Education

Our childrens isn’t learneded

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

Apparently 12th grade public government education-based reading levels are down.

Students scored an average of 288 out of 500 points in reading comprehension, two points better than in 2005 level but four points below the 1992 average of 292, the 2009 National Assessment of Educational Progress said.

Thirty-eight percent of 12th graders scored at or above “proficient” in reading and 26 percent scored that well in math, said the report, known as the Nation’s Report Card.

“Today’s report suggests that high school seniors’ achievement in reading and math isn’t rising fast enough to prepare them to succeed in college and careers,” U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan said in a statement.

And you know what their proposed solution is going to be: throw more money (i.e. your money, via taxes) at the problem. Because throwing more money at the problem all these years so far has of course produced these obviously positive results, so yes, let’s continue to do the same thing and expect different results. *sigh*

 

White and Asian and Pacific Islander students made gains in reading since 2005 but no racial, ethnic or gender group has shown significant changes in scores since 1992. Asian students scored an average of 298 points in reading in 2009, higher than any other group.

 

 

I’m going to go out on a limb here and make a guess as to why. It’s not because Asians have some sort of genetically-ethnic disposition to being smart. It’s because, culturally, Asians care about education. Asian parents get involved in the education system, get involved with their children, they set high standards for their children and expect them to live up to it.

The same would happen with any ethnic group — because ethnicity has nothing to do with education (but it sure makes for good funding justification and victim stories). It has to do with people caring.

I’d also argue it’s a failure of the government schooling system, because it’s a system that no longer cares about true education. It only cares about keeping itself alive. It needs to measure results, administer tests, use that as justification for more funding, lather, rinse, repeat. There’s no caring about actual education, only test scores and funding.

Just so happens that Arthur’s Hall just printed a nice article about “The Public Education Delusion: Why Centralized Education is not the ‘Foundation of Our Democracy’… Or is it?“. Excellent article.

 

Early Voting Rally

/ hsoi / 8 Comments

I just returned from an Early Voting Rally. It happened to be sponsored by Texas Republicans… not 100% sure who exactly was sponsoring it (e.g. Travis County Republicans, Texas as a whole, etc.), but it was attended by all your big Texas Republicans: Gov. Rick Perry; Sen. John Cornyn; Jerry Patterson, Texas Land Commissioner; Susan Combs, Texas Comptroller; Attorney General Greg Abbott; Melissa Goodwin, 3rd Court of Appeals; Paul Workman, candidate for Texas State House District-47; Dr. Donna Campbell, candidate for US House Texas District 25; and a host of other Texas Republicans.

Now, I’m not a Republican… and on more than one occasion I wanted to shout out something that would have rubbed folks raw. But this was not the place for such things, and I had bigger reasons to not stir the pot. For you see, I took my children to this event. I was glad to see other parents brought their children too, because this is a lesson in civics. Furthermore, it let’s them see these people close up and see they’re not just a picture on the TV. Besides, you can’t appreciate Gov. “Good Hair” unless you can see him up close. 😉

What I loved most? Oldest. He groaned at the thought of attending this event, but of course he had no choice… he was going. Then I happened to notice during Gov. Perry’s rousing speech… there was Oldest, cheer and applauding with gusto! Yeah, he got into it. 🙂

As a random aside, it was fun watching Gov. Perry’s security detail. One guy (you can see him behind Jerry Patterson in the above picture, in the sunglasses) was pretty tough and serious looking. I nicknamed him Agent Franks. 🙂

As the rally broke up, I managed to chase down Dr. Campbell to say hello. Introduced Daughter to her as well. I could tell she was a tired lady, but a tough one. I applaud her efforts and hope it pans out in a couple of weeks. Daughter was excited to meet Dr. Campbell. 🙂  I was also happy that on the drive home we saw a couple more Donna Campbell yard signs in the neighborhood!

For me, that’s the big reason I went this morning: I wanted my children to experience this. Oh sure, I’ve done things like this before, when I was a kid and my Dad was a Congressman; but then it was “Ugh.. can we go home now?”. Today was the first time I attended a rally because I wanted to be there, and I wanted my children to be there. I want them to understand that politics can and does suck, but we cannot ignore it. It’s important to our lives and something all responsible citizens must care about and partake in. Plus, since they had such a good time, I think it left a positive impression on the kids that sometimes yes, politics can be fun.

Flew the coop

/ hsoi

Was out of town for the weekend. Came back last night and saw this in our Carolina Wren nest box:

Looks like the babies are all grown up. 🙂

The thing is, we only saw 2 in there. We’re not sure what the deal was. Are these perhaps the younger 2 and the others already fledged and left? Just don’t know, as we were gone all weekend. The other thing is, you can see they are atop all the nesting materials… that’s not how it was before, so they obviously moved and tramped things down.

As of last night and still this morning, the box is empty and we don’t hear any of the wren chirping. Are they gone for good? Not sure. Going to wait a few days and keep watch on things. If they don’t come back, we’re going to crack open the box and take a look at things. We’re all very curious to learn about how they nest.

Public School FAIL

/ hsoi / 3 Comments

As you may know, the Texas school boards are working to rewrite history — literally.

Some of the changes I agree with. For instance, I see nothing wrong with teaching religion in school, from a scholarly standpoint. I learned about ancient religions (what we now call mythology) and studied ancient religious texts. I studied modern religions and texts. We looked at them from a scholarly standpoint because you cannot fully understand other civilizations and history if you do not look at the religions of that civilization. But yes, this implies looking at all of them, not just emphasizing one or another nor does it mean being “sensitive” to one so as to not risk offending it.

Some I don’t, like removing the study of Sir Isaac Newton. How can you understand modern science if you don’t understand Newton!! Good grief!

And some things I think are just appalling, such as dropping “references to the slave trade in favour of calling it the more innocuous ‘Atlantic triangular trade’, and recasts the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as driven by Islamic fundamentalism.”  Denial or revision (even in the name of political correctness or “sensitivity”) of history undermines the whole point of studying history in the first place.

But whether or not you agree with what the Texas board is doing, it all points to one thing: the growing failure of the public government school system. A few work to gain political leverage, then work in their agenda in hopes of longer-term indoctrination of their view of the world. This is not education, this is brainwashing. This is not education, this is politics, and our children are the sacrifice. But, true education has been dead for a long time.

Just one more reason that the public government school system is a failed organization. We do better when we can have choices, when you can choose what school your child attends. If you want your child to have a particular view of the world, then send your child to that school… be that school one with a narrow view or a broad view. Public government school is supposed to serve everyone, but because of that it serves no one.

I could go a step further and say it’s a greater failing of our social structure, where we demand others teach and raise our children instead of doing that job ourselves. This isn’t to say you have to homeschool, but at least when Junior comes home from whatever school they are sent to, take a look at their textbooks, look at the notes they take, discuss with them what they were learning in school. Get involved in your child’s education. Discuss alternative viewpoints. Expand upon what the school taught. Help them see the world that you want them to see.

Good Day of Classes

/ hsoi

Was out at KR Training today helping with Basic Pistol 2 and Defensive Pistol Skills 1.

A good day.

Both classes were at capacity. The usual gamut of people: men and women, young folk, old folk, various ethnicities, various backgrounds and “lots in life”. I always point this out to break stereotypes: gun folk aren’t just old white men or just rednecks. And while these two classes can typically have a lot of people taking both, today the majority of each class were actually only there for the one class. So a lot of faces went through the school today.

Given it was a long day… given I’m going on 4 hours of sleep… well, I’ll just mention a few things that today’s class made most evident.

  • Small guns are hard to shoot well. Small guns that kick a lot (e.g. .40 S&W) are even harder to shoot well.
    • You obviously acknowledge the difficulty in shooting the small gun because you take steps to make it a larger gun: e.g. mag extenders so you can get a full grip. Well, once you do that the gun is almost full-sized, so why not just use a full-sized gun?
  • Good holsters are well worth it. One quality of a good holster? It stays put. Another quality? The mouth stays open when the holster is empty so you can reholster without having to look at the holster or use your other hand to open the mouth up. That could be acceptable for carry, but in a class or any time when you know you will be drawing and reholstering? Nope.
    • It’s hard to find a good holster in most stores. The Internet is your friend.
  • Sunscreen is your friend.
  • Drink water. Drink some more.
  • When reloading, just drop the magazine to the ground. If someone is attacking you, the magazine is the least of your concerns! Getting your gun running again is more important so spend your time focusing on the important things, like getting more ammo in the gun so it’s again functional and useful.
  • Magazine pouches are useful. But regardless of how you store a spare magazine, position the magazine such that when you retrieve it the magazine is already oriented to go right into the gun.. no need to check it, flip it over, etc… just retrieve and insert. Typically this means you want to point the bullets outward, i.e. “bullets towards the bad guy”. But that’s not a hard rule (e.g. one student had to retrieve from a pants pocket and the way his hand naturally went there was better to position the bullets away from the bad guy).
  • Slow is smooth, smooth is fast.
  • When you draw your gun, keep with the 4-count draw. When you reholster, do the 4-count draw in reverse. Keep the discipline of the draw. Do no travel along the hypotenuse.
  • Guns with big long double-action trigger presses are hard to shoot well. Yeah maybe you can get a nicer single-action on the 2nd press, but when your life is on the line that 1st shot is going to be most important. Make sure that first shot can hit what you’re aiming at.
  • Please be mindful of school/class policies. KR Training policy only wants brass-cased ammo (no steel case, no aluminum). As well, SERPA holsters are not permitted because of the risks that come with that holster. When in doubt about your equipment, ask prior to class.

I know there were other things I wanted to mention… but my brain is fried and ready for bed.

There was one student that did something I thought was commendable. He was only in the DPS1 class but realized in there that his fundamentals were not solid… that the way he had been taught prior to this class just didn’t cut it. He asked if going back and taking the prior course (Basic Pistol 2) would be good for him. I think it’s great he realized where his skills were and didn’t let his ego keep him from taking a step back. A lot of people would just press on with their existing habits (good or bad), but he wants to go back and improve his fundamentals. I think that’s most commendable, and I do hope to see him come back. He’s got a good attitude.

The biggest thing I saw all day tho was small guns and harsh calibers. Small guns are hard to shoot well, and when you add in harsh calibers like .40 S&W they’re even harder. This isn’t to say one cannot eventually come to shoot those guns at an acceptable level, but why fight your equipment? Why make things hard on yourself when you don’t have to? Granted, in many respects this is a personal choice and you have to choose what’s right for you and your situation and need. But consider what’s important here: the gun or your life. Is the gun the most important thing (that gun, that caliber)? or is the ability to shoot well? the ability to defend your life if need be. Just be sure to be clear on what your goal is, and proceed accordingly from there.

Thanx to the students that came out. Hope to see you all back again soon. Keep practicing! Dry fire is your friend. 🙂

The money in education

/ hsoi

Wife and I homeschool our children. Why? The main reason is we want the best for them. Is it that we are the best? No, but we certainly don’t view government err, public schools as the way to get there. Proof is in the pudding… it’s a failed system. We’d consider private schools but it’s too expensive. Of course, if instead of having to fork over a bundle in taxes to fund the failed system I could use that money on the free market well… that’d be different.

John Stossel discusses this:

Since 1980, government spending on education, adjusted for inflation, has nearly doubled. But test scores have been flat for decades.

Today we spend a stunning $11,000 a year per student — more than $200,000 per classroom. It’s not working. So when will we permit competition and choice, which works great with everything else?

Indeed. When will we permit competition and choice? In a sense, we do have that because we have chosen to homeschool. Of course, what facilitates that is Texas is quite a homeschool-friendly state; many states in the union and many countries make it difficult or flat out impossible to have such choice. Of course, I have no choice where my money goes… the tax man still taketh away.

To be fair, I’ve had some discussions about this with my more liberal-leaning friends that are in the education field. I must admit, I’m torn. I know the ideal of what I’d like to go for, but there are some realities that are difficult to address in that ideal. The reality is a group of people (city, state, country, etc.) does overall do better the more the entire populace of that group is educated. Look how it was hundreds of years ago where the elite did their best to keep the masses uneducated as a way to wield power over them. No, I don’t wish to return to that. But a truly open free-market system is tough to come about for education, I must admit, when you truly think through the logistics of human nature and trying to actually make things go. I don’t have the answers, but I’d love to try to find them.

Nevertheless, a lot of what this all comes down to is money. I know for a fact if I could keep more of my money I could well… do a lot more with that money. I was thinking the other day how a lot of our current financial situation is rather simple. You see, the government does nothing to earn the money it receives… it just takes, such is taxation. Plus we have no choice but to give the money to them, and if we don’t give it they will take it and make us suffer for having not given up our money. But then people scream about being taxed too much. So things get shuffled around… maybe personal taxes go down, but then business taxes go up. Or the taxes will get labeled something else, like a fee, and get quieted inserted into something else. The bottom line is, you pay no matter what you do. And in the end no matter what entity is getting taxed, ultimately folks it comes out of your pocket and off the sweat of your labor.

So there’s really only one way to make taxes go down: get government to stop spending so much.

There’s no other way.

Stossel continues:

To give the establishment its best shot, consider Head Start, which politicians view as sacred. The $166 billion program is 45 years old, so it’s had time to prove itself. But guess what: The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recently found no difference in first-grade test results between kids who went through Head Start and similar kids who didn’t. President Obama has repeatedly promised to “eliminate programs that don’t work,” but he wants to give Head Start a billion more dollars. The White House wouldn’t explain this contradiction to me.

Andrew Coulson, head of the Cato Institute’s Center for Educational Reform, said, “If Head Start (worked), we would expect now, after 45 years of this program, for graduation rates to have gone up; we would expect the gap between the kids of high school dropouts and the kids of college graduates to have shrunk; we would expect students to be learning more. None of that is true.”

So why does the money continue to be wasted?

More tips for success in class

/ hsoi / 7 Comments

If you are a student in a handgun class, here’s some further tips for success:

  • Bring lots of magazines. I would say 5 is a bare minimum, and there’s not really any such thing as too many magazines.
    • Make sure those magazines are clean and functioning.
      • Have a magazine brush on you, in case the magazine gets that dirty that you need to clean it to keep it running. Of course, this is slow and takes time and class may not have a break in the action to clean them. This is why it’s good to have as many magazines as possible, so you can just set the broken/dirty one aside and grab a working mag and get back into class.
    • Have appropriate ways to carry those magazines. At least 2 mag pouches on your belt, more if you can and/or is appropriate. Have a way to carry more magazines to the line, like wearing cargo pants.
  • Load all your magazines before coming to class (e.g. night before, at home).
  • The magazines should be appropriate to the context. A 33 round Glock magazine is not appropriate for a defensive handgun class (unless you’re somehow able to conceal a 33 round Glock magazine). A 33 round mag might be appropriate if it was a competition class. Whatever, just consider context and be appropriate for it.
  • The “Sabrina” is rarely a good thing to do.
  • If you are the sort that always racks your slide after inserting a magazine, likely dumping a live round on the ground, at the appropriate time please pick up your live rounds off the ground. Not only is it a waste of good ammo, but it’s more work for us that have to clean up after you to have to sort out all your live ordinance.
  • If the range policy is no steel nor aluminum cased ammo (i.e. brass-only), please honor that policy.
  • Electronic ear muffs aren’t required, but they are nice for hearing range commands and receiving instruction.
  • Safety glasses that completely enclose your eyes are good. So it’s not just from the front, but also from all sides. Things fly around, especially if you’re shooting steel… little lead fragments can and do happen.
  • If you’re not on the line shooting, you should be reloading magazines. While you do that, keep one ear and one eye on the line so you can be aware of what’s going on, especially if any instruction or teachable moments happen.
  • Keep hydrated.
  • Don’t skimp on your gear. Good belt. Good holster.
    • Make sure that good holster allows you to reholster without looking and without having to use your other hand to work the holster… putting your other hand in front of the muzzle isn’t a recipe for success.
  • Keep a little note pad and pen in your pocket, so you can take notes on the drills, your progress, or whatever else you deem important.

Anything to add?

Teaching knots

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

I’m working on an effort where every day I teach my kids something useful. Doesn’t really matter the topic, just a little something every day.

I only just started a few days ago and so far we covered things like stopping bleeding, RICE, different hammers and how to use them, and today we started on knots. I’ll probably stick with the knot thing for a while, because hey… I like knots. All that Boy Scouts growing up.

I wanted to share an excellent website that teaches knots, called Animated Knots by Grog. Covers all your major knots from things like rescue knots, household knots (including tying a tie), Scouting knots, fishing knots, whipping and coiling, and even fun stuff like the monkey fist. Yes, we’re going to tie one of those eventually.