April Reign

Speak your mind even if your voice shakes

schools

An Open Letter to Dalton McGuinty

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Dear Mr. McGuinty,

My name is Devon. I am a 12 year old girl attending elementary school in Ontario.

In the past election you said your government would be best for education.

I recently watched this video, Writing on the Wall, by the Indigo Love of Reading Foundation.

I don’t think that schools should have to be in a draw to get books for kids.
School libraries should never get like this, the classrooms should never have only four textbooks for everyone in the class.

According to the video 38% of Ontario’s grade 3 children fail the standard reading exam.
The school library is the most important way to learn how to read, get up-to-date info for assignments and research and to get books to read for fun.

Four textbooks per class is not acceptable, it’s not a very good way to learn and get an Education.

Sometimes schools in rich areas can get books by donations from parents and bake sales, but poorer areas can’t do this. And bake sales are a bad way to budget for books anyway.

I hope you will take this seriously and that you and your government will do what you said about being best for Education. You can start by giving enough money to schools for libraries and textbooks.

Sincerely

Devon S.

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child readingI would also like to let everyone else know more about the video

you can find it on this page

Also there is a pdf with a letter to send to the Minister of Education in your province.

Please take this seriously. We are too young to vote. But our lives will be much poorer if we don’t get books and textbooks. Without them our education will suffer, and we won’t have much hope for the future.

We need adults to stand up to government and demand that they put our education first.

Mothers

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An interesting article at Women’s Enews on mothering and the value placed on it. While much lip service is given to the undertaking, little is done to actually support those choosing to have children.

(WOMENSENEWS)–The news media loves stories about highly educated mothers opting out of rewarding careers to stay at home with their young children.

Anecdotal evidence unsupported by serious research is also constantly drumming home the idea that women consider themselves the best providers of child care. For example, a 2006 Salary.com survey of what mothers do “on the job” leads with the headline “Dream Job: Stay at Home Mom.” Although the survey claims that equal numbers of working and stay-at-home mothers participated, quotes from the happy, at-home mothers dominate the report.

For instance, working mothers are “horrified” at the thought of hiring strangers to care for their children, they believe that mother’s care is “priceless” and that motherhood is the “greatest job in the world.” It’s easy to stay on message: Women must choose between work and family.

But the opposite message is sent to low-income mothers.

The recent debate over the welfare-to-work provisions of Temporary Assistance to Needy Families–or welfare–captures this difference. Congress did not debate the best means to provide even minimally adequate day care to the children of single parents. Instead they wondered whether or not the required hours of paid work should be increased!

Why does popular sentiment portray some mothers as virtuous when they drop out of the labor force to care for their families, while others are responsible only if they work for pay outside the home?

With Mothers Day coming up and the usual platitudes running rampant trying to get you to spend spend spend to show mom how much you love her, and with the forced pregnancy folks all creamed up about Bushie and company and their anti choice stance, I thought it might be interesting to see just how much mothers are valued once those sacred womb contents are born. [Read more…] about Mothers

Have a good day a school, don’t die.

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These stories are hard to take as a parent. You worry about a lot of things when you send your kids to school. Will they have friends, get good grades, have a good teacher. One thing you don’t generally think about is will they die.

All levels of school have been targeted, and the “reasons” have varied.

Some are blaming video games, but then before video games were so popular they blamed D&D, or bad parenting or………

Some have rushed in to protect the guns as if they were an endangered species, even going so far as to recommend that all students be armed.

How can you watch the trauma on these young peoples’ faces and in their voices, think of the parents and friends and families of the students and professors killed and rush in to champion more death? What kind of mindset is that?

What a lovely picture your local school also now the setting for the showdown at the ok corral.

Another aspect of this that has me wondering is the constant reference to we thought it was “just a domestic incident”. Just???? Just two people dead, nothing to see here folks.

If “domestic violence” were taken more seriously perhaps a greater effort may have been put into dealing with the situation and other lives may have been spared.

My thoughts go out to those who have lost someone, and those who went through the ordeal.

May we all find the ability to rise above the petty and mundane and treasure each other.