Tag Archives: children

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Halloween Ramblings

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Halloween has always been one of my favorite holidays.  As a kid, of course, the allure was a plethora of free candy, but even as I’ve aged and stopped eating sugar completely, there’s still something about this day that appeals to me more than most.  When people dress up in costume, they often drop their normal facades and become more themselves, so you get a glimpse of their real personalities.  Also, the costumes often generate an energy that’s much more relaxed and lighthearted than the majority of the year.

Those of us who’ve worked the con circuit have experienced these phenomenons throughout the year.  Con-goers, especially the costumers, create a Halloween atmosphere for the entire weekend.  It’s invigorating to spend the weekend around people who are being their true selves, and often, despite working long hours the entire weekend, I return from a convention feeling recharged and refreshed by all the energy and festivity.  Halloween is much the same.  The times when I’ve worked in an environment where costumes were encouraged, that particular workday was the best of the year.

One of my favorite Halloween memories came when I was working at the resort.  If memory serves, it fell on a Saturday, and nearly everyone who worked there dressed up.  Some of us dressed as co-workers, some as movie characters, some as silly inside jokes, and the energy on the sales floor that day was indescribable.  We set a sales record that stood for nearly a year and had a great deal of fun in the process.  That day taught me a lot about the importance of positive energy and excitement in the workplace.  A little fun goes a long way for boosting productivity.

My absolute favorite Halloween memory was the last year I got to take Collin and Finn trick or treating.  Collin was a pirate, I think the one from “The Wiggles,” and Finn was a kangaroo, I believe.  I dressed as Darth Vader and held Collin’s hand as he went door-to-door and said in his tender three year old voice, “Trick or treat.  Thank you.”  It was magical, one of those moments with your kids that sustains you through the long, hard days at work.  As I age and lose my faculties, I hope that memory stays with me until the end.

Happy Halloween, everyone.  Have a safe and fun time, and for those of you with young children, soak up the time and hold onto it.

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Saturday Afternoon Ramblings

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I must be getting old because I find myself thinking a lot about just how lost this current generation seems to be.  Last night, I went to homecoming to support my niece, who was the junior representative for the court, and while watching the game, I found myself wondering how my coaches would’ve dealt with the egos and self-centered attitudes of the players.  The stadium has a fairly impressive video screen, and for pre-game, the kids get to record their own introductions.  It’s a pretty cool concept, but after watching the clips, I was simply disgusted.

First, all the boys acted in their videos like they were mugging for Monday Night Football.  The cockiness and arrogance of their posturing was ridiculous.  It might not put me off as badly if they had the skill to back it up, but their effort on the field was pretty disappointing.  I can’t imagine what Buddy Sausbury or Brumley Greene would’ve said to us if we had arm-tackled like that.   The defensive line to a player had weak technique, their first step typically being to stand up and look in the backfield.  On the line, low man wins, and the side that gets the better push with leverage controls the game.

Second, there was an attitude of entitlement in the videos that is pretty symbolic of all that’s wrong with this generation.  They’ve done nothing on the field to earn that swagger, yet they acted like they’re the defending state champs.  How about you accomplish something before you tell me how good you are?  I see that same mentality in the classroom and around campus.  Kids park in the faculty and staff lot and, when confronted, act as if they deserve to park there because somehow they are above the rules and beyond reproach.  At 38, I’ve paid my dues, kid.  Accomplish something before you take my parking spot.

I also took great umbrage with their uniforms.  I don’t know if it was a one game deal or what, and I don’t know who made the decision, but the team came out in all black.  Those aren’t the Trojan colors.  We wear crimson and silver.  Have a little respect for tradition, please.  A lot of people came before you to create that program, and we bled and sweated and toiled for those colors.  It meant something to me to put on that jersey, and I think it meant something to most of us.  Get rid of the black and wear the school colors, please.

I’m well aware that I sound like a cantankerous old man, and I know my opinion won’t hold much sway with anybody in the school system, student, teacher, or administrator.  But I was disappointed with what I saw last night and had to express my feelings.

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Wednesday Morning Ramblings

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There’s a trend in education that scares me even more than the poverty level wages and standardized testing.  That trend has to do with online and mobile classes in which the majority, if not all, course material is exchanged electronically.  Some of my friends have earned online degrees, and I’m not trying to offend them or insult their education.  For some, that system works, but what worries me is what we lose from education when there is limited human interaction between the teacher and students.

Education is about more than the quantifiable data bureaucrats can measure and mull.  In fact, standardized testing is one of the worst measures of education there is, but that’s another debate, not the focus of this entry.  Education, quality education, is not about memorizing data and recalling it in a multiple choice scenario.  Quality education is about learning how to think critically for yourself, how to behave publicly, and how to interact with each other in a civilized manner.  To me, all three are equally important, but with online and mobile education, the last two are hardly an afterthought.

Because the interaction is limited to emails, texts, and chats, the depths of dynamic human communication, most of which is nonverbal, is lost from the system.  Basic public conduct, such as listening intently, is not engaged.  Talking one-on-one, one of the most fundamental aspects of all human behavior, is also left out.  The end result is a populace with under-developed social skills and a general loss of fundamental manners/etiquette.  We are already seeing the effects of this in businesses that rely on teenagers and twenty-somethings for their workforce.  Customer service is abysmal, and simple courtesy is rare.  As education shifts more and more away from human interaction to electronic discourse, human behavior will continue to erode.

I’m not one who believes education is the answer to all of our problems.  There is only so much the system can do to improve what is absent from children and young adults’ home life, but basic human interaction is one area where educators can have an impact.  Unfortunately, in a misguided effort to assimilate with the now prevalent over-dependence on electronics, educators are losing the ability to teach these fundamental and imperative skills.

There is no magic bullet that will solve this crisis, and as someone on the front-lines of education, I know it has reached crisis status.  Until some measure of autonomy is returned to educators and unless we can lessen the dependence on electronic gadgets for every aspect of our lives, we will continue to see worse and worse social skills.  That worries me for our future, for the kind of society we are creating.  Interpersonal communication is the touchstone of nearly every human endeavor, and without it, we will regress into a much more primitive culture.