User:MWS

I am interested in spiritual self-improvement, a personal mix of Hinduism and meditation.

Wouldn't it be great if children could be assured of being raised by adults?

Wouldn't it be great if adults did not expect kids to be fully-formed adults?

Wouldn't it be great if kids got many viewpoints growing up, and not just a few?

What if parents do not "have the interests of their children at heart?" What if parents have no moral compass, but "fake it" by control and bluster?

Do schools exist to teach a few simple concepts and facilitate networking? If so, online learning and networking sites may leave them in the dust. On the other hand, that "old school tie" seems to outweigh other considerations of merit. Otherwise, why is the Supreme Court of the United States all Harvard and Yale?

Role models for good behavior are drowned out by role models for bad behavior.

When Hillary Clinton used the phrase "It Takes a Villiage to Raise a Child" as a book title, someone said, no, it takes two parents. This sort of thinking is cruelly burdensome to parents, especially those whose parenting skills are subpar. A "village" approach to parenting would help everyone.

Some children figure out for themselves that their parents are lacking, and spend much of their time in some other home. Imagine the hurt sowed by a parent who declares to their child, "You owe the neighbors, big time, for all the time you spent there." No, it's the clueless parents who are in debt to the neighbors.

Imagine a world where the cost of living and job distribution would not vary with density of population, or travel time to work. One could live and work in the big city and not be forced to commute to affordable housing, or live in a small town and not be underemployed.

Some people underachieve in life, through too-low self-esteem. Others overachieve in life, through too-high self-esteem. Both damange the person and society at large.

With broadband Internet now avilable to any place, some promoters for small-town America told city folk whose work involves broadband, "Come here! No big-city vices or hassles here!" As if all one needed in life, these villages could provide, and as if small-town teens didn't engage in destructive behaviors to escape the boredom.

Rest in peace, George Leonard, Alice Miller, John Vasconcellos, and Anna Wise.

Civilization is high maintenance; stop trying to do it cheaply.

Assuming people are adults because of their age is easy and wrong.

If everyone could have first-rate instruction in arts, including movement arts, sociology, and human (not computer) languages, we would have true freedom, instead of something much less.

Teachers and parents need to publicly define what the goals of an education are, so the day of teachers striving to make worker bees, and parents letting them get away with it, are gone forever.

It's good that bullying is starting to be taken seriously. Before the tech revolution provided victims with a way to verify the abuse, denial or blame-the-victim was commonplace. Still, it takes a responsible adult to act.

Imagine a parent responding to a child's complaint of verbal and physical abuse thus: "The Sheriff can't be bothered to come out here to take a report..."

How many people shy away from confronting injustice in their own lives or the lives of others, or never reach their full potential, because some authority figure told them, "Life is not fair?"

"Would it kill you to smile?" Well, YES. Remember "Put On a Happy Face?" One day, I decided: no more put-ons.

"Stop acting as if the weight of the whole world was on your shoulders" is unnecessarily harsh, for a normally moody teen.

"The squeaky wheel gets the grease." Except when it gets the hammer.

"YOU LOOK SPOOKY." Thanks, Mister good-for-nothing of a high school biology teacher. YOU LOOK UGLY.

Parent: "Bored at school?" Child: "No." Child in adulthood: "Wrong question."

Should we follow our bliss? Or, get with the program?

Is "Never hit a woman" still mandatory, or does it provoke verbal or physical abuse by women?

PTA attendance should be mandatory, as should a weekly or monthly "follow your child for a whole day at school."