Thank you, Bobby.
You have expressed your perspective well. Thank you!

I feel the same about "reality" shows, WWF, and banal sitcoms. No need to enumerate the blatantly raunchy talk shows, the vacuous soaps, and even the evening news shows that vie for audience coverage by including cutesy stories of lost/found kittens or bizarre coverage of monks in India who have grown their fingernails to 15 feet.

Grinding my teeth here, I admit that at least two members of my Idaho family not only watch [probably all of] these shows with the TV blipping its way through 20 commercials before returning to the main menu, but they also buy AND READ the National Enquirer! Good heavens, isn't USA Today bad enough?
I have tried to sit through a couple of shows while visiting people who watch them and have felt the same dread (for our country) that Bobby is expressing.

At my school,I am able to read only three daily nespapers, and in the PNW they are all somewhat liberal. As long as I know that, I guess I'm okay. In addition, because I appreciate the literary and editorial (and cartoon) content, I take The New Yorker at home - liberal as well. But I also take the fairly balanced Atlantic Monthly. And the political books I purchase for more in-depth reading run the gamit from fanatically conservative to over-the-top liberal. By choice, I no longer have a TV.

When we were in high school, I thought MHHS did a bang-up job of educating us, and that belief has been reinforeced many times. As I connect with old classmates, I am gratefully impressed with the competence, the insights, and the professionalism of our former peers. Our friends are articulate, well-read, successful and, for the most part, proud of their lives.

As a high school teacher today, I am just as dismayed at the dummying down of standards and expections as the others who decry this trend. It's so vital to ask, How has this happened? Many reasons have contributed, but I place the bulk of this problem in two major areas. I'm going out on a limb here that may fall on someone, but here are my thoughts:

First, all the legal details that have attached themselves to [what were in the beginning, sensible] laws for accommodationg our "special" children, from the gifted to the disadvantaged - every legal attachment after legal attachment, like so many barnacles - have slowed the system and dragged us all down with this weight. We are drowning in the whirlpool this has created. The paperwork is absurd. The entire process is tedious and extremely, incredibly, obscenely expensive. The extremes to which this "special inclusiveness" has evolved are without question grossly unfair to the other students and anyway, how can we say they are not "special," too? Then we have self-contained classrooms where the kids don't see anyone else except at lunch, and even then are escorted to the cafeteria in little groups led by two or three instructors for every 8 kids. They sit at a table away from others, and they eat with their teachers. How is that inclusive - let alone equal - education?

Second, the American family unit has been pretty much shattered as single-parent households and two-parent households all work, sometimes at more than one job. Their kids are not getting the kind of support with homework and projects that we had - even if it was just, "Have you finished your homework?" before we could go out to play. The kids themselves are taking on jobs during the school year and often see "work" as much more important than school because they want money to buy the gas that gets them to work (okay, to be fair, and other things, too).

We've had many exchange students in our home who have been astounded by how hard and long the parents work, how little time Americans have to enjoy life, and especially how kids work while they are still in high school. In their countries, school IS their job, and they work that much harder at learning and studying to pass the National Exams after high school (if they want to go on to college). At age 16, if kids don't want to go to college, they can apprentice or just go out into the work force and do their best at whatever job they find. Money is not the be-all of life; being the best at what you do is. But they have plenty of time to relax and enjoy the finer things in life - family, hobbies, friends, travel . . . .

You may disagree that these are the main offenders to maintaining quality education, or you may want to add to this discussion about the the American "declining IQ and taste meltdown" that Bobby has blasted. Then please, step up to the plate and swing away!

PS to Bobby, my post-script is the mirror image of yours.

PPS to Bobby, although I do not really know you, obviously you obtained an excellent education. What factors or accommodations helped you to excel?

Look into this website and enjoy the memories:

http://heavens-gates.com/50s/memories.html

Iny, you know when you talk that way it makes me tingle all over.

I consider my education to be good. I graduated from Gonzaga University with a BA in English Lit and a Teaching degree. But I wasn't Summa *** Laude or Magna......... Just your decent student.

Not quite sure what you're asking. When I was at GU there was not much help for people in wheelchairs like myself. The professors and Jesuit Priests I had were amazing, though. Besides becoming an "observer" of all interesting things/trends, etc., teachers like Franz Schneider (poetry) who was forced to fight for the Nazis in WWII, John Gilmore (philosophy) who was a Buddhist, and Fr. Frederick Schlatter (Ancient Greek history) who had been to Greece 50 times, and topics ranging from Chaucer to Flannery O'Conner, had a strong influence on me.

And I haven't watched Network TV for 20 years now. That has helped to keep my brain from going completely dead.

Iny, it's funny but I'd bet you saw me and I saw you at various times in the high school or at sporting events. Never paid attention, though. I do distinctly remember some of your classmates.

Don't feel bad about not your remembering me, Bobby. In many ways I was remarkably un-memorable. I was tall but more like Olive Oil then, and I had bad hair until the end of my sophomore year. It was still growing out from 8th grade when one of my parents who purported to love me, convinced me to cut it very short. Add to that the freckles from head to toe and the fact that I made most of my clothes, and you may begin to see how I dissolved into the tide of students rippling from class to class. However, at the end of my sophomore year, four events may have saved me from total extinction.

First (besides the national fitness test that JFK sent out to the entire country - remember that, folks?), a national math assessment was given to all high school students. At MHHS the top three scores were recognized in an all-school assembly. Of course, we had no fore-warning what the assembly was about, let alone the names and the manner of announcing them. First, reeealy smart John Dalton was called and he came down from the senior section; next, my cousin-the-brain Bob Terrell, also a senior; and then . . . oh, groan! . . . me? I was dumbfounded, shocked. Also chagrined, because my "cover" was blown. But with no way to escape, I climbed down from the sophomore bleachers in all my gangliness and walked self-consciously to the stage while the entire student body watched. It was beyond embarrassing.

Second, I was selected for Honor Society, and I have since read in my yearbook how everyone thought that was a really big deal so I guess it was. The third event was the romance that developed with my biology partner, whom I had known for years but didn't appreciate until we injected frog sperm into frog eggs and produced lots of little froggiwogs. From that time we were high school sweethearts for nearly three years (into college). I guess just knowing that someone would like me enough to be my boyfriend, gave me some confidence. And finally - you guessed it - my hair was growing and growing until it was long enough to iron.

The point to all of this is, Bobby, you would have missed me altogether my first two years of high school. But the last two, you would have missed me, too, because then I was never in one place for more than 15 minutes! I never had study hall but devoured learning and was buzzing around in nearly every club or activity in school. Weekends and summers I/we partied, or dragged Main, or headed out Canyon Creek Road or to the Sand Dunes, went to Teen Town or Gary's Sugar Shack, or hit the drive-in . . . well, you get the picture.

As for the other - what I was asking concerning you as a student, Bobby - it's this: you have done exceptionally well without all the hundreds of additions to the special ed programs that we have today. Surely in your wheelchair you struggled sometimes, but you don't seem like the kind of person who was a whiner. Your disadvantage was more visible than the problems others may have had. You were "out there," while others were hiding internal issues that were perhaps as debilitatig. You graduated from GU because you made up your mind to do it (and you obviously did it well). But with today's multitude of micromanaged programs, our students with diabilities are pandered to and protected so closely that, paradoxically, the efforts to help them BE successful are keeping them FROM succeeding.

So, I suppose what I was trying to ask is, what kinds of real help might you propose that our schools need for today's kids who are physically challenged? And anything else you want to add that might help them have that "tingling" reaction to articulation/erudition.
(Cute. Very cute.)

***I probably won't be in Spokane until next Bloomsday. My summer plans are to keep running/swimming and start biking, while supporting my boyfriend in his training for this year's Ironman competition - so after June 22, I'll be staying with him for the summer.

Too bad there's not a [/sarcasm] or [/tongue in cheek] emoticon. It was a jestful post, I thought.

Iny, I got by with a little help from my friends, to borrow a phrase from Ringo.

I'd enjoy revisiting this topic next year, the first weekend in May when you journey to Spokane for Bloomsday.

Till then, keep it light.

Just a thought and different perpective. I admit that I enjoyed American Idol! It's stems from a conservative value that the best compete and a broad American spectrum decides who wins. The episode you watched was amaturish and didn't follow the usual format.

Other programing that illustrates this American value was last night's National Spelling Bee. Last year's winner came from my school district and this year, our student made it to the finals. Then there was the Olympics, a fine example of hard work to be the best..

There's a lot of trash on tv. American Idol, however, is the pursuit of someone's dreams through talent and hard work. Let me assure you that my conservative credentials are as middle right as they can be. Lighten up a little bit! Can 60,000,000 people really be that wrong? No offense, but some might say that going to the bars is not exactly a high IQ activity. Should we worry about America because of all the people who go there?

Hey, Carolyn, whatever happened to that shy buddy of mine who was in Girl Scouts with me? You've become assertive. Yeah! :) (I really missed not seeing you at the reunion!!) Anyway, I agree with you about American Idol. Does anyone remember Ted Mack's Amateur Hour? It was a talent search and the audience decided the winner by means of applause monitoring. I have fond memories of watching that with my family along with the Ed Sullivan Show. It was good, clean entertainment for the whole family. I know of many families who all gather around to watch American Idol, all different generations watching it together. They put in the weirdos and "hype" it up, probably so that those who aren't really interested in a talent search can have fun with it also. I do agree people need to read more, but we also have our senses of hearing and sight, and being selective (there's great stuff on the Discovery channel, History channel, AMC, PBS, etc.) is the key to being "balanced"...we need to control our television and COMPUTER choices, not let them control us. Hey, Iny, Sue, and all others who have recorded memories...I grew up in the neighborhood a block away from yours, and I've enjoyed immensely the memories about such things as the noon whistle, the sawmill whistle, & even you mentioning those mysterious grape vines lining the arched trellises by Gridley's Market. Can you tell me why they were "scary" to me as a child? Were we forbidden to walk through them or what????? (Oh, & Kathi, you're right about the phone numbers...in fact, mine was 678-W!!)

Greetings Betty!!
I remember that the Girl Scout cookies cost 50 cents a box, and there was only one flavor available! Also, there was a scary old man with a long white beard in the window of a house we approached at dusk. Perhaps it was just our imaginations running overtime, but we never walked close to that house again!
Ted Mack's Amateur Hour was fun to watch. There was some crazy talent on that show! And good old Ed Sullivan. He had a "really good show!"
Thanks for your response. We hope to make it to the next reunion. I hear I missed a good one!