Swickard: For 2017 let us wag more and bark less

© 2009 Michael Swickard, Ph.D.  The year 2016 will go down as being extra contentious. Every presidential election brings out the barbs by partisans but this one was worse. I hope 2017 features the mantra: wag more and bark less. I saw that on a bumper sticker and liked it.

            The problem is that many people continue spewing hate from the election which didn’t change things then nor now. There are many still trying to change the presidential election but that hay is in the barn. Others have gotten addicted to the ways of spewing poison and do so whenever possible.

            This is very apparent on our roadways where nice driving is an exception rather than the rule. The other day I was behind a woman who was waiting for someone to finish their turn. Neither the woman nor I could proceed but the person behind me was losing his mind. Yes, it was a young man. He was honking and waving at me but I couldn’t move.

            We were making this young man be several seconds late. Oh, my. He finally came by me waving and cursing and swerving at me and the lady in front. Oh, my. It appeared he intended to pull in front of me and come back and punch me which would not have ended well since I was armed.

            Instead he screeched off and ran a red light. Oh, my. In a matter of seconds his road rage almost caused several accidents. Why did this person feel entitled to act like an idiot? Perhaps it is because he does so online continually and his troll behavior has gone to his driving.

            There is an epidemic of rage driving and dare I say new rules might be needed. I’m not one to want more legislation since we have a million rules for every person. Still, this might need something like if you are caught driving aggressively the first time, you lose your driver’s license for five years. That will make you older and you will be so glad to get your license back.

            * Note, I have been told that if you take the driver’s license away they will just drive and threaten people anyway. I believe we can incarcerate them until they are too old to drive if they want to be mule-headed.

            Wait. I was wanting to talk about wagging more and barking less. Shuckins, it is so easy to bark. And there are things that should be barked at but I want this next year to be one of more wagging and less barking. So first, we must heal the partisan wounds and become one nation rather than two fighting camps.

            Again, that won’t be easy since many of Americans have gotten such a thrill out of being a jackass to the other people in our country. Mostly, this is online and in the media. When I lived in a small New Mexico town for many years this was rarely done.

            The reason was simple: if you said something rude about one of the people you would see that person at coffee break and at lunch and at the town meeting. That person would play pitty-pat with your head for being such a wise guy. So, we were a bit more genteel because any slight was dealt with right away.

            To their credit there are some media editors that attempt to take the slights out of discussion but it is like trying to wipe the stripes off a tiger. We Americans are getting wrapped around the political axle about Russia or China or countries in the Middle East.

            The truth is contained in a statement made in 1848 by Henry John Temple Palmerston, “We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow.”

            The same is true for both of our political parties where it doesn’t matter which party, it matters which interest. My interest is that Americans get along better and not be so belligerent to those around them. For the year 2017 and beyond let us Americans wag more and bark less. A very Happy New Year my friends.

 Email: drswickard@comcast.net - Swickard’s new novel, Hideaway Hills, is available at Amazon.com 

Swickard: For 2017 let us wag more and bark less

Swickard: Christmas Holiday Constitutional Amendment needed

© 2009 Michael Swickard, Ph.D.  In 1870 our country had thirty-seven states. By then thirty-three of these states already had done something that the United States Federal Government finally did that year. It was name Christmas an official holiday. Alabama was the first state to name Christmas as an official holiday, doing so in 1836.

            On June 28, 1870 President Ulysses Grant signed the legislation to make the federal holiday of Christmas. There wasn’t opposition because most politicians didn’t want to be known as opposing Christmas.

            I have written about this previously but it still seems we Americans are conflicted. People seem glad to have the day off but the core issue involves the question: is Christmas a religious holiday?

            Of course, since it celebrates the birth of Jesus. Can this religious federal holiday be allowed by the United States Constitution? We have done it for a very long time and we are doing it this year for certain.

            The Supreme Court did not stop Nativity Scenes in 1984 but the high court has not ruled directly on the constitutional issue of the Federal Holiday of Christmas. I do not want the Supreme Court deciding if Christmas should be a federal holiday. Rather, this should be decided in the legislative process.

            The only way to insure Christmas remains a federal holiday is to pass a Constitutional Amendment naming December 25th as the Christmas Federal Holiday. When passed by Congress then the constitutional amendment must be passed by thirty-eight states to become a part of the United States Constitution.

            To take the other side, if enough federal or state legislators vote against the constitutional amendment then that’s the answer as to if our nation should have a Federal Christmas Holiday. But an overwhelming group of federal and state legislators would rather set their hair on fire than be known to have voted against Christmas.

            I am willing to see the federal holiday of Christmas be retired if enough members of Congress and members of state legislatures put their name on a vote against the Christmas amendment. This would settle the issue on constitutional grounds.

            We must do so because the “Politically Correct” crowd has threatened lawsuits on many government entities including public education. In most public schools, Christmas became Winter Holiday without a vote in Congress.

            This spilled over into the business community. Citizens quelled it when they announced no Christmas greetings, no shopping from us. The stores caught on. They can also say Happy Holidays, Happy Hanukkah or anything else but they cannot omit Christmas greetings and still get our business.

            When some of our laws are in effect repealed by special interest groups without elected representatives voting, our representative form of government ends. The only way to proceed is a up or down vote on Christmas in our country. Our representatives must be put on the spot to vote up or down.

            I do not blame public schools for casting off Christmas songs, plays and pageants when our Representatives and Senators do not stand up for Christmas. They have let unelected people force the issue.

            Now I do not have any trouble with the separation of the biblical story of the Baby Jesus in the public schools. Leave that to the parents and Churches. However, in the effort to not say Christmas, traditional songs cannot be sung.

            Also, Santa Claus is politically incorrect so students are not permitted a classroom “naughty or nice” song. Teachers are instructed in many schools to have nothing to do with Christmas.

            For me it will always be the Christmas Holidays. Some of my most treasured memories are of Christmas with my family. Friends have come and gone, loved ones are around me while others have passed. They still figure brightly in my memory.

            I agree with Erma Bombeck, “There is nothing sadder in this world than to awake Christmas morning and not be a child.” Or to be able to celebrate Christmas with a child.

            There is a need for a Constitutional Amendment on Christmas so some Federal Judge does not take it away from our country or even the Supreme Court. Merry Christmas to you if you celebrate Christmas. Happy Holidays to you if you do not. 

Email: drswickard@comcast.net - Swickard’s new novel,   Hideaway Hills, is availableat Amazon.com

Swickard: Christmas Holiday Constitutional Amendment needed

Trying to measure the immeasurable in education

© 2016 Michael Swickard, Ph.D.  “It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education.” Albert Einstein

             Sorry Albert, the first death in a heavily administered public school education system is student curiosity. Most students initially come to school curious about everything but if their curiosity is not nurtured it dies as does their desire to learn.

            To really learn using literacy and numeracy the student must perceive an internal need for those abilities. This is where higher order thinking skills develop. But these activities are on the decline because of testing-fixated administrators.

            America has gone on a journey to measure education which is immeasurable for administrators fixated on accountability. The core of education: curiosity, is being ignored so that the administrative testing mission can be achieved.

            Example: lately there is a push to constrain teacher absences even when teachers are sick. New Mexico reportedly saved three million dollars last year by strong-arming teachers to come to school even when sick and therefore not use substitute teachers. How does having a teacher with active pneumonia in school help anything?

            An army of armchair accountants in the public schools are counting things to be able to say which schools are good or not. They count teacher absences and what parents answer on surveys and how the bulletin boards look and which bubbles children mark on tests.

            It’s a scam and most people in education realize that public school education has been hijacked by administrators intent only upon gaining power and money. They are enabled by politicians only intent on gaining power and money. If America had enemies, what would they do different in our public schools? Nothing! They are being destroyed as if an enemy were intent on their destruction.

            When I judge public schools, I look for active curiosity in that school’s students. If they sit in mind-numbing silence preparing for an endless supply of mind-numbing tests, they are intellectually dead. Mostly, the testing-fixated administrators cause the intellectual deaths of the school’s students.

            Very active student led classrooms are run by teachers who give lots of items of curiosity to the class and direct gently the students to uses of literacy and numeracy. These isn’t one model of a curiosity based classroom, it depends on the students that year in that classroom not the curriculum directors.

            Teachers must be agile to find what each year’s students find interesting and tie it back to the need for literacy and numeracy. It can be done but not in schools dominated by top-down testing fixated administrators.

            Those administrators who live by the constant use of tests are trying to measure the immeasurable when it comes to education. They focus on tests to induce teachers to juke the system by having students study for the accountability tests rather than spending their time on learning activities.

            One of the most stressful jobs is being a bus driver since there is a time schedule but the driver cannot control the traffic. Likewise, teachers are put in a system where curiosity, the core of learning is removed yet their job evaluation is put on testing to which the students have no interest. Very stressful.

            I would like to see schools return to a curiosity based curriculum where there are many activities designed to stimulate student curiosity. Return Art and Music to prominence along with having an active garden in each school tended by students. They will plan and direct the growth then harvest and use the products.

            Also, I think that elementary school in the fourth grade should start teaching students to fly using flight simulators. It stimulates geometry and percentages and the language of flight. I also think a virtual zoo should be at every school so that teachers can see which animals capture the attention of their students.

            We must do away with the notion that if students are happy, they are somehow not getting a good education. Nothing could be further from the truth.

            Walt Disney wrote, “We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we’re curious and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.” If this current generation of administrators kill the curiosity in our young people, what will be our nation’s future? Very bleak.

 Email: drswickard@comcast.net - Swickard’s new novel, Hideaway Hills, is availableat Amazon.com

Trying to measure the immeasurable in education

Swickard: Good presidents and bad

© 2016 Michael Swickard, Ph.D.  “The measure of a man is what he does with power.” Plato

             The first President in my memory was Dwight Eisenhower. I was born when Truman served but don’t remember him. My father was a career military man. He happily had a badge, “I like Ike.”

            As someone who studies Presidents, it seems that in a hundred years people may consider Eisenhower the best president of the Twentieth Century. What he did with power was good and he didn’t tell the press.

            What makes me think of this is social media proclaiming the best and the worst Presidents without research. We must agree on how to judge a President. Many Presidents were very popular during their lives and subsequently dropped as details of their presidency came out. Warren G. Harding was one.

            Here are my five worst presidents: absolute worst was Teddy Roosevelt. Next was James Polk. Then Andrew Johnson. Next was Lyndon Johnson and fifth worst was Herbert Hoover. I can write a thousand words about their actions that landed them on my bad list. Maybe later.

            My pick for best presidents involves them doing things that others of their generation would not have done. Washington set the bar high. After him I admire Abraham Lincoln who no one expected to be nominated. He was awful his first year as he tried to grow into the job. Then providence smiled upon him for the ages.

            Lincoln almost single-handedly ended slavery in our country. He didn’t run to do it but came to understand how he needed to use his presidential powers. Likewise, Thomas Jefferson was bright but there were a dozen bright politicians when he decided to run for President.

            Once in office Jefferson allowed his curiosity of plants and animals to evolve into sending the Corps of Discovery under the command of Lewis and Clark across North America. In a three-year period, what was known about the North American West was increased way beyond anyone’s expectations.

            Speaking of a good president: Calvin Coolidge agreed to be Vice-President but did not have greater expectations. He was a quiet effective person who when thrust into the presidency took us out of a bad economic time and give us the “Roaring Twenties.” He like Eisenhower did not toot his horn so many people do not realize how good both were at being president.

            Ronald Reagan likewise took our nation out of a bad economic time and gave us nearly two decades of prosperity. He almost single-handedly took the Soviet Union down when no one thought it could be done. And he inspired many Americans with his presidency.

            Which brings us to Donald Trump. No one can tell how he will be viewed in a hundred years and as the saying goes, “A hundred years from now it is all new people.” But there are things we can see both good and bad that give us a framework to watch him as he conducts his four years of being president.

            Trump already is someone that does not do like the swarms of politicians do in our nation’s capital. That may be both good and bad. Not many thought he had a chance to win but he did. In that he is like Lincoln who ended up with the nomination while the political leaders scratched their heads and wondered how he did it.

            Lincoln also was a polarizing figure where he was loved or hated. In fact, nine states seceded from the Union before he was inaugurated based on their hatred of him. Trump is also like Jefferson in that he is interested in lots of stuff, but not politics.

            We can see that Donald Trump is his own man and no one waving money will get his attention. Like Lincoln newly elected Donald Trump is hated by the press.

            He can grow into the job of the presidency or not. Only time will tell. He may join the others on my list as a great president but he must do things, not just talk. We have had enough talk, it is time for action to get our people back to work and the economy going. Let’s see how he uses his power.

 Email: drswickard@comcast.net - Swickard’s new novel, Hideaway Hills, is availableat Amazon.com

Swickard: Good presidents and bad