct action. Action is what is being modeled by teachers. Students are taken to the side of the road in order to protest. That is irresponsible and out of bounds. Children have no business being taught this behavior or modeling it for adults. Hate is a learned behavior and we have young people who are executing this behavior as programmed drones setting fires. 

Dissection of a subject is an advanced skill. This coursework is usually taught in graduate studies. Critical analysis is for the seasoned student. Yet we have children learning critical theories without the knowledge base to scrutinize and assess such complex topics. This skill is age inappropriate for its intended young audience. 

Comprehensive sexual education is also inappropriate in K-12 education. First, children's bodies are immature and their undeveloped brains are unable to make much sense out of this subject. If a child is too young to go to a PG-13, or rated R movie by themselves, then why are educators pushing NC-17 on them? Some mature knowledge is just that: for mature audiences only. Children do not have context for what is being displayed to them and has become the grounds of pedophilic-type grooming behavior by teachers.

The underlying issue is that we have an educational system geared toward "adulting" children. That in itself is morally and ethically abhorrent. The educational system is not the parent. Teachers are not the parent. The child's mother and father are the parents. It is about time America reconciles this notion and snap back to reality. 

American exceptionalism is not about egotism. This educational path is about knowledge and the application thereof. Americans learn the combustion engine: we build cars and highways. Americans learn the filament: we have lighting in all our houses. Americans learn science: we go to the Moon. That is how knowledge coupled with imagination and integrity works. 

The United Nation's interpretation of education has led American children to become incompetent, ignorant, and incompatible with reality. Arson anyone? 

Americans should be setting the example of what humans can do if we set our minds to it. 

Speaking of which, Americans should demand that our National Curriculum should be based around a Classical Education that gives age appropriate knowledge, real world application, and fosters the imagination. 

Children should learn the classics: Latin, Greek, as well as literature, history, and mathematics. These items are missing in education in order to promote over-emotionalism. Empathy has to be balanced with knowledge and ability or the emotive qualities of altruism becomes magnified and distorted as we are seeing today. 

Our individual skills, abilities, talents, and accomplishments should be highlighted and encouraged over group work and group think. A classical education that is reminiscent of Socrates and other great philosophers and educators would propel American ingenuity forward by leaps and bounds. 

So now the question becomes: who wanted to stifle American exceptionalism? 

And parents should ask: why did our educators follow this downward spiral without question? How have the standards plummeted math and reading scores? Just where should the blame be placed? 

Then how can America clean up our academic standards to promote American exceptionalism and eliminate American nihilism from our educational system? 

"You are not entitled to your opinion. You are entitled to your informed opinion. No one is entitled to be ignorant" -Harlan Ellison

The answer: getting America's educational system back to the classics and leave the indoctrination to authoritarian regimes where free thought is frowned upon.  

Because learning from the greats should be fearless.

 

Your Rose Colored Glasses Ain't Helpin' Me

It's funny when you are in need how people react to you. 

Some people act like they want to help by asking you 21 questions and then decide you didn't answer them correctly. How did my disability fail to meet your help requirements? 

Some people act like you are having the time of  your life on disability. Near death experiences on a weekly basis, hallicuinations on a daily basis, and money on a monthly basis is how much fun again? 

Some people accuse you of not being ill... Well, you look fine. I saw you walk to your front door. You just need to take a shower and get some exercise... Yeah, that exercise almost ended me two Sundays ago when I tried to do yard work to save money. Are we supposed to be judging a book by its cover? 

Some people believe you qualify for all sort of government handouts and assistance. No, actually I do not qualify for any resources I have paid into over the years. No food stamps. No long term care. No home assistance. No medical (my doctor told me to see a naturopath; those doctors are not covered by Medicare). No lawn help. No grocery assistance. No churches help. No meals on wheels or other help because of my food and chemical allergies; once i enumerate them, I get hung up on. No driving assistance because I cannot be around smokers or fragrances; the religious organization wanted a letter from my doctor to verify my illness.

There comes a time when a person just gets fed up being called a liar. 

I went on a Facebook group that is supposed to help people, but you have to have a working phone with a camera and cell service. I haven't had cell service in quite awhile because I have been too sick to travel. In order to get help with food, I had to take a picture of my refrigerator with a note I would write with the date. Say what? So all those photos I see are staged? There is no way in hell that is proof of anything but that you have an expensive cellular phone and service.  

My digital cameras sit unused because I haven't been able to afford batteries. My flashlight is not doing so well either. I don't trust it to go into a dark room anymore. I have one working light bulb on a stick lamp I put around the back of the house to see at night. 

So if I borrowed a camera, then I will be accused of having enough money for a fancy phone and service like I was on the Kettle Fire Bone Broth post a few months back when I asked them for some coupons and any programs they might have for disabled people like me. I was reamed by this woman (not associated with the company). 

I have also been accused of being "entitled" to the social programs I have paid for over the years on Twitter. Somehow I do not deserve somneone's time and effort. What has happened to our world? America has turned into the rose colored glasses squad of infinite denial. 

If you complain that the reality you live is different from the one people associate with, you are ungrateful, entitled, bitter, and have "attitude." For telling the truth of my situation? Wowzers. 

I was also told that because I live in Arizona, I qualify for food stamps like it is automatic for a housebound person such as myself. That is so untrue. I was informed by the same Facebook group that $100 was too high for me to receive any grocery help for the month. Food stamps for one adult in Arizona is $200 a month. So I was expected to live off less than $15 a week for some fantasy. 

I had already said to delete my post once I was told there were no resources for me there, yet some of the membership kept goading me to turn in a fake picture. I cried and sobbed most of the night and this morning over how people are so disconnected from reality that they refused to hear what I was telling them: I and my friends have tried to get me services; I am refused because I cannot travel,  talk on the phone, or win phone lotteries (for utility help). 

Take off the glasses... these programs are for able bodied people! Disabled people can only qualify if they cater to the able bodied programs' requirements. Isn't that a form of discrimination? Doesn't the ADA require companies to give a reasonable accommodation? Only if you have a good lawyer.

I also heard: nothing you said has anything to do with us. Really? Then why are you so adamant in proving me a liar? No consistent help for over 12 years. I am not a liar. And, your refusal to listen to me for help just proved my point to me all over again.

...But you can buy used clothing and laundry machines... with a collapsed immune system for which I cannot be around Febreeze, toxic laundry products, or bleaches? Right. Here is the real list: I can use only one kind of dish washing liquid, hard soap, shampoo, and only mineral based, unscented laundry/dishwasher tabs. That is it. 

Stick a fork in me, I'm done. 

I don't fit within a neat set of perimeters so therefore I am dismissed as unworthy for the time and effort, but doesn't that say more about the state of your soul than it does about the state of my reality? 

I challenge anyone to live the way I have to for six months. You won't last. My family didn't. My friends didn't. Being the girl in the bubble is more restrictive than you may romanticize it is.

So the next time you are terribly ill from the flu that you cannot think, have patience, work, drive, walk to the bathroom, cook yourself a meal, get your mail, or even breathe out your nose, remember, you are still having a better day than I have had in fifteen years.

Compassion is not something that should have to be taught. Yes, certain people like to take advantage, but when you meet someone who is truly in need... your natural instincts should kick in. Unless you are still wearing those silly glasses of condescending piety. 

You should probably take those off now.

Have a great and wonderful day.

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Microfiction: Reality to Creative Inspiration

Ever have a situation that comes up and you would believe it would make a good story? Last night, that very situation happened to me. I took the incident and turned it into a piece of microfiction, Midnight Run:

pop, pop, pop... goes the 45 caliber gun fired into the dead of the night. 1248am and silence becomes a ruckus of sound as a police helicopter zooms over my house like a dragon. each breath of the mammoth machine vibrates my house and sucks in my roof shingles. until the beast passes into the west and my house folds in on itself again. then silence emerges from the chaos. no more pursuit as the criminals are subdued by the dragon's keepers in flack jackets.

Everyday writers can use common place events to explore the world of writing. 

This incident gave me the opportunity to do a small writing exercise. 

What happens in your life that could become a creative outlet for you? 

Have a great and wonderful day.  

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An Authentic Reality Deserves an Authentic Writer

Are you living an authentic life? The Existential philosophy of the mid-20th Century asked questions like this one. A few thousand years earlier, Diogenes a Greek Cynic philosopher questioned the role of society and the validity of its psychological constructs.

Is your suspended belief interfering with you living the life you have always wanted to live?

The Ancient History Encyclopedia on Diogenes of Sinope reveals:

According to Diogenes society was an artificial contrivance set up by human beings which did not accord well with truth or virtue and could not in any way make someone a good and decent human being; and so follows the famous story of Diogenes holding the light up to the faces of passers-by in the market place looking for an honest man or a true human being. Everyone, he claimed, was trapped in this make-believe world which they believed was reality and, because of this, people were living in a kind of dream state. He was not the first philosopher to make this claim; Heraclitus, Xenophanes, and, most famously, Socrates all pointed out the need for human beings to wake from their dream state to full awareness of themselves and the world. Plato's famous Allegory of the Cave is devoted to this very theme. Diogenes, however, confronted the citizens of Athens daily with their lifelessness and shallow values, emulating his hero Socrates whom he never met but would have learned of from Antisthenes. Although it seems many people thought he was simply mentally ill, Diogenes would have claimed he was living a completely honest life and others should have the courage to do the same.

As we write, we search for truths in the people around us, the culture we live in, and within our own reality. If Diogenes as was the Existentialists on the road to somewhere, it was not the argument about being housebroken, but a deeper meaning of discerning our own reality as a fiction.

Humans live in a fictional world we have developed for our safety and security. The real world is the shadows we see on the wall in the back of our cave as Socrates described in his Allegory of the Cave. Writers need to separate what is reality and what is the social constructs we have devised for ourselves and our progeny.

Are you an honest person? Do you live honestly? Or, are you wrapped up in the social constructs of censorship, identity politics, and psychological terrorism? 

American society and culture have been created for the benefit of a few. Divide and conquer, problem-reaction-solution create trigger moments of psychological harm and devastation. Without the psychological terror repeated on the news, in entertainment, and parroted in individual lives, these tactics would be ignored. We have a social construct where we have been told to fear reality because the shadows outside the cave are terrorists just waiting to do us harm. 

Identity politics are the divisive analogies being taught to children as well as adults. You are in this box. You are in that box. You cannot identify in opposing boxes. Race, religion, and many others are the artificial construct. When we realize how damaging these politicized boxes of dishonesty have become, isn't it our duty as writers to expose the falsehood? 

Diogenes did take his philosophy too far to the edge, but today's Roman culture and society, our decadence has swung the pendulum of discourse in the opposite direction toward Nero's mayhem. We need a balance. We need to correct the psychological terrorism of identity politics. 

The only course is to eliminate the censorship that surrounds this social construct of public mythology. I recently debated some points from the Entertainment Industry. The online magazine, Variety, has posted some inventive and erroneous negative social constructs that undermine our society. In these rebuttals, I discovered how Penske Media Corporation's Variety will not debate a topic but rather triggers individuals into the Divide and Conquer scheme. I called them on this dishonesty. 

What I discovered while investigating this claim of censorship was that the accusation is not unfounded. I too was censored because my beliefs did not coincide with social dishonesty. After being censored twice in the comments section, I did a screen capture: 

As shown, my first reply was revised mid-sentence. The censor removed my article title and link. The second was calling Variety out on the deceptive practice, which then was removed in its entirety. 

The original post was also censored by the removal of a link. 

I have discovered that the censorship in our news media, entertainment, and online debates stem from the social constructs of identity politics and psychological terrorism in order to cocoon humans, in this case Americans, into Socrates' Cave. A false reality is a dishonest reality. Humans are not meant to live an inauthentic life. 

How do we reconstruct our reality? The course we are on now has damaged people's understanding and perception of what our culture and society does. Not for dishonesty's sake, but our individualistic social constructs have furthered the human species while still allowing for varying viewpoints. 

As a writer, I observe the world around me. I poke the bear. I slide open the envelope to see what awaits us on the other side of this life. Humans cannot go forward by going backward into this tyrannical world view of dystopic socialized conformity centered on the premise: inclusionary Social Darwinism. 

Neither Diogenes nor Socrates would approve of furthering that type of dishonesty. 

So as a writer, who are you going to be? Diogenes looking for an honest man? Socrates searching beyond the Cave for reality? 

Or, are you going to write the socialized identity politics that further divides society into Nero's mayhem?
 

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Original Content, Articles, and Reviews related to this topic:

• The Entertainment Industry is So Woke that They've Become a Broke Joke
• The Entertainment Industry's Late Night Shows are Ignorant Dribble 

What can Writers do to Change Society for the Better?

I came upon a celebrity's acceptance speech for an award she has earned as an artist, musician, actress, and entertainer. In her speech, she discussed how she was beaten down emotionally because she was a woman. She had witnessed how women are treated differently than their male counterparts. 

This trend is true in the world of writing as well. Women often change their names to male nom de plumes for a better receivership of their creative works. Men are given more latitude and praise. 

As writers, should we change society for the better by writing about situations that would not garner public outcry and allow our characters to discuss taboos? Is it our moral obligation to touch upon subjects that would otherwise be swept under the rug? 

I had hoped in the aforementioned celebrity's speech that she would have led by example. I would like have to heard her say: since I have endured sexism and ageism, I am doing x, y, and z to combat what I see as unfavorable treatment toward women artists. 

I was left with a sharp criticism but no real solution to the epidemic. 

Women need to support other artists in their field. If someone makes it big, then that woman needs to promote from within the female ranks of qualified and talented women in the pool. 

Women must understand that you can complain all the live long day and nothing will change. If you want to change, you must first be willing to stand up for the change you would like to see. Hate sexism? Hate ageism? Well there are plenty of women in those categories who would fit the bill to change the dynamics of what, or should I say who, is acceptable to be positive role models in our society.

Society does not change overnight. Society has to be guided onto a path of accepting the unseen voices of the world. In writing, literary works often touch upon these themes. In fiction, writers are given more leeway to investigate and expand especially in science and speculative fiction. 

So as a writer, how can you change the world for the better? 

Have a great and wonderful day!