It's Not Simply Fast Food That Has Harmed America's Children

With all the mainstream media reports out on the cause celebre' taken on by Mrs. Obama with respect to the detrimental effects of fast food and obesity in children, and flack also that has been at the top of some news stories in relating battles she has had with her own children, it appears to me and many Americans that "fast food" isn't the only harm that has progressively affected America's children.

Our educational system has also "progressively" taken on a "fast food" mentality throughout most of the nation.

As an example, in my generation (the boomer generation), phonics was the order of the day, and Dick and Jane. Learning phonics was tough, and it took about five full years to master all the intricacies due to all the different vowel sounds, consonants and blends which went into learning the English language.

Today, teacher's send home "memory lists" for children to learn the fundamental nouns, verbs and adjectives, which may work in the short term but certainly is a "fast food" method of teaching reading and vocabulary.

I mean, in a pinch if a child hears the word but has no clue insofar as even how it begins phonetically, then how in the world can they even use a dictionary to find out the meaning of the word?

I ran into this so many times with my own children, it got to be very frustrating as a parent. And once learned, most of those harder vocabulary words from those memory lists were soon forgotten.

As far as reading comprehension and retention, due to the focus now on computers and word lists, I found that if a sentence has a comma in it, most kids have lost the train of thought before they even finish the sentence.

The "new" vocabulary is BTW, LOL and if a sentence has more than three words in it, they are lost.

Most teachers today appear to be focusing more and more on prepping kids for those standarized measurement tests that occur throughout the year, than they do actually teaching the fundamentals anymore.

Although I wouldn't hesitate to guess it really isn't the teachers, but the "progressively" expanding federal, state and local officials that are involved in the curriculum that is taught in most of the schools.

In fact, there are as many levels of "government" in our educational system as there are now in our government itself. We have federal, state, city and school boards, in addition to public/private partnerships such as the Council on Foreign Relations whose members consist of many university staff and professors, now determing curriculum for those teachers, to whom they must answer primarily and not in most respects the parents in those local communities in any manner whatsoever.

And if those expensive computers or calculators break down, watch out. It's a run to the nearest computer store for new batteries, or another calculator so that the "new math" can be mastered by plugging in all those figures correctly.

I met many a parent while raising my kids at the local retailer at 8:59 needing batteries so that Junior could finish their homework.

And those computers and calculators don't come cheap, either. For a single mother, say, getting $500.00 per month when one of those new calculators are close to $200, that's over 2/3rds her child support check for the month in many homes, if she is receiving any at all.

The focus now on "fast food" insofar as America's children just goes, once again, to show the "socialism" bent that has taken hold of this country in how things appear to others, including our kid's weight, rather than focusing on what truly will give them a sense of accomplishment and self-worth by first focusing on the inside, and let those tumultuous teen years take care of the exterior, as any adult surely knows that during that particular stage, body image is everything.

And by that time, some of that baby fat will naturally be gone for most, unless there is a genetic propensity toward greater body fat content, as most parents with older children or have "been there, done that" can attest.

And with all the problems that this country is now facing that impacts and threatens our youth, isn't childhood obesity a rather superficial, and irrelevant focus at this point in our history?

I mean, with some of those Supreme Court decisions which have been handed down under this Administration, and the last, especially post 9-11, and "progressively" it would appear that "memory lists" don't work for even at the Ivy League university level, since it appears our Court has forgotten both American history, and those fundamental principles upon which this nation was built as a sovereign country, "of the PEOPLE, by the PEOPLE, and for the PEOPLE," and NOT the corporate.

And that Kelo decision, wow, does that have the potential to adversely affect them and their futures far more than having another cookie or donut.

Or the threat for them and their posterity in the continuing outsourcing and insourcing of Americal labor, or selling off America's infrastucture to foreign governments and individuals.

Now those are real threats.

"Progress" is not always good. And it appears that our children are the living proof that "fast education" has more negatives than positives,

And Dick, Jane and Sally were more "politically correct" than the progressives in both politics, and education, have given credit.

BTW.