December 20th, 2006
It’s everywhere:
A primary school has been accused of spoiling Christmas for pupils after a lesson telling them that Santa Claus does not exist.
Children as young as nine were told that only ’small children believe in Father Christmas’.
And yesterday their parents criticised teachers for taking the ‘magic’ out of the festive period.
Apparently there’s a rash of this all over England - 5th Formers (i.e., 9-year-olds) hearing chance remarks to the effect that Santa Clause isn’t real, and going home in tears.
A governor said: ‘It’s not just Father Christmas that’s the problem. We also have issues with things like the Tooth Fairy.
In response to which I ask: do British 9-year-olds really believe in Santa Claus and the tooth fairy? What wankers!
But, as usual, someone chimed in with a cogent criticism of teaching standards:
When did teachers stop being teachers and decide to be commentators on world subjects and Santa and Tooth Fairys. Maybe that explains why test scores are not as good as they should be. If they spent their time teaching the basic skills and left the rest to parents, and others, perhaps scores would improve. This over stepping the role of a teacher is very troubling.
Yes - this commenting on world subjects and making factual statements about the difference between fantasy and reality: that explains why students’ test scores are down. They know too much. Teachers overstepping their roles by telling students the truth . . . it’s very troubling. (God knows what goes on in the sex-ed classes!)
(Sadly, but not surprisingly, the comment above was from an American reader.)
Categories: Culture, Education, General, Holiday, News & Current Events |
4 Comments
December 20th, 2006
When I first discovered Carl Sagan’s work, I was just a boy. My Dad and I would sit and watch the new series Cosmos on PBS, and we were both enthralled. As a child, I was already fascinated with science and astronomy, and Cosmos only served to fuel that fire. In retrospect, it was highly unusual for us to be watching anything on PBS, so I’m not sure how my Dad found out about this, but I’m glad he did.
In the years that followed, I lost track of Dr. Sagan. My interests shifted toward the now-typical boyhood pursuits of computers and video games, and then toward girls as I got into middle and high school. I had fond memories of Cosmos, but beyond that, my only real knowledge of him was the charicature you’d often see of the way he pronounced “billions.”
I didn’t re-discover Dr. Sagan until 1996, when a good friend of mine recommended that I read The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark. By this time, I had already moved from Catholicism to agnosticism to outright atheism, and I was intellectually and emotionally ready for this book. Its influence on my views cannot be overstated, and it remains one of my all-time favorites. To this day, I recommend it to all who will listen. If I were emperor for a day, two of its chapters would be required reading for all high school students: “The Dragon in My Garage,” and “The Fine Art of Baloney Detection.”
I bought the follow-up book, Billions & Billions: Thoughts on Life and Death at the Brink of the Millennium (published posthumously in 1997), in hardcover the day it came out. But life again intruded, and it wasn’t until just barely over a year ago that I finally got around to reading it. As I said at the time, this book was nothing short of prophetic. In particular, his discussion of the topics of terrorism and the environment read as if they were written in 2002 rather than 1996. It makes one wonder how different the world would be if more people had paid attention.
In 2002, Cosmos was re-released on DVD with updated information and graphics. I remembered that my Dad had bought the series on VHS when it first came out, so I thought this would make a great gift idea. At my parents’ Christmas celeberation that year, I gave him the DVD set, and he thanked me, but there was no big reaction as I’d hoped. Perhaps Dr. Sagan’s influence on my Dad wasn’t as lasting as it was on me, I thought. But after our celebration wrapped up, I was preparing to leave, and went downstairs to say goodbye to my Dad. It was about 1:30 or 2:00 AM, and I expected he would be cleaning up after the party, as he usually would do. Instead, he was already starting the first DVD. That spoke volumes, not just about how much he enjoyed the gift, but also about how much he, too, had been influenced by Dr. Sagan.
Carl Sagan died 10 years ago today, on December 20, 1996, after a long battle with myelodysplasia. The world is worse off without him. His influence is sorely missed, in particular his efforts to bring science to the masses and to spark public interest in scientific issues. And while there are many who followed his work much more closely than I did, he still had a profound effect on me and my views, for which I am eternally grateful.
More Sagan rememberances can be found here
Categories: Science |
2 Comments
December 20th, 2006
Mr. Shakes had a car accident yesterday. He is fine, but the other driver buggered off, leaving them stuck with the bill. Shakes has been unemployed for a while now, so money is tight. If you can spare some scratch, they are good people and could use the help.
Categories: Bloggin |
1 Comment
December 20th, 2006
Rudy is an example of my favorite genre of music: songs with an updeat tempo and depressing lyrics. 99 Red ballons, of course, is the cannonical example. No, this is not a happy song. But it is a very good song, and Christmas needs sad songs. Christmas (and, when you get right down to it, Christianity) is not about you, whoever you may be. Christmas is about other people. That fact is too often forgotten today.
Rudy lives on the borderline
Between civilization and basic survival
And the summertime treats him fairly well
But the wintertime is a dirty cold rival.
It’s wintertime now in Georgetown,
The streets come alive with the Christmas light
And Rudy sleeps on a warm air grate,
With a newspaper blanket on December nights.
Deck the halls,
Rudolph the red-nosed wino
Knows it’s Christmas time.
Jingle Bells and Christmas shoppers.
Dashing through the snow.
God rest ye merry gentlemen
Who’ve found it in your hearts
To flip Rudy a thin
And I’ll be home for Christmas,
But this man has
No place to go.
Christmas has a meaning at all,
The people of greed and incredible waste,
They seek the deeper meaning
In the shopping mall,
In a yuletide spirit
Of impatience and hate.
Rudy is a patient man,
Who tries to see the beauty in everything.
Yes, and not a very demanding soul,
Whose only wish is
To live until the Spring.
Nobody knows the reasons why
Things turn out
Like the way they do.
And there ain’t no one to tell you
The reasons why
There’s fortunate folks
Like me and you.
Rudy must have people somewhere,
Who wonder what
Became of the man.
And Rudy must wonder
The same damn thing
As the crowd passes by
And he sticks out his hand.
Deck the halls,
Rudolph the red-nosed wino
Knows it’s Christmas time.
Jingle Bells in the Christmas Shop.
Others dashing through the snow.
God rest ye merry gentlemen
Who have found it in your hearts
To flip Rudy a thin,
And I’ll be home for Christmas,
But this man has
No place to go.
Rudy died on the borderline,
Of a civilized world
On Christmas Eve.
You know the shoppers shopped,
And the temperatures dropped,
On a man whose absence
Won’t be grieved.
Peace on the soul of the cop
Who found him dead in a booth
With his hand frozen to a telephone.
You know, I think I know
Who he had on the line,
And Rudy won’t spend
This Christmas alone.
Deck the halls,
Rudolph the red-nosed wino
Knows it’s Christmas time.
Jingle Bells in the Christmas Shop.
Others dashing through the snow.
God rest ye merry gentlemen
Who have found it in your hearts
To flip Rudy a thin,
And I’ll be home for Christmas,
And this year,
Rudy gets to go.
Yeah, I’ll be home for Christmas.
And this year, Rudy gets to go
Categories: Holiday, Xmas Lyric of the Day |
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