Student Loan Repayment Forgiveness
Ever have one of those moments where you think “if this passes I may buy a hoodie and a bandana and start a firebombing campaign?” Well I just had one.
The topic of student loan repayment forgiveness came up on the TV. I was immediately filled with rage. Why was I filled with rage you might ask? I was filled with rage because I busted my butt to pay off my student loan. I ended up borrowing about the average amount because, despite coming in with a wad of cash and producing some income while I was there the numbers didn’t work. I could have lived cheaper (I’m substantially better with money now) but didn’t do anything completely crazy. We made the normal payments for a couple years as we got our stuff together financially.
Establishing our emergency fund happened to occur roughly when I got a promotion. We started making big (like 1/3rd of my take home pay) payments and over about a year got it paid off. That really sucked. We lived really cheap and could not do some things we wanted to do. It was a big sacrifice for us to pay it off that fast but we wanted to be done, partially to save on interest but mostly so we could finally be debt free and able to aim a lot of money towards our next goal, home ownership.
Did getting student loans work out for me? Yes it did. I have a college degree and a good job. I could have borrowed a bit less and lived cheaper but there is nobody to blame but my own self for that one.
As for student loans on the whole; It is worth noting that my generation are receiving far fewer grants and costs are much higher than when previous generations pursued higher education. Forcing colleges to get their costs under control would be worthwhile though it might mean *gasp* cutting needless admin positions, making being a professor a bit less cushy, not constantly building new stuff to then tear down perfectly functional old stuff, etc. We are really getting a raw deal but I definitely do not let the 22-30 year old age group get off blame free.
Despite their intelligence and behavior on pretty much every front, legally speaking 18 year olds are adults. That means they can make adult choices, almost always stupid ones. College is a great experience in a lot of ways but at the end you need to be able to get a job. Getting a degree in underwater basket weaving is stupid. Going to an expensive private college to get a degree in education or communications or some social science is not necessary, and if you are financing it via student loans it is downright stupid. A beginning teacher making 32k a year or so can’t afford big student loan payments.
Student loan forgiveness is a big gripe of the “99%” crowd. I have absolutely no sympathy that the choices they made did not work out well. Mostly I think we will find the ones who are in real trouble made stupid choices. While I do think that structural changes (controlling costs mostly, along with schools helping kids not being pimps for the loan industry) should occur they do not absolve individuals of responsibility.
Quote of the Day, an Interesting Post and a Good Blog
“Poverty is more than a lack of income. It is also the consequence of specific behaviors and decisions. The 2001 Census data clearly show that dropping out of high school, staying single, having children without a spouse, working only part time or not working at all substantially increase the chances of long-term poverty. Certain behaviors are a recipe for success. Among those who finish high school, get married, have children only within a marriage and go to work, the odds of long-term poverty are virtually nil.”
-Blake Bailey
[I do think it is worth noting that this statement has so many very specific qualifiers that it would be difficult to really examine the statistics. However I certainly do agree that “Poverty is more than a lack of income. It is also the consequence of specific behaviors and decisions.”]
This quote was part of a very interesting post over at Rural Revolution. Even if you are ambivalent about the whole Christianity thing the overall advice is still really sound. Don’t let someones religious stance get in the way of really good info. A lot of people who know great stuff come from Christian backgrounds. The Mormon church really has their stuff together in a lot of ways, especially food storage and organization.
Not Good, Just Less Bad
I saw something interesting on the yahoo main page today. It is an article called The Myth of Good Debt. Certainly it is good for a coffee break or a few minutes of internet time wasting.
The whole subject of “good debt” vs bad debt has always kind of bothered me. Plain and simple debt is bad. You are promising future earnings for something now. You are almost surely paying interest for this service.
To be honest I think it is more like kind of bad debt and really bad debt. I would characterize home mortgages and education is kind of bad and consumer debt, credit cards, car loans and the like and really bad debt. The label good implies that it is smart to have this debt and it does great things for you. Sometimes that is right. In particular getting a college degree greatly increases (on average) your earning power. If you could figure a way to get through school with no debt or low debt that is ideal. However since educational costs have increased greatly beyond inflation or typical low level (working your way through school type job) wages that isn’t always realistic.
Tangent begins- Also I would submit to some people that working your way through school at a low paying job and taking classes part time isn’t the best route anyway. I have known a lot of people who had significant life problems as well as academic difficulties that lead to them not finishing school. They take a class here and another there and periodically have to drop out due to life reasons or even fail classes. Screwing up and not getting to a place where they can earn a comfortably livable wage and then continuing to earn 7-12 bucks an hour is pretty common. These folks then whine about how life is so hard and it isn’t fair and generally have a long term pity party. What would often be a better course of action is to decrease their lifestyle if applicable, work less and borrow just enough to make up the difference. The difference between going to school and working 12-20 hours a week or 30-40 is huge. At minimum wage or close the amount of money we are talking about isn’t that big. They could focus on school more and get it done at a decent pace. It probably will not be too hard to pay back said money with their increased future earnings. This is basically what I did and while I should have borrowed a bit less lived a bit cheaper it has worked out pretty well for us so far. End tangent.
With educational expenses should come degrees or certifications that significantly boost your earning power. I have got news for everybody. The days when a guy could graduate high school and fall into a comfortably paying job doing work trained monkeys could do are over. We could talk about why this has happened but it doesn’t change that it has. Especially with today’s economy and jobs being scare you need to be marketable.
Mortgages are slightly worse than educational expenses IMO. I say this is because they do not have the same kind of exponential payoff as education (if properly targeted and used). Also the returns are generally less of a sure thing. House prices have a great long term track record but the short-mid term can be wild.
It would take a really long time for most people to save the cash to buy a traditional home outright. There are certainly some benefits to alternative housing but if you don’t want to go that way the options are saving a lot of money for a very long time or getting a mortgage. Certainly paying the landlords mortgage for decades instead of your own and not getting the tax benefits or the appreciation in value doesn’t make any sort of sense.
Getting a decent fixed mortgage you can actually afford on a home makes good sense for somebody in a stable financial place with some savings. As you noticed that sentence was kind of complicated. Maybe adjustable rate type mortgages or other exotic options make sense for some smart people in some situations. However for most people they are a horrible decision. If you can’t afford a fixed rate it means you can’t afford the home. Stability is very important as even short mortgages last many years and you need to be able to make that payment every month. Personally I have seen a lot of people get into trouble when they happen to get a job that pays somewhat better than they can expect elsewhere, 10 dollar an hour type guy earning 13 or a job that pays 70k instead of 55. The issue comes when they get a loan they can afford at their current higher wages and for whatever reason (laid off, fired, decide to change fields, etc) they end up changing jobs. Think about how much you could make at another job. Also having a safety net in the form of an emergency fund is essential. You’ve got to be able to deal with that month the car breaks or being out of work for awhile. I think Chief Instructor said once that a month of looking for every ten thousand dollars in salary is a guideline.
Part of my concern is that the concept of “good debt” leads to an attitude that having this debt is normal and even smart. Yeah it smart to increase your earning power with a degree and eventually purchase a home. However it is really smart to pay off that student loan as fast as possible and in time the home too. Having a mortgage (for the right person) beats the heck out of renting but owning a home free and clear beats the heck out of having a mortgage. I think it is also worth noting that if you buy a modest home you can actually afford paying it off at an accelerated rate is probably realistic. If you get absolutely as much home as you can make the payments on of course it isn’t realistic to pay 10, 20, 50 or even 100% extra principle payments.
Cars I would classify as the best or most understandable of the “bad debt”. Buying cars with cash is ideal. However “clunkers” can have some real problems. Some folks are good at fixing cars or just lucky and others have horrible luck. Often clunkers are unreliable and just $400 the heck out of you until they die. Basically if you aren’t able to save a decent bit of cash and need a car for transportation you’re pretty much stuck getting a loan. The real problem is how expensive of a car you get. For example awhile back my little sister found herself needing a decent reliable car. She went and got a loan to pay for a few year old basic car. Not a junker but also not new or fancy or anything like that. She paid it off faster than the loans planned life and still drives it. You need reliable transportation, not a new Mercedes. Look at it this way. If you can’t afford to pay cash it means you aren’t in a great spot for getting this car so be reasonable.
Consumer loans and credit card debt and such are just bad. The best case is that you use these as a sort of emergency fund because you haven’t saved a couple months worth of expenses. This is bad because if you can’t afford this stuff now why would you think it will be easier to afford later. I am a realist and I know things happen. I can also note that for some strange reason things seem to happen a lot more to folks who do not have emergency funds. Some unforeseen stuff comes up that has to happen right away. Replacing a key household appliance is a good example. Lets say your washer goes out. You get a new one from Sears and finance it then pay it off over a couple paychecks. Not insane. [However what if something bigger happens. Putting a months worth of living expenses from some down time at work on a credit card could take forever to dig out of. ] However using consumer loans to get all new appliances you don’t really need for the whole house is insane.
My observation is that people rarely get into consumer or credit card debt trouble because of using them to ride out an emergency. People get into trouble here by using credit to live beyond their means buying this and that and the other thing which they can’t afford and almost certainly don’t need.
Sometimes debt makes sense. It can be understandable and even a good decision. However do not forget that at the end of the day no matter how “good” debt is it’s still a promise of money you haven’t even earned yet. Use it responsibly and try to get out of it as quickly as possible.
10 Things We Say That Keep Us Broke
One thing I sort of disagree about is student loans. They are not ideal of course but unless the rents saved a bunch for you to go to school or you qualify for crazy scholarships for educational or athletic merit or are part of a group that society says deserves highly subsidized education it is pretty hard to get through a 4 year degree without any student loans. Assuming you choose a degree path that will increase your earning power and employ ability education is a pretty solid investment.
Personally I took on some debt going through school. It kinda sucks that I have that payment but I make whole lot more money now than I was able to before I got that piece of paper. The difference for one year alone probably equals close to my debt amount. Now that we have an emergency fund a significant portion of our income goes towards paying that debt off at an accelerated rate.
To me owing some money to increase your earning power for a lifetime just makes sense.
Little Bit of Life: The Dreams We Were Sold and Reality
This relates to a series of posts I did awhile back (1, 2, 3). My Generation of mid 20 somethings to 30ish were largely sold a pack of exaggerations and outright lies by our parents, teachers and society at large. We were told that the roads are paved in gold and if we get a college degree or a skilled trade (mostly a degree) it is going to be easy and we will quickly settle into very comfortable lives a la the American Dream.
My values and beliefs do not allow me to absolve people of responsibility for their actions. Somebody who chooses to go to a private school and take 50k in loans to get a degree that correlates with a job whose starting salary is 27k is in a tough spot of their own choosing. A person who makes 30k somehow got a loan for a 350k home then go figure can’t pay it is a fool who deserves their misfortune.
It is hard to look beyond what most parents, almost all teachers and society tells us. Especially for teenagers who are sold a dream of how awesome a private college, or college at all it is hard to see the truth.
The thing is that baring programs at a few elite schools which get you internships that lead to crazy high starting salaries things aren’t cake, even for those who manage to leave college with that piece of paper. When people graduate or otherwise enter what I call the big boy job market there is a choice. You can get stuff/ whatever rather quickly by borrowing money or you can wait and slowly accumulate things by paying cash.
A person with a normal albeit modest starting salary who goes out and buys a new average but respectable car (Honda Civic, Toyota, etc) and furnishes their apartment/ townhouse on a store card then gets a nice entertainment system on a payment plan will have some nice things 2 months into their job. However they will be paying for those things forever with lots of interest. Also they will be so busy paying all those loans, not to mention their student loans as well as rent, food, utilities, insurance, etc. That means instead of getting ahead they are just trying to catch up to the stuff they don’t need they already have bought.
If you follow this blog halfway you already guessed we went the cash route. I am not going to lie it kinda sucks. There are times I get pretty down on the whole thing. Some days the knowledge that you are making the right move doesn’t matter much when you have a hard time getting your piece of S car to sputter its way to work, come home after a long day to sit on a beat up hand me down couch your parents bought 25 years ago and try to watch a piece of junk TV without a remote control. I work hard and save and don’t have much to show for it. You worked hard to get through school and get a solidly respectable job, made the right choices and things just come so darn slowly.
Life is so often two steps forward and one step back. Sometimes it is one step forward and two steps back. We scrimped and saved for a long time to have a half of a decent emergency fund. Wifeys car died and that cash became a low end used car. That used car four hundred dollar’ed us a couple times and then proved entirely unreliable and died. So we had no emergency fund AND no second car. We started saving again and finally built up a comfortable 3 month emergency fund. We then saved up and bought a decent used car which should run well for a long time. We put money aside every month for furniture and slowly but surely our house is filling up with halfway decent stuff. In a year or so it won’t look like a college kid apartment anymore. At least in our life things are slowly but surely coming together.
We are now focused on getting my student loan wiped out in about one year instead of the projected three. In the last two years we will save what was going to the loan and that will be a solid down on a modest home. We will then work to pay that home off at an accelerated rate as well as saving and other such stuff.
Even though it sucks some days I like that we only have one outstanding debt. Student loans suck but since it got me into a job with a solidly decent income and benefits it was a worthwhile investment. No car payments and couch payments and TV payments or whatever. Of course I would love if things could go faster but I am happy with the direction we are moving in.
As a final thought if we look at history with some perspective we are all just a bunch of whiners; blah blah blah it takes a long time to pay off a student loan or yadda yadda yadda I can’t afford a 4,000 square foot mansion on a janitors salary, I can’t afford to buy a fancy boat and lastly, I never saved anything and now at 60 when I want to retire it is somebody else’s fault. Seriously do a little bit of reading or just google terms like siege, crop failure, famine and black death. Heck take a walk in an old cemetery (pre 1900ish) and read some headstones. I do not know a family who lost 5 kids to cholera or was wiped out by smallpox or influenza or starved to death in a famine. Seriously we have it pretty darn good.
Comment Moderation Fun, Savings and Debt, Life Choices and Education
I moderate comments and have been doing so for some time. IMO comment sections on a relatively popular (ie read by other than immediate family, friends, etc) open blog often regularly turn into a huge mess of flame wars with spam and extremist hate speech in between. I really tried and it just doesn’t work. I don’t know a blogger who has had success with it. At the end of the day I am Captain of this ship so I sail it the best I can, or at least the way I want. One of the biggest downsides of moderating comments is that they slow down the flow of ideas and make those great sideline discussions which either nail down a point or move in an otherwise interesting direction harder. However you take what you can get.
I do like that I get to see all the comments. Usually if it is about a fairly recent post I know what is going on. Sometimes I go back and comment. Other times something jumps out at me, maybe it is interesting or brings us in a new direction or whatever. This is one of those times. Here was a comment from my recent post on Savings and Debt.
5:59 said “Chris: It’s easy to say, “they made their bed”, but it’s not that simple. When an 18 year old is leaving high school, everyone in the world in telling them “you should go to college”; they don’t know any better. They go and get a piece of paper and end up with 50k in loans and an entry level job and realize by about age 30 that they should have taken up a trade. It is a problem with our society, and you can’t blame an 18 year old for listening to “older, wiser” people.
It is damn near impossible for a family to pay off 50k in student loans, have a decent used car, a house that is out of the city enough to be somewhat safe, and still put away a 3 month emergency fund.
That is not an accident, it is all by design of the government to keep everybody underfoot, and I realize that, but it still pisses me off. We make decent money and are not living above our means, but I can barely afford to buy a little extra food to put back every month let alone put back 3 months savings.”
TOR here: Well now it is time for my thoughts. This comment reeks of a lack of accepting responsibility. It is full of they and them and everybody and society in an effort to somehow pass on responsibility to everyone else. We will revisit this theme in a minute.
Educational costs, debt and career prospects/ income are an interesting discussion. Our society seems to want people to do hard jobs (education and social work come to mind) for modest pay and require expensive degrees. We can’t seem to understand why these jobs often (certainly not saying it is all of them but if you work in either you know there are some) attract lazy or not particularly capable people and that the turn over is high. Don’t know what the answer is but I imagine either things will keep slogging along dysfunction-ally as usual or something in the equation will change. In any case getting back to the point.
On average a college graduate (BA/BS) earns a heck of a lot more in their lifetime (think it is a million dollars) on average than non college graduates. I do think those statistics are somewhat skewed for two reasons. First in general (remember we are talking about millions of kids, not onesies and twosies) the young adults who graduate from college are far more motivated, smart and hard working then their non college peers. They could be locked in a closet for 4 years and still demolish the other kids in earnings. Secondly I think we are talking about one fairly narrowly defined group and a very poorly defined one. We are comparing adults who went to and graduated from a university or 4 year college with all other adults. Those other adults include highly skilled craftsmen, union workers, various professionals, laborers, small business owners, service employees and shiftless layabouts. The stats would probably not be so skewed if we compared say college graduates and highly skilled craftsmen.
Revisiting my first point. I have a suspicion you were talking about yourself but that doesn’t really matter. I do not know you and am going to make some generalizations. Maybe they apply to you and maybe not but they likely apply to some other people. Certainly I do not want to make you or anyone else feel bad. Well except when I obviously bash somebody for being a jerk which is rare these days. I have never heard of Tony Soprano and his friends coming to anyone’s house to force them to go to a certain college or take out a bunch of loans or go into a certain career field afterwords. Eighteen year old kids can get married, sign legally binding documents, buy firearms and fight in wars. They certainly do not make perfect decisions and often don’t even make good ones but that is called life. For heavens sake take some personal responsibility.
Far too often people box themselves into a corner and then complain that they are trapped in a corner. Every individual decision they make might be reasonable on its own merit but together they are not reasonable. Lets break this down with commentary. 5:59’s words are in italics and mine are not.
…It is damn near impossible for a family. Consider your financial situation before getting married, let alone having kids. Like many things in life it is not romantic or feel good but inherently practical.
…to pay off 50k in student loans, have a decent used car, a house that is out of the city enough to be somewhat safe, Here is where many people box themselves in. They say they ‘have to have’ a certain sort of car and live in a certain type of place and then turn around and blame society and “the system” for their choices. They got those loans to get that degree from that school. They also chose that car and decided they just had to live in a certain place. Nobody put a gun to their head and said to drive a 3 year old shiny SUV instead of a 10 year old Honda Civic with a dented fender or forced them to live in a nice house in the burbs instead of a trailer park or a little apartment.
I really hate when people talk about how there is some sort of a system by our government to keep them down in terms of life expenses, bills, housing, etc. To be blunt that is a very unsuccessful attempt to somehow pass ownership for ones decisions to anyone but their own self. I can get how people back themselves into a corner or stay in a less than ideal situation because of work/ family/ etc. I do have empathy but that doesn’t mean they didn’t make and aren’t still making those choices. Don’t get me wrong there are all sorts of legitimate criticisms such as inflation and zoning but that is a different discussion. Pretty much everywhere Americans can make broad and diverse choices about lifestyles and housing. You can go all Dakin and shred your monthly expenses with the purchase of a travel trailer and a bit of land. If that isn’t practical because of your urban setting or zoning you can get a tiny apartment and have room mates. Yeah, neither of those options are any fun but that is a reoccurring theme of most practical decisions.
…and still put away a 3 month emergency fund. Lets revisit the last point. Of course you can’t save up 3 months of household expenses when you spend almost everything that comes in. In order to be able to save real money or aggressively pay down debt you are going to have to earn more money or go crazy slashing expenses. [Not saying this applies to you but it is a thought I have right now. It amazes me how people don’t understand how they stay stuck just barely getting by but haven’t changed anything like say; increased their income or slashed their expenses. Somehow the same pay and the same bills come out more or less the same every month. Isn’t a definition of insanity continuing to do the same thing and expecting a different result?] I agree that with what was laid out as your/ the above situation the math on an emergency fund just doesn’t work. If one diligently saved the surplus 2-4% of their income towards an emergency fund it would take a really, really long time (not willing to do the math) to save 3 months of income.
Do whatever you want, it is your life. I would like to leave you with two questions to mull over. First, are you willing to take some responsibility for where you are? Second, are you willing to do some unpleasant things in the short term to make your life better in the long term?
Book Review: The Modern Survival Retreat by Ragnar Benson
First of all I would like to thank the VP of Awesomeness for giving me the opportunity to read and review The Modern Survival Retreat by Ragnar Benson now, instead of at some future date when I got around to buying it.
I am going to start with the bottom line up front. I would not suggest paying full price for this book. Not that I think it is a waste of time to read it. Just that for the money you could get a more useful book or some gear or scrape around your couch cushions until you find about three more bucks in change and get a pint of Crown Royal. If you can borrow a friends or swap for one or something then it could be worthwhile but you could do better for the $12 or so it costs to get this book delivered. It had some interesting ideas but also some redundant fluff and utterly ludicrous advice. It is worth pointing out that this book was written in 1998. It is almost entirely focused on preparing to be attacked by some sort of an alphabet agency. I suppose given its time frame and audience that was good marketing.
Might as well use the good, bad and ugly format for the rest.
The Good: I really like that this book emphasized planning for whatever situation you are concerned about in your retreat plans. An ideal location for someone who is concerned about a nuclear strike is different from that of one who really wants a low tax profile which is probably different from someone who wants to home school their kids in peace. Also I like that it doesn’t entirely ignore the possibilities of living in a city. A lot of goals that people ‘retreat’ to can be accomplished by moving to a city in the right part of the right state.
Also I liked that it was (for a Paladin Press book focused on retreating and defending yourself from the government) relatively non tin foil hat oriented. Ragnar Benson astutely points out that you probably need to worry far more about (my example not his) what is going on at say, the county planning commission than about some obscure UN resolutions. Worry about people and agencies that can really effect your life, not obscure stuff that can’t. Figuring out what agencies or groups you feel impede on something important to you then take steps to create the best situation possible is mentioned as a big point of the book.
It was somewhat unique and cool that this book went through the fairly standard advice (have multiple sources of food, water, fuel, etc) in a way that wasn’t just, buy all this stuff (from companies the author works with) and you will be prepared for anything. If anything it was surprisingly light in this subject and I didn’t really feel like I got Ragnar’s take on it. No worries though.
The Bad:
I am coming to see that in addition to the rule that you can’t publish a Paladin Press book that is more than about 150 pages long; their books must at some point mention the author doing obscure, vaguely covert/ paramilitary work on at least two continents other than North America. Not sure what is up with that but it seems sort of Soldier of Fortune style ploy to armchair commandos.
Also (and maybe this is just me writing 12 years later) the book talks a lot about how to hide your retreat from various groups including the government. My limited observation is that it is basically impossible to own and develop real property anonymously without insane resources. However since Mel Gibson could not pull off having a secret island I question if it is possible at all. One guy living like a hybrid mountain man/ hobo in a cave deep inside a remote inaccessible region could likely be unnoticed for a long time. However the idea that you could build anything approaching a modern home that is accessible by vehicle with a well, propane heating, etc and keep it totally secret is almost laughable to me.
I would furthermore wager that a lot of the standard and illegal (so this is for academic study only blah, blah, blah) stuff about getting a new identity to be totally hidden and thus live secretly in plain sight stuff is probably dated and dangerously inaccurate. There are too many computers and too much inner connectivity these days for that to work. If modern computers didn’t do it then 9/11 probably did. Maybe getting ones hands on a a drivers license that would pass the most basic scrutiny (traffic stops, buying a bus ticket, etc) could be possible but I have doubts about banking, buying real property, paying taxes, etc. Anyway…..
Also the book had a bit too much fluff for my tastes. Maybe the intent was for it to be reinforcing key points but they just didn’t quite pull it off.Then again maybe they were stuck at 112 pages and wanted to get to 120.
The Ugly:
It is suggested that a person could use a bulldozer to take out a tank by flipping it over. It may be possible that some bulldozers could move something of the size of a modern main battle tank. That however misses the incredibly obvious point that tanks have lots of guns. Even using the very convenient train of thought that said guy in bulldozer could get so close the main gun is useless (a dangerous assumption as research says that the M1 Abrams can engage targets with the main gun at under 50 meters, close to point blank range) the M2 .50cal and pair of M240 7.62×51 machine guns would cut a bulldozer to shreds. Even a guy on top with a rifle would be able to stop that by shooting dozer guy in the head.
Guess in conclusion this is the sort of book I would suggest reading if you can get your hands on a copy for little to no cost and have some free time. I am curious about what others who read this book thought.
The End
quote of the day
“The ideal American system would be one where the brilliant son of a janitor finds it economically feasible to earn a P.H.D in literature, and the down to earth daughter of a CEO feels equally free to become and auto mechanic.”
-Anya Kamenetz
Schools, Parents and Responsibility in Educatiom
- About my recent post I drive my tractor in pearls… said… Its not the school systems’ fault. Thats not to say that they arent crap, but the responsiblity for brats rests solely on parent(s) shoulders. Kids with no respect, responsibility, purpose, or character were made that way by their parents. Parents who are selfish, absent, self-absorbed, sick/evil, or just down right stupid – they create these brats who become “court aquainted” or whatever the phrase was… A kid can be told that they dont have to take responsibility for their actions at school, but it slides right off, because at home they have parents that are involved and engaged. Society’s problems cannot be solved in the school system – this notion that the school system can undo damage done at home or that it is someway their responsibility to do something other than teach a kid to write is part of the problem of why they are crap! And as for “innocent until proven guilty” – thats crap too… We are talking about kids who need to realize that their actions are directly affecting their future paths – they need to be actively choosing NOT to become Charles Manson and to give them a fluffy title like this almost pushes them down the wrong path. Dont want to be called a punk thug? Then quit acting like it kid!! Sorry if I stepped on your ranting toes there, TOR… but this soap box was too big to pass up 😉
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- Oh, and jumping a fence where I live will get a kid taken home by the cops to their parents who will kick their butts!! Its not a “minor” crime – its saving their life – jumping fences can get someone shot! TOR here: I enjoy Pearls comments and as always she brings up an interesting point. I sort of look at it from a different perspective. The kids who have good decent parents (not necessarily rich or geniuses) who teach them to be responsible for their actions and respectful in general will almost always do well. They can go to some hippy dippy school or even no school at all and will end up being fine. To me school has historically had a role of a safety net to catch kids whose parents just can’t or won’t teach them. Of course they teach everyone but for Timmy whose parents don’t suck the talk about respect and responsibility is just reinforcement the same way that a class on basic addition is to a kid who learned it from his mom over the summer. Sometimes little Johny whose parents suck for whatever reason might have just learned enough from some teacher and school system to be OK. To me it is in that respect that schools are failing. Aristotle more or less said purpose of schools is to “make students good and make them smart”. I can honestly say that making them good is probably more important than making them smart. There are plenty of people who are not smart by any sense who go on to have fine lives. Maybe they get a job at the plant or pick up a skill here or there and get married and somewhere along the line buy a little house or a mobile home and have 2.4 kids and join a bowling league and raise their kids and work and just sorta hang out. People can have a far happier life being a bit more good than smart but not the opposite. On the topic of education in a broader sense I think we need some sort of broadly funded schools which are open to the public. We certainly do not need a national Department of Education or any legislation about leaving children behind . The game of the government taking money from people in a state and giving it back to that state for an expressed purpose if they agree to follow certain conditions is all about control and indoctrination. Again albeit on a smaller scale states play the same game. A legitimate argument could be made that states also need to leave education to individual communities via school districts. I think that we need some sort of schools that every kid can go to regardless of their parents ability or desire to pay. I do think schooling could be significantly privatized or at least moved in that direction but without this baseline the divisions of class and opportunity in our country would broaden significantly.
Total Survivalist Blog 