Devolving

When the internet first started becoming popular, I immediately protested and said I wanted nothing to do with it.  As far as I could tell, this was yet another stupid fad and people were spending entirely too much time - in 1997, mind you - staring at computer screens.  But then I started college, and with all of the wonderful free software they provided me and the size of the reports I had to write, I relented and decided to get a computer.

Admittedly, I was quite fascinated with the large electronic setup now hanging out on my old desk, whining its way through its very first dial-up connection while my mind began entertaining the various possibilities available to me via internet searches.  I'd heard of chatrooms, and I did find myself in a Korn one (don't hate) with a bunch of kids who thought they were, like, so totally awesome because they knew their way around a few simple commands.  That scene lost its luster real quickly.  I suppose I had this exciting, utopian view of the social networking world being much more like it is now, with people sharing real things and having meaningful debates.  I didn't consider the endless, monotonous stream of location check-ins, pictures of various unappetizing food fare, or the incredible number of parents willing to post inappropriate and humiliating pictures of their own children; but, truth be told, I do enjoy many of the interactions I have through social media.

Eventually, in the days before MySpace and Facebook, I did find some interesting message boards to participate in; I even designed my own Webpage, which was popular for more than a decade and brought literally thousands of people into my life.  I certainly spend more time online than I care to admit to, and I wonder how many valuable hours of my life have been wasted laughing at cat pictures featuring funny captions or reading satire.  However, the internet has afforded me an outlet for my desire to write and research.  It has also been an invaluable source of information on a vast array of topics of personal interest, including Monsanto, organic gardening, health, DIY projects, and home remedies.  Just in the past two weeks alone, I learned how to do hair highlights at home, format my SD card on my Mac, and how to get the Mac to see the SD card.  Money and time saved.  The internet helped me to discover that my migraines were aspartame poisoning, when all of modern medicine failed me, and I got my life back by simply not drinking diet beverages ever again.  It allows me to homeschool my children through K12.  It provides the convenience of shopping online, so I don't have to spend a day walking around some mall that I hate, looking for something they might not even have; I can now accomplish in minutes what might have taken hours or longer.  So maybe those cat memes aren't so terrible after all.

But there is the dark side of the internet.  We are new to this, the 30-somethings.  We don't really grasp the full reach of this new cyber world and how "out there" we've really become.  It ranges from annoying to downright dangerous.  That post of your drunk ass in a trash can in a bar might be funny while you're still wasted, but in the morning when your boss that you don't recall "friending" sees it, you might be out of a job.  And the "sexting", how many lives, relationships, and reputations has that destroyed?  We don't always make good choices, but the internet is a permanent record of things that were once lost with the sands of time.  I'm very glad I'm not a teenager right now.

While I generally avoid the more heinous social faux pas of the online world, the great joy I once took in being able to do in minutes in the convenience of my home what once took hours upon hours in a library is also taking a turn for the sewer.  A Google search now turns up search engines within search engines and pages which are nothing more than a collection of keywords, because people buy URLs so they can get paid-per-click, and they will spam you half to death to get you to click.  I feel as if I have been relegated to a few of the better-known sites I found when the internet was far more searchable than it is now, though even many of those have sold out to the point that their pages are 80% ads and 20% content.  The flashing ones, or those featuring particularly shocking or disgusting photos are the real slums and back alleys of the internet.  Even YouTube, which still remains fairly user-friendly, no longer uses the ratings in their search; you have to actually click on the videos before you find out whether it's total garbage, like a fake video telling you to follow a URL to an actual video...supposedly.

The internet is devolving, like the rest of things that humans have a hand in.  We find fossil fuels?  We use them all up.  We find beautiful land?  We destroy it for profit and erect concrete societies.  Locally grown?  Why, when we can be selfish and destroy the planet so we can eat that out-of-season food and run our local farmers right out of their livelihoods?  It's about want, not need, right?  Why improve our health with exercise when we can pop a pill for each health concern?  Why look on the bright side when there's an SSRI to boost your mood?  Why pay the farmer when you can simply pay the doctor and the pharmacy?

Human beings are a disease.  We consume everything we come in contact with.  Just look at Superfund sites, Monsanto, oil spills, nuclear accidents, and any of the other sad atrocities we're responsible for.  We have this amazing technological gift of the internet, and we're turning it into yet another cesspool.  It's sad, really.  But that's okay.  Something better will come along, right?  Something more advanced and higher-tech, and we can leave this lay in ruin behind us as we advance to the next thing we can build up just to destroy.

Waste

Yesterday, I took my children on a road trip to one of the big cities we live in fairly close proximity to.  It was a mixture of fun and git-r-done; the new headboard we ordered to match Reezle's bedroom set, well, didn't.  And since it weighed somewhere in the neighborhood of 956,422 pounds, shipping it back would have cost the rough approximate of a decent down payment on a house; it was easier, albeit not by much, to just load it up and drive it to the store.  And we really needed a day out after the miserable bout of stomach virus that gripped our household for almost three solid weeks.  Hell, let me tell you.

The first thing I noticed about the city was that everyone was in such a big damn hurry to get absolutely nowhere.  I had several people take exceptional risks to pass me (I am not a slow driver, my past speeding tickets can attest to this - but I'm also not a stupid driver), one guy almost causing two massive wrecks to get about four car lengths ahead of me to a red light.  And for what?

I laughed a little to myself, both when I thought this yesterday and as I typed it just now.  I used to be the person in the big damn hurry.  I used to be more than a little impatient as I would sit behind the wheel offering expletive-filled driving instructions and advice to the so-and-sos in front of me.  I guess 12 years in the rural Midwest has changed my perspective on a lot of things.

The other thing I noticed was waste; from the shopping carts that were replaced despite being in near-new condition compared to the ones that work just fine at our local stores to the destruction of acres upon acres of land to put up more concrete structures.  We can't maintain this, whether it's the fossil fuels we're haphazardly wasting, or the buildings that will all lay in ruin once our economy collapses and no one can afford to care for them, we're going to eventually be catapulted rather painfully back to a simpler life.  That in mind, why not scale back now?  Why not take care of what we have and work harder, all of us, on a more sustainable way of life?

On the drive home, I appreciated the simplicity of our little corner of the map.  As houses grew farther apart and farms and fields of corn and grapes became the norm, I thought back a few years to a time when I wanted to live in the city more than just about anything in the world.  I had thoroughly loved Houston, Texas when we visited in 2005 and 2006, and was quite insistent that it was worth dropping everything here and heading down there.  I'm so glad we didn't, for I would now be a part of exactly what I've come to realize must change.

My perspective on many things has changed substantially in the past 7 years.  While the thought of having stores within walking distance and all kinds of fun buildings to go isolate myself from nature and entertain myself within once appealed to me very much, raising children and realizing the state of our world has caused me to re-evaluate how life should be lived.  I've developed a new appreciation for locally-grown, natural, earth-friendly, and non-polluted.  We can enjoy modern conveniences in moderation without destroying the one place we have to call home.  But largely, we don't.  We waste like it's our job, from the overpriced gas-guzzling Hummers to the three serving sizes of beef that supports animal cruelty, Monsanto, Big Pharma, and that new cardiology wing at the hospital all at once.

Sadly, I realized that, while change is coming, it's coming slowly.  It's going to take the skyrocketing price of fuels, getting knocked off-grid by some solar flare, or who knows what kind of mess for people to realize - too late - that we should have done something while we still could.  I fear for a society where modern conveniences have become life-sustaining necessities.  We're devolving.

Reezle's Farm

My sweet little Reezle turns 9 in a few days. It's hard for me to wrap my head around it.

Lately, she's been talking endlessly about the farm she wants to have when she's grown.  "I have a dream for when I'm older, and I plan to follow it," she told me earlier tonight.  "I'll have some cows. I'll only take my share of milk, not what the babies need. There will be plenty." She went on to say that she might like to have a couple of pigs, too, but that she doesn't want to raise anything for meat.

 "I want a really big farm and piece of land. I'm going to grow fruit trees, vegetables, and raise animals. I'll feed my cows non-Monsanto feed. Everything will be natural.  We already get so many delicious things just from our small garden, can you imagine a farm!?"

"I want to make my own honey, but I don't want to hurt the bees. If I want to all these things, I'm going to have to figure out a way I can work, too.  I'm going to get a Master's Degree in something.  Maybe a Doctorate, so I could be a doctor farmer.  If my animals get sick, I can figure out what it is and help them."

"I really want 3 or 4 kids, but I worry that I'll end up not being able to care for my farm. Hmm. I'm going to need a house.  How much is all of this going to cost?  The house, the farm, the animals, and all of those seeds.  Workers to build things.  All of these questions are coming into my mind!  What will I need to wear?  I think I'm worrying too much about my farm."

Indeed, my sweet girl.  But I'm so glad she has big plans for herself, and the confidence to make them.  Whatever she does, I'm sure she'll be amazing at it.
 

State Testing: An Education Super Fail

It's 4:16 AM.  Instead of sleeping, I'm here drinking coffee and blogging.  Why?  Because today was absolute utter hell in my home, and my daughter just got to sleep about two hours ago.  I'm still running on pure adrenaline and righteous anger.

Let me back up a bit.

Last year, I began homeschooling my children.  The reasons are many, but it mostly comes down to my belief that education is not one size fits all.  My children are both diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders, and my son additionally has a diagnosis of expressive/receptive speech disorder.  Both of them also have sensory processing disorder.  Mostly, in everyday life, this means little.  They have coping skills, they are really great kids, and they deal with the things that pose challenges like a couple of champs.  We realize, though, that it is having the freedom to be who they are in a supportive and loving environment which allows them to really shine like they do.  A public bricks and mortar school was not that environment.

K12 seemed to be a perfect fit for us.  I loved the curriculum.  Yes, I am using past tense words here, because I am beginning to realize that K12 is susceptible to the very same pitfalls, in terms of actual education, that any other public school suffers.  Perhaps it hit me extra hard this year because the language arts curriculum reading materials were severely slashed in terms of quantity, while at the same time we received a pile of test preparation materials which seemed more than a bit over the top.  The only reason I can think of to remove so much of the reading materials is that kids struggled with the amount of it, and spending additional time working through it would mean less time spent on test preparedness.  It also affects the kids' grades, and thus the school's reputation.  Now, I'm not blaming K12 for this at all; the state regulates their schools just like any other public school.  If anything, I think K12 is fucntioning exceptionally well given the circumstances and all of the red tape.

I wondered to myself, what would a curriculum look like if the schools were not being judged and the children were not being dragged through this nightmare known as state testing?

Today, I sat beside my daughter as she worked through a math Scantron assessment, her eyes welling up with tears, shaking with frustration, rocking back and forth.  She is good at math, but she hates it.  Her mind is definitely geared more toward right-brain activities than the logic-based, left-brain activities involved in math.  She hates math that is typical for her grade level, but this is the type of problem she had to work on:

Forgive me, since it's been quite some time since this was first introduced to me, but isn't this something you'd expect 7th-9th grade students to be working on?  I know a lot of adults who would struggle with this.  I almost wonder if they gave her the wrong assessment or something, because the problems were almost all at this level of difficulty and this was complete and utter torture for a 3rd grade child who detests math to begin with.

I have no idea what is in store on the actual state testing, but if it's anything like this, I have no idea at all what the goal is.  This is ridiculous.

I hope I feel better about things at some point, but right now I've had a rough day and I'm not feeling very warm or fuzzy about any of this.  Kids should not have to go through what my daughter went through today.  And you know, I'm quite sure that these state tests and district scores won't mean a damn thing in 100 years, but the contributions these children make to the world because of actual knowledge and experiential learning (read: not from tests for pretests for pretests to prepare for the pretest for the actual test) will.  Einstein, Tesla, George Washington, Hippocrates, and Galileo did just fine without all of this state testing crap.

Alrighty, then.

In Which I Get Depressing

My kiddos have been using some of their free time to watch older television shows on Netflix.  I love this option, even if it's Spongebob, because they're not being mentally flooded with a bunch of lies and deceit (i.e. "Whether it's corn sugar or cane sugar, your body can't tell the difference!" - The Corn Refiners Assoc.) or McDonald's telling them that joy if a gift you can find in a Happy Meal box.  But it turns out they may be getting something unintended from their viewing indulgences.

Reezle commented the other day about how someone learned a lesson of some kind in each episode of Dinosaurs.  "Earl learned that his family was more important than TV," she said.  And while this should be common sense, it is far from the message kids are receiving today - to the point it really stood out for my daughter.  The lesson learned in earlier family television shows were part of the feel-good aspect of those that I grew up with.  Sure, real problems don't work themselves out in 30 minutes and conclude with the entire family collectively vomiting glitter and sunshine (a common criticism of family sitcoms back in the day), but somehow it did provide a sense that hope was not misplaced and eventually things would work out.

These days we have a bit too much "reality" on television.  I realize people tune in largely for the shock value and out of morbid curiosity; after all, it's often like watching a train wreck in slow motion.  But it seems this is not a sideshow or a fleeting glimpse into the lives we all should be glad we're not living; it has become acceptable, even admirable, to live for oneself and flaunt abuses of excess and material possessions as if these things could somehow ever compensate for what these individuals lack in substance and character.  From the Bachelor to Housewives, I wonder endlessly why anyone cares about the smallest details of a person's dating life or how spoiled, entitled women spend their husbands' fortunes to the point of bankruptcy.  I'd like there to be a reality show about the benefits of making good financial decisions, saving money, and preparing to put your kids through college.

Children's shows have eroded into nothing more than screaming, whining stupidity, completely devoid of any value whatsoever.  What happened to shows that had a moral to their stories?  Where are the shows emphasizing the importance of family and friends, regardless of what form those come in?  They're relics of the past, apparently, replaced by a world that is obsessed to the point of isolation with creating virtual existences behind the screens of laptops, cell phones, game consoles, and other electronic devices.  Even when we do interact with others, it's through some device much more often than not.

Our whole existence is fake.  Our lives are on a screen, our images are filtered and Photoshopped, our language is abbreviated, we eat food-like substances instead of actual food, and kids today want to grow up and get their own reality TV show instead of being a doctor, firefighter, or astronaut.  How can we stress the importance of not engaging in stupid behavior when talentless celebrities are made famous for doing exactly what we're warning against?  What happened to wanting a good future, an interesting career, and a family?  When I was growing up, having money meant you wanted financial security.  Now it means you feel entitled to more in that paycheck because your husband's salary, which should be sufficient for a family of 6 to live comfortably in a reasonably-sized home with a couple of reasonable family cars, isn't enough to pay for the Escalade and a $500,000 house you feel you damn well deserve because, hey, everyone else is doing it and being harassed by these creditors isn't any fun!

What has happened to our society?  It's like human beings are no longer evolving; we reached a point where our technology far surpasses our intellect and ability to use it appropriately, and now we're circling the drain.

Happy Autumn

Soon, the leaves will begin to change and Miss Reezle and I will be searching for more foliage shots like the one above. After their season's grand finale, the trees will grow more bare with each of the typical windy, chilly nights we expect this time of year. As for us, we will be doing more cooking and baking now that days and nights are cooler. Chili, hot cocoa, and holidays are on our minds more often than popsicles and hooping in the sun, now. We love this time of year, the perfect blend of warm days and chilly nights, shorts and hoodies, pleasant weather and howling winds. Pumpkins are showing up everywhere and we have our Halloween decorations up.

 Welcome, Fall.

Data Entry

My complaints tend to be minor and few when it comes to K12 and the curriculum.  However, I'm not a fan of the changes they've made to Language Arts (I think it is a scattered, disorganized, diluted version of the previous one), and I absolutely loathe the answer entry forms that I must do after my kids do math (and some other) assessments.  Assessments are printed from an online document, or are in the workbooks provided in the curriculum materials.  The kiddos complete them, and I enter the results in an online form when they're finished.  Instead of making a simple form where we click Yes or No the entire way through, or enter their answer in a box for each item, it goes more like this:

1. Did the student answer correctly?  Yes No
2. Part 1: one point.  Part 2: one point.  Enter the number of points the student earned.
3. 465 - 200 = ____________
4. 76 - 20 = __________
5. Did the student answer correctly?  Yes  No
6. Part 1: one point.  Part 2: two points.  Enter the number of points the student earned.
6. 98 - 45 = ___________

I mean, really?  I can't recall how many times my children have arrived at the correct answer, and I've entered the wrong one, clicked the wrong circle, put the correct answer in the wrong box, etc.  I basically feel like I am doing the assessment after they do the assessment with all of the trick data entry stuff going on.  Very annoying, time-consuming, distracting, and completely unnecessary.  Not to mention the fact that my son is prone to melting into a pouting puddle when I enter something wrong that he got right.  Ugh.  #parentfail