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Why do we subject ourselves to this? The weather is just never ready. You consult a sports schedule online like for UMM and see "PPD" (for postponed) to the right of the early-season dates. College teams go south for tours but then upon arrival back, the weather seems not ready for some time.
Track and field is fortunate because these kids can travel to fieldhouse events. Still, the track kids don't have much flexibility when they are restricted to indoors for practice. I remember when I had a back-and-forth with a track and field parent once, about how I occasionally just used the term "track" rather than the full "track and field." This person's son/daughter was of course in the field events. I was put on the defensive, as can so often happen when you write about youth sports for the corporate media.
Today I'm so happy writing online-only because I can always correct or adjust something in response to a particular concern. With a newspaper you have the permanence of the printed page. Anyway, I tried explaining to the complaining parent that "track" was a shorthand I had used all my life. I felt it was an acceptable substitute on occasion for using the full "track and field." By no means was I seeking to diss the field events kids. Can you imagine a serious argument over such trivia?
The parent ought to have been understanding of my explanation. I tried putting it forth about three times, and in response to each, the parent kept saying "but the field events kids are important too." When I was in school, a friend might say "are you going out for track this spring?" Seemed perfectly acceptable.
Today if someone felt offended, I'd probably just call up a particular blog post and adjust in order to accommodate. You can't do that with print. Actually I do almost no writing about track (and field) these days because such information is hard to glean from an area newspaper like the one in Willmar. Track meets are reported as a sea of text about a particular "invite" where names of kids from a whole lot of schools are compiled. It's too hard to glean through all that and to report with certainty about all the MACA kids. Baseball/softball is far easier, as a particular article will report on only the two teams in action.
Look out the window now: how can we even consider having baseball or softball games? It's ridiculous. A plow had not even been through Northridge drive when I went to eat breakfast this morning. My vehicle is not 4-wheel drive and it was not easy getting to town. This afternoon I'll probably walk - no problem, but it seems an annoyance having to deal with these conditions in the middle of (expletive) April.
The tired routine of "two hours late"
At Detoy's I made out over the radio that an area school was struggling with having school today. There was the tired routine of at first announcing "two hours late." Sigh. Before I left the restaurant, school was called off there. And I guess the state is giving a complete pass for schools calling off school days to ensure the safety of the kids. Of course that's a necessary step, but don't the taxpayers pay for each and every day of school? And, for full sports seasons even if the weather sucks? Is a lot of our money simply going to go down a rathole, or might we get refund/rebate checks like when Ventura was guv?
Oh hell's bells, schools will plead that they need the money anyway! That's a tired routine, hearing from schools that they always need more money! If there's one thing that gets me to vote Republican - and that's a stretch - it's that this political party stands up to education's incessant demands for more money. The Democrats tend to have no spine re. this. Republicans will stand up to the teachers unions whereas Democrats behave like toadies, and for that I can feel actual hate toward Democrats. That's too bad. I am fundamentally a Democrat.
I think all the canceled school days due to weather are making us seriously think about the old assumption that kids need to be hauled to a bricks and mortar school every day. Why can't kids stay home more, or at least use their home as their home base for education? It needn't be "home schooling" per se. Parents could sign a waiver pledging that kids will be adequately supervised by at least one parent who would be home.
Many people nowadays are not working the traditional "jobs" of 9 to 5, Monday through Friday. Many people to be blunt are simply not working. Fine, let families be intact at home together. Kids actually develop their literacy by accessing the Internet - oh yes they do, just like I once built my literacy reading comic books.
School felt like prison to me. We had reading assignments that were supposed to have "depth" and teach us about social justice. So we read sad stories about how the common people get screwed all the time (e.g. by John Steinbeck).
My teachers would want to bash me over the head for suggesting we'd be better off reading simple Western fiction novels. In other words, just read a good story. Man, I can remember a couple teachers who'd want to slug me for saying that. There was an intelligentsia that drove me nuts.
So, why the necessity to require kids to go to a bricks and mortar school every day? Why such onerous requirements? I think it's a vestige of our old industrial age, where people were regimented and dehumanized so much. The digital world has pulled us out of that with mostly positive results although the change can be jarring.
Consider the horrific school van accident of last spring and its life-changing consequences. It is never a risk-free proposition to commute somewhere. And, to think the state requires it! Let's all wake up, please.
Addendum: Re. the school van accident, any new developments on that? We gathered as we consumed the news reports that the van driver was at fault, or the school more broadly for not ensuring that the passengers were belted in. The cost of medical treatment for the kids must be enormous. The money has to come from somewhere. I wonder how all that is being sorted out. I attended the Schlief family fundraiser - nice meal and nice socializing. Perhaps the media could be telling us a little more. I do know that back in the days when I drove the Morris newspaper van, if I were to total it and it was my fault, I'm certain I wouldn't be employed there much longer, and that's even if no one got hurt. A friend of mine who happens to be a lawyer says that "with government, it's different."
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com
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