Re: [PSUBS-MAILIST] Re: GUNS and stuff

[John <linnaeus@concentric.net>]

How do I get my name off this mailing list?

Paul Anderson wrote:

> On Wed, 15 Mar 2000, David Buchner wrote:
>
> > Perhaps you
> > could elaborate on what you mean by "child culture." I think I have some
> > sense of what you're getting at, but it's only a sense...
> >
> Schools do not teach proper behaviour, and since schools are often used as
> foster parents, the children are allowed to develop their own culture
> without proper instruction on correct behaviour.  This child culture
> emphasizes drinking, drugs, poor grades, rude behaviour, etc. as ideals.
> If these traits are not valued by a student, [he|she] is unrelentingly
> attacked by the other students.  If one is even the slightest bit
> different, they are tortured on a continuous basis in this child culture.
>
> Teachers, today, are incapable of controlling this mess.  Because of their
> legislative impotence on the matter, the children come to regard them as a
> joke, leading to a general disrespect for any matter of authority
> whatsoever.  Children that undergo this torture usually suffer severe
> emotional damage, when combined with the stress of homework(some students
> have 7 hours of homework a night!) and parents who are unwilling to help
> in finding a remedy to the solution, the children can go nuts out of
> desperation.  That is what happened with the Columbine shootings.  Many
> have blamed violant TV programs and computer games(like Doom and Quake)
> for these problems, but they are not the cause, they are a symptom.  The
> child is often using these games as an outlet to try to cope with the
> torture they must endure daily at the hands of their peers.
>
> The primary difference between youths today and previously, with regards
> intelligence, is that firstly, teachers had real authority and could
> prevent this child culture from developing.  Secondly, children where
> often encouraged to look into their interests more - they had to, no
> television back then so all you could was either read or do something
> creative.  Today, we have teletubbies and pokemon taking the place of Mark
> Twain and Popular Mechanics.
>
> ---
> Paul Anderson
> paul@geeky1.ebtech.net
> http://www.sellad.on.ca/~paul