Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Tuesday Twitterteetumble


My oh my, does the title ever fit today as we continue to watch the stock market tumble. I read in the business section of the paper this morning that it is falling at Depression-era levels.


"The stock market is more than half way to matching the losses it experienced during the Great Depression," the article entitled "Worst-case scenario" reads. "While few professional traders and economists believe we're in for pain of that magnitude, many say the market has further to fall.

"Declines are near a Depression-era pace," the piece states. "The Dow Jones industrial average lost 89.2 percent of its value between its high in September of 1929 and its low in July of 1932. As of Monday's close, the Dow has fallen 50 percent from its high in just more than 16 months.

"A rout matching the 1930s would bring the Dow, now just above 7,000, as low as 1530," the writer reveals.

Well, I guess it's time to do some serious thinking about which way to go with investments. No magic answers, that's for sure.

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I am thinking and have arrived at an answer for the school levy vote today. I've decided to vote "yes." It's been a mixed-emotions kind of decision for an old educator like me who also knows how people feel about paying those taxes, especially at times like these.

The same thought, however, keeps resonating as I have considered my decision. Education is the key to getting us out of this mess. I know there's a big can of worms in making a statement like that because the question always lies in where the money goes and how effective it's going to be in truly educating our young people.

I do get disturbed when the leverage in passing a levy often falls on threats or actions to make people squirm. We all remember the year of split-shifting back in the 1980s when families' lives being turned upside down finally brought the voters into submission of marking the X box for "yes." This time, the threat of all extracurricular activities going out the door seems to be worthy ammunition to bring people to their senses to vote "yes."

As a semi-idealist, I've been known to say on several occasions throughout my education career and in the years since that if I'm doing my job as a teacher in the classroom, people will recognize that and automatically vote "yes." I've also been so naive as to think that programs where tangible results of student learning are seen in the practice are truly valued by the voting public and that they will stay.

Over the years, both of those idealistic notions have been proved wrong as valued programs go out the door.

Those extracurricular activities are, indeed, important. I know that from my own experience as an adviser to numerous groups. Extracurricular activities are often the carrots that keep kids in school. They also teach life and social skills that may not even receive attention if a kid just goes to school and occupies a chair in six different rooms a day.

In delving into the discussion of what's good or bad about education, there are no easy answers. Another area of concern is quality of teaching. Recently, I heard a person refer to public education as "socialism," with the specific comment that teachers all get paid the same, regardless of the quality of their instruction.

Will anyone ever figure out an easy answer to solving that dilemma? I doubt it. We're humans working with humans, and there are seldom black and white answers to distinguish one person's opinion of quality from another.

So, with these few thoughts, deciding whether or not to vote for the levy isn't any easier. I think it's a gut reaction---and don't we make a lot of our decisions from gut reactions?

My gut tells me that we need to encourage education more than ever right now, especially at a time when we're facing economic dire straits. A comment I've heard over the years always helps me in making these decisions.

The students we're educating now will eventually be in charge. We will be depending on them to steer us down the road ahead by keeping all parts operating smoothly. With that in mind, we should do whatever we can to ensure that they get an adequate education to carry on with their responsibilities and to see that we don't hit too many potholes in the road ahead.


And, with that in mind, I believe that we need to look very closely, based on the behavior we've witnessed in the last few years, at how we're going about our public education and maybe consider infusing the systems with a good dose of life skills and civics FOR EVERY STUDENT at every level.

Seems like lack of education in the necessary areas may have contributed to a lot of the demise we're looking at in this nation right now----ethics, budgeting, accountability, how to add 2 and 2 and not get whatever answer you'd like it to be for your own interests, etc.

Enough said there; I'll vote yes this time, knowing that when situations get dire and people lose their jobs, they often turn to education as an avenue toward starting a new future.

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Just got a call and realized there's one more assignment someone's asked me to write which hasn't been done. So, I guess I'd better get on with the day so I can spend more time at the computer. Seems like the more you do, the more folks ask you to do. Is there ever any end?

Have a nice day.

1 comment:

Word Tosser said...

They say there is no rest for the wicked...so Marianne, I guess you must have been very wicked....lol...