MJ Safety Solutions has come out with the prefect solution for making our kids safe:  Bulletproof school backpacks.

Just what we need, something to make your kids feel like they are going to school in a bullet infested shooting ground. Maybe these shooters would recognize these bags and run knowing they wouldn’t be able to kill that kid! Then again, maybe they’ll just aim straight at them knowing they can shoot, but not kill.

Come on now, has society gotten this bad? It’s starting to make me think of World War II where people had to actively practice war survival skills in order to survive. Has our country sunk this low?

On the subject of schools, I just ran across a fascinating speech by Ken Robinson about creativity and schools. It brings up the question, well rather point, that schools are designed to kill creativity.

In his speech, Do schools kill creativity?, Robinson talks about how schools are designed to work the body of a student working their way up to their heads and then slightly to one side. “We are educating people out of their creativity,” said Robinson.

This speech hits pretty close to home. I am a poster child of something that did exactly the opposite of what happened to Gillian Lynne. Instead of being told I was a dancer (or anything else for that matter), I was told to calm down and often was “joked” to on how I should be on Ritalin.

Needless to say, I ended up in a “professional” job programming, even after a small run on the creative tracks for a few years at the tail end of high school and start of college phases. Due to my upbringings and “understanding” of the world, I figured art was hurting my programming — so I dropped it. I missed a lot back then. If I had seen this video when I was 19, things would have been different indeed.

I was a stereo type of person Robinson spoke of. I grew up with the idea you cannot earn a life making money with art, so I choose to go left brained. School did teach me, code me, to be left brain thinker. It focused more on knowledge, memorization, storage and less on imagination. As Robinson suggested, the whole purpose of our current education system is to produce university professors, living in their heads slightly to one side.

Are schools killing creativity? I think they are. I know they are, from experience. What can we do about it? I think it is time we start learning from our own kids.

Think again:
http://infowars.net/articles/july2007/240707Schools.htm

I ran across this article yesterday on a gaming forum I read. That’s a very good post detailing the problems with our schools today. It goes into two possible outcomes, including the whole “big brother” superstition. I’m not too following on that part, but I do agree there’s a serious issue here that many parents and school officials are completely blind to.

My side is school should be made optional, and tests reflect more on the student and less on the school itself. Similar to the Japanese school system where there is literally competition to get into a good public school as early elementary school. That’s just my views on things. The school system, from what I’m seeing, is getting so bad, if I ever have kids, I would seriously consider home schooling them.

ID badges, metal detectors, surveillance videos, kids getting arrested for slapping girl’s butts, kids arrested for violating dress code. Our school system has gone to trash and the parents (as a whole) and school officials are letting it happen! It’s a sad state we live in.

So, next time your school votes to add things like ID badges with RFID tags, add cameras to “catch” criminals or require students to use only transparent/see through backpacks/bags, take a queue from D.A.R.E . — Just say No!

Camy HERO PACK, the ultimate add-on package for any Legend of Zelda enthusiast. This is so cool; if I had a Wii, I would put this on pre-order right away. But alas, the Wiis are still a thing of the future as every local store is still sold out.