What's this world coming to? In Oakland, at Markham Elementary school, a two second-grade students were engaging in oral sex while the teacher was present in the classroom. MTV's catching heat for it's new TV program Skins, which features racy scenes of sex, violence and drug use among minors and using real minors in the cast.
While Oakland and the nation expresses outrage, this blogger asks why? Look, we created the environment that allows this behavior to surface, and now we're shocked when it hits the media?
For at least the last five years friends who are teachers in Oakland and in suburban New York have told me about catching kids as young as 13 "in the act" in Oakland and in New York, one girl giving oral to two boys in a closet. Story after story of kids behaving badly and now we're shocked.
But look at what we've done to create this: a society that's actively afraid of disciplining kids in public. A society with a larger number of single-parent families than ever before. A society were kids send "sex-based" text messages in an act called "sexting." With all that, and more, we're shocked.
But the ultimate shocker should be our collective fear of changing society so this stops. We must all get out of our shells, talk to each other, and not fear to step in to tell kids how to behave, even if they're not our kids.
In today's America we leave problem kids to the teachers. In fact, we're doing this in the Oakland case. No one has asked who the parents of these kids are. The punishment should be outing them for public information. After all, it's the parents, and not the teachers, who brought the kids into this World. They can start taking care of them, for a change.
Yes. Parents work more hours than ever. But that's where society can take up the slack: the neighbor next door or down the street. The police officer just giving advice and direction instead of a ticket. We don't have authority figures anymore. We have military weekday warriors. That's not solving the problem.
We have to look at society, and to see it just look in the mirror.
While Oakland and the nation expresses outrage, this blogger asks why? Look, we created the environment that allows this behavior to surface, and now we're shocked when it hits the media?
For at least the last five years friends who are teachers in Oakland and in suburban New York have told me about catching kids as young as 13 "in the act" in Oakland and in New York, one girl giving oral to two boys in a closet. Story after story of kids behaving badly and now we're shocked.
But look at what we've done to create this: a society that's actively afraid of disciplining kids in public. A society with a larger number of single-parent families than ever before. A society were kids send "sex-based" text messages in an act called "sexting." With all that, and more, we're shocked.
But the ultimate shocker should be our collective fear of changing society so this stops. We must all get out of our shells, talk to each other, and not fear to step in to tell kids how to behave, even if they're not our kids.
In today's America we leave problem kids to the teachers. In fact, we're doing this in the Oakland case. No one has asked who the parents of these kids are. The punishment should be outing them for public information. After all, it's the parents, and not the teachers, who brought the kids into this World. They can start taking care of them, for a change.
Yes. Parents work more hours than ever. But that's where society can take up the slack: the neighbor next door or down the street. The police officer just giving advice and direction instead of a ticket. We don't have authority figures anymore. We have military weekday warriors. That's not solving the problem.
We have to look at society, and to see it just look in the mirror.