The dangers of cutting social programs

Gabriella84 said:
You have zero concept of what is actually going on. If you push people into a corner, then keep poking them with a stick, eventually they are going to come back at you.
Raise your hand, any of you, if you live in the inner city. Or send your kids to inner city public schools. Or if you live in a poor black or Latino neighorhood, and have seen all the problems first hand.
Send your kids to my schools and then talk.


Once again you spew the "leadership" line. Minorities are constantly fed this garbage about how they can't make it without the government's special help. You are feeding the monster that keeps them down, Gabby. Minorities need actual leaders that will help them improve their lives and not "leaders" that make money by telling people how much they can't make it! And especially leaders that tell them they can't make it without their special kind of help.

I went to "your" schools.

It is garbage, and it is insidious. It seeps down to the very fiber of their society so that when evidence is before them of people that have made it they call them "Uncle Tom" etc. instead of seeing it as the success it is, and say that they are not "black" or "hispanic" enough! Stop perpetuating the problem.

The very first step is to start demonizing every person who says that they don't have the "opportunity" of those "white folk" instead of demonizing the people who are actually working on a resolution rather than perpetuating the negative stereotypes of whites and minorities and attempting to escalate a conflict rather than nullifying it. You cannot get people to not think of race to judge them by if you are judging by race as well. By centering all the solutions on the race of large groups instead of working with individuals we promote and maintain a system where people will consider themselves "unable" to get by because of "the Man".

BTW - as to your solutions list, teachers are given incentive to work in the inner-city in almost every city that I have ever heard. They make more money there, and in most cases have an easy-in for mortgages so that they can purchase homes as well.
 
Gabriella84 said:
You and I know "HP" is fiction. But children are often unable to differentiate between fact and fiction. The HP books draw kids to the study of wizards and witchcraft and away from Christian principals.
Not to mention all the fun times that Harry has with all male buddies, which implies the pleasures that can be derived from homosexuality.



---Beverly Greene
___________________________

Of course, the new HP book due out this week also has Christians a bit skitterish. Since there have been hints that Harry might lose his virginity.

:rotflmao:

This is some of the worst idiocy that I have seen in my life. Children can't differentiate between fact and fiction? WTF?? And Harry dates girls and you can already tell that Ron and Hermione will end up together. As far as I have seen there is no homosexuality there....
 
no1tovote4 said:
:rotflmao:

This is some of the worst idiocy that I have seen in my life. Children can't differentiate between fact and fiction? WTF?? And Harry dates girls and you can already tell that Ron and Hermione will end up together. As far as I have seen there is no homosexuality there....

only Gabby...only Gabby...she lives in a ficticious world don't ya know! :rolleyes:
 
no1tovote4 said:
:rotflmao:

This is some of the worst idiocy that I have seen in my life. Children can't differentiate between fact and fiction? WTF?? And Harry dates girls and you can already tell that Ron and Hermione will end up together. As far as I have seen there is no homosexuality there....

If Barney is gay, anything is possible. :tng:
 
NORFOLK, Virginia (AP) -- When the students at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry fly off on broomsticks, most Harry Potter fans think "magic." Charlene Haviland thinks "aerodynamics."

And when Professor Albus Dumbledore snaps his fingers to turn on the lights, the middle school teacher gets excited -- at the prospect of explaining how a remote control works.

Haviland will get her chance this fall, when she teaches an after-school remedial program for eighth-graders that will combine reading with the study of science in the Harry Potter books. She'll use one book per quarter, so the students won't get to the latest -- the sixth in the series, "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince," which is due out July 16.

The program at the inner-city school is being funded by an $82,000 American Honda Foundation grant awarded to Haviland and George Plitnik, a physics professor at Frostburg State University in Maryland.

Haviland sought the grant, which includes enough money for lab equipment, after she was unable to find a model for a middle-school class of this type. She asked for Plitnik's help because he was familiar with the topic.

He has taught the science in the Harry Potter books for two years, first as a small honors class and last school year as a course that attracted 90 students in both the fall and spring semesters.

"There's a lot of science that looks like magic," said Plitnik, who has been known to show up for class in a wizard's costume.

That very magic propelled Haviland, 35, onto her career path. As a part-time student at Southern Oregon University, she signed up for a class with a chemistry professor whom she found inspiring.

"He was always bumping into things and kind of absent-minded, but just extremely intelligent," Haviland said. "And he always brought in demonstrations. He wouldn't tell us how it worked, but for extra credit we could try to figure out what it was."

She started trying to solve the mysteries.

"I wasn't a stellar chemistry student, but I just got hooked," she said. "When you mix these two liquids together, why do they turn blue?"
Making lessons fun

She, in turn, wanted to inspire others in the same way. As an undergraduate, she put on magic shows aimed at children, demonstrating -- and explaining -- chemical reactions.

She could make two clear liquids turn black. In some experiments, she could predict when the substances would change color; in others, the changes were unpredictable.

"I wanted kids to see that chemistry wasn't something that was scary, that it was really cool," she said. "When they go on to high school and have the option to take chemistry, maybe they'll go ahead and take it."

With the after-school science program, Haviland has an additional challenge: improving her students' reading and writing scores on state standardized tests. She chose the Harry Potter books because they have made page-turners of children who don't normally like to read.

"Find some books that they like to read," she said. "And say 'Do you think this could actually happen in the real world? Well, here it is."'

For a discussion on the flying broomsticks used in the game of Quidditch, Haviland said, "We can even go into Bernoulli's principle and explore how we can take that from flying on a broom to ... how airplanes work ... and why some fly better than others."
'I didn't want to fight'

While she originally wanted to use only Harry Potter, Haviland broadened the program to include other books in hopes of avoiding criticism from conservative Christian groups and others that believe J.K. Rowling's series promotes sorcery.

So far Haviland's program has provoked no controversy, but she said, "I didn't want to fight. I wanted to make sure it (the program) was going to get used."

Parents Against Bad Books in School, which is based in Fairfax County, ranks the Harry Potter series 48th on its list of the 100 books that have sparked the most complaints. But it's far behind such classics as Harper Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird," Mark Twain's "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" and J.D. Salinger's "Catcher in the Rye."

Haviland said her program should appease those worried about a witchcraft message.

"Here's the actual hard science behind it," she said.

Haviland and her colleague, Plitnik, even have explanations for some of the more far-out occurrences in the Harry Potter books.

Levitating a frog, for example. Haviland cites the work of Dutch and British scientists at the University of Nijmegen who were able to make a frog levitate using magnets. In his course, Plitnik uses a spinning magnet that levitates.

Then there's Fluffy, the three-headed dog. "We could do that," Plitnik said, referring to advances in genetic engineering.

Before Honda awarded the grant, a representative observed a class this spring in which Haviland read her students a Dr. Seuss book, "Bartholomew and the Oobleck." She then made "oobleck" with cornstarch and a slimier substance, "gak," and had her students compare the two.

"The kids got involved, they were using science," said Donna Hammond-Cotton of Los Angeles, senior program officer with the Honda foundation. "They were not to supposed to be good readers, but they were just reading out."

Hammond-Cotton said she was surprised to learn later that the class included students with disabilities.

"She's a remarkable teacher," she said.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/EDUCATION/07/08/harry.potter.science.ap/index.html
 
GotZoom said:
NORFOLK, Virginia (AP) -- When the students at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry fly off on broomsticks, most Harry Potter fans think "magic." Charlene Haviland thinks "aerodynamics."

And when Professor Albus Dumbledore snaps his fingers to turn on the lights, the middle school teacher gets excited -- at the prospect of explaining how a remote control works.

Haviland will get her chance this fall, when she teaches an after-school remedial program for eighth-graders that will combine reading with the study of science in the Harry Potter books. She'll use one book per quarter, so the students won't get to the latest -- the sixth in the series, "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince," which is due out July 16.

The program at the inner-city school is being funded by an $82,000 American Honda Foundation grant awarded to Haviland and George Plitnik, a physics professor at Frostburg State University in Maryland.

Haviland sought the grant, which includes enough money for lab equipment, after she was unable to find a model for a middle-school class of this type. She asked for Plitnik's help because he was familiar with the topic.

He has taught the science in the Harry Potter books for two years, first as a small honors class and last school year as a course that attracted 90 students in both the fall and spring semesters.

"There's a lot of science that looks like magic," said Plitnik, who has been known to show up for class in a wizard's costume.

That very magic propelled Haviland, 35, onto her career path. As a part-time student at Southern Oregon University, she signed up for a class with a chemistry professor whom she found inspiring.

"He was always bumping into things and kind of absent-minded, but just extremely intelligent," Haviland said. "And he always brought in demonstrations. He wouldn't tell us how it worked, but for extra credit we could try to figure out what it was."

She started trying to solve the mysteries.

"I wasn't a stellar chemistry student, but I just got hooked," she said. "When you mix these two liquids together, why do they turn blue?"
Making lessons fun

She, in turn, wanted to inspire others in the same way. As an undergraduate, she put on magic shows aimed at children, demonstrating -- and explaining -- chemical reactions.

She could make two clear liquids turn black. In some experiments, she could predict when the substances would change color; in others, the changes were unpredictable.

"I wanted kids to see that chemistry wasn't something that was scary, that it was really cool," she said. "When they go on to high school and have the option to take chemistry, maybe they'll go ahead and take it."

With the after-school science program, Haviland has an additional challenge: improving her students' reading and writing scores on state standardized tests. She chose the Harry Potter books because they have made page-turners of children who don't normally like to read.

"Find some books that they like to read," she said. "And say 'Do you think this could actually happen in the real world? Well, here it is."'

For a discussion on the flying broomsticks used in the game of Quidditch, Haviland said, "We can even go into Bernoulli's principle and explore how we can take that from flying on a broom to ... how airplanes work ... and why some fly better than others."
'I didn't want to fight'

While she originally wanted to use only Harry Potter, Haviland broadened the program to include other books in hopes of avoiding criticism from conservative Christian groups and others that believe J.K. Rowling's series promotes sorcery.

So far Haviland's program has provoked no controversy, but she said, "I didn't want to fight. I wanted to make sure it (the program) was going to get used."

Parents Against Bad Books in School, which is based in Fairfax County, ranks the Harry Potter series 48th on its list of the 100 books that have sparked the most complaints. But it's far behind such classics as Harper Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird," Mark Twain's "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" and J.D. Salinger's "Catcher in the Rye."

Haviland said her program should appease those worried about a witchcraft message.

"Here's the actual hard science behind it," she said.

Haviland and her colleague, Plitnik, even have explanations for some of the more far-out occurrences in the Harry Potter books.

Levitating a frog, for example. Haviland cites the work of Dutch and British scientists at the University of Nijmegen who were able to make a frog levitate using magnets. In his course, Plitnik uses a spinning magnet that levitates.

Then there's Fluffy, the three-headed dog. "We could do that," Plitnik said, referring to advances in genetic engineering.

Before Honda awarded the grant, a representative observed a class this spring in which Haviland read her students a Dr. Seuss book, "Bartholomew and the Oobleck." She then made "oobleck" with cornstarch and a slimier substance, "gak," and had her students compare the two.

"The kids got involved, they were using science," said Donna Hammond-Cotton of Los Angeles, senior program officer with the Honda foundation. "They were not to supposed to be good readers, but they were just reading out."

Hammond-Cotton said she was surprised to learn later that the class included students with disabilities.

"She's a remarkable teacher," she said.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/EDUCATION/07/08/harry.potter.science.ap/index.html

wow. Here's another mark on the board for the books. i think its cool they are being used for learning science, something i would never have thought they would become apart of.
 
I have come late to the party on this one.

The only danger I see in cutting social programs is the awarness of people being able to do for themselves rather than the government doing a poor job for them.
 

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