Tag Archive for poverty

Suspend that Kid!

November 9, 2015 Comments Off on Suspend that Kid!

If a kid breaks a school rule, suspend him!  This is a bit of wisdom I’ve never quite understood, especially when I was teaching.

Let me get this straight.  We believe that an education is the primary vehicle for success and that all kids should have access to it.  In fact, studies show that education is the most sure way to lift a child out of poverty in his adulthood and make it more likely that his children will not have to grow up in poverty.  We also know that kids who have pressures on them like poverty are the most likely to act out and earn detention.

Once off detention, a kid faces school staff who have labeled him a “troublemaker,” and he has work he must make up, taking time from already overburdened teachers.  Some teachers or schools have policies that say that a kid may NOT make up any tests, homework, or other schoolwork missed while on suspension, which leaves a gap in skill/concept mastery that interferes with later mastery which is built on what he missed.  His detention, then, has put him behind.

Sure, he might “learn his lesson” and not re-offend…maybe.  But how many kids with behavior problems realize what they have missed and its importance?

Tell me again how suspension from school benefits a kid or the society he will live in as an adult?

 

 

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The Royalty of Children

May 5, 2015 Comments Off on The Royalty of Children

As we greet the new royal child, let’s think about how we can protect ALL the children of the world.  This little potential future queen—as well as our two American princesses—will never face hunger, homelessness, exploitation, or death by diseases that are virtually unknown in most of the world.  They won’t have to work long hours in the field before even their tenth birthday to help support their families.  For a certainty, they will have the opportunity for a first-rate education and be able to pass on their good fortune to their own children.

Not all babies are born into that world.  Many, many face abject poverty, malnutrition, and illiteracy.  Those who do survive to have families of their own will pass those conditions on to their children as their only possible legacy.

Those of us who are in a position to do something about the futures of these children must actually do something.  If we have the means, we can donate funds to organizations, here and abroad, that fight poverty, feed the hungry, and educate all the children.  We can volunteer as baby-rockers in at-risk hospital nurseries; aides for teachers of limited-English-speaking classes; tutors for underachieving students or those locked away at Juvenile Hall.  We can visit a museum, art gallery, zoo, tech museum, or the like, taking with us a child of parents struggling to find jobs or working several jobs to meet the bills.  We can invite a latch-key child to help make a double batch of cookies or casserole, and send half of it home with the young cook to show off to the family.  We can do…a million little things that will make a difference in a young life, things that will make a lasting impression, build his or her self-esteem, teach a concept or a skill, and, therefore, provide a step toward a better life than the child might have had.

After all, isn’t each child a royal child?

 

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Mandela on Overcoming Poverty

March 12, 2015 Comments Off on Mandela on Overcoming Poverty

 Today’s Thursday Thought:

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Kids are Graduating!

May 7, 2014 Comments Off on Kids are Graduating!

Great news!  We’re closing in on a 90% graduation rate. The National Center for Education Statics has reported that we’re at a never-before-reached 81% and climbing, with 90% quite attainable by 2020. Some states are already there.  Read more about this in the article at Time.com.

I’m excited because of my belief that education is the cornerstone for building a healthy, vibrant society.  Education parts the forbidding seas of lack of employment opportunities, ignorant discrimination, inequality, and poverty.  It puts otherwise wasted brain-power and creativity to work in ways that benefit the whole society.  It opens individual lives to the wonder of the world.  Education can’t actually save our country or the world, but it’s certainly a giant step in that direction.

 

 

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The Truth about Nestle Bottled Water

March 5, 2014 Comments Off on The Truth about Nestle Bottled Water

Are you a fan of Calistoga bottled water?  How about Arrowhead, Ice Mountain, Ozarka, Poland Spring, or Zephyrhills?  All are brands produced by Nestle Corp. and marketed in the U.S. Nestle sells more than 65 other brands in countries besides the U.S.  Where can all that water come from? They take it from developing countries, doing great harm to natural resources and forcing the people to buy back their own water.  Take Pakistan, for example.  Nestle has taken so much water that the groundwater is reaching dangerously low levels.  The result is people’s inability to produce and earn a livelihood, pushing them into poverty.  As for the waterless land, whole areas are becoming uninhabitable.  Nestle’s CEO Peter Brabeck-Letmathe claims that “access to water should not be a public right.”  In other words, if you’re a large corporation, you should have the right to take a country’s water and destroy people’s lives.

Read more at  http://urbantimes.co/2013/06/nestle-the-global-search-for-liquid-gold.

If you’re not willing to give up bottled-water, avoid Nestle brands.

Also, sign the petition to Nestle executives telling them to stop stealing Pakistan’s water and driving its people into poverty and starvation.

 

 

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BEFORE You Donate to Good Will…

September 2, 2013 Comments Off on BEFORE You Donate to Good Will…

Put yourself in this position: You are given a job that doesn’t fit your abilities, then criticized and have your pay lowered when you don’t perform well.  You may get 58 cents an hour while the executives are paid $48,000 and up a year.  The “company” grosses $56 million a year while getting hundreds of millions of dollars in government support, yet none of that money is passed on to you, the worker.

This is Good Will Industries.  Their mission is to help the disabled by giving them work, but, in many cases, they hold back people who, properly trained and given the opportunity, could earn their own way into a satisfying, non-poverty-level life.

There are so may other organizations out there that we can give our goods to– Catholic Charities, Salvation Army, charity-supporting thrift stores, etc.–that have low administrative costs and do a huge amount of good work that actually build up people’s lives.

Before you give anything to Good Will, take a look at this eye-opening video: http://www.upworthy.com/words-like-good-and-will-dont-belong-together-if-this-is-the-kind-of-thing-they-do-5?c=bl3.

 

[Full disclosure: I am a person with a disability.]

 

 

 

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