I posted a little while back about my son James’ school project.  

Flat James has been to Georgia and now is on an adventure in Florida. He’s visiting Jacki and you can go to her blog to see his exploits in Gator Nation…

Today marked James’ first day of school. He’s our oldest and this is quite the landmark. Miriam has been homeschooling the kids for over a year, but this was his first day at ‘real school’ which is a weekly class he attends at a homeschooling school in town. It was a big first day!

When I read this I was blown away…

A lawsuit has been launched against a school teacher who showed Brokeback Mountain to a class of young students. Twelve-year-old Jessica Turner and her grandparents, Kenneth and LaVerne Richardson, are seeking $500,000 against the Chicago Board of Education after the movie was shown at Ashburn Community Elementary School. The lawsuit, filed in Cook County Circuit Court on Friday claims Turner “suffered psychological distress” after viewing the R-rated film, which was viewed by the class without permission from the student’s parents or legal guardians.  IMDB

Umm. Wow. Where to begin? On second thought, I don’t think I can say anything to top this one..

Any comments?

I thought about commenting on the recent killing of students on the VA Tech campus, but I’ve read so many great posts on the topic - I didn’t feel I had anything poignant to add that hadn’t already been done better.  Here are the best I’ve read (great and different perspectives):

Angry and Shallow (keeping perspective)

Who Mourns the Killer’s Family (something we don’t think of)

Why? (gun control in America)

Stupid Fundamentalist  (how idiot Christians respond)

The Games Boys Play (the rush to demonize boy’s waring ways)

Va Tech and Youth (how to process this with kids)

School is back in today and in the high school the freshmen go back a day early so they can adjust to the new life in high school with out the stress of upper classmen. I remember being terrified my first day of high school, but that’ was part of the initiation of the whole thing. It was something that needed to be done, a rite of passage. We’ve become so soft handed we want our kids to avoid living life. We are a society that’s working to crank out weenies.

The bruises and bumps are all apart of shaping us. Fear can be a good thing. There are people that are good in life and there are people that are bad. We all have to deal with both of them as we meander through this world.

There are times in my life that I’ve had the hell scared out of me, but it had been essential. Life isn’t easy and the sooner we let our youth figure that out and experience it, the better. I work with youth and hear parents constantly complain that ‘Johnny isn’t responsible’ or ‘he doesn’t take anything seriously.’ We hide these kids from life and then get mad that they act the way we want them to. It’s like a parent taking a kid to a pool for the first time and expecting them to know how to swim. The parent gets more and more angry and the kid has no idea why and no idea how to swim. Life doesn’t happen by osmosis. We’re not called to blindfold kids until they finish college, then expect them to deal with it.

If we never treat them like anything other than pets, what do you expect. And you disagree? I see the way parents treat kids and it’s not much different than a Labrador. Feed, give them what they want to keep quiet, put them in front of an xbox and start all over the next day. As long as they don’t inconvenience me, then they must be fine. These kids are human beings, if we never let them come face to face with real issues - what do you expect to happen?

We are doing a disservice to them.  Now, I’m not a sadist wanting to see them put through the ringer. I just want to seem them allowed to feel and experience the highs and lows of life, not some Prozac or Ritalin induced happy middle ground. And this is how we’re teaching them from the ground up. Little league baseball games don’t have scores. You know what? People win and people lose, that’s a fact of life. No one enjoys losing, but it pushes you to win the next time. 

Let the freshmen feel the fear of the first day of school. Let the kids feel the sting of loss. So much greatness is bourn from pain or failure. If we continue to pad the world around this upcoming generation, the future looks bland. And nothing really great comes from blandness. I for one don’t want to hand it over the future to a bunch of bland weenies. 

Tell me I’m way right. Tell me I’m way wrong. Just tell me something.