Schools and learning

Have you ever wondered why the children of the 1950's and 1960's were so extremely smart? Think about it for a moment. The classrooms were 6 rows of 8 seats per row and mostly filled. The teachers were underpaid. The books were old. There was no free lunch for the students. Milk was distributed in the elementary grades but the students paid for their milk. The lessons were the same year in and year out. Grammar school student had hourly changes in subject matter. Tests were given every Friday and there were unannounced tests at any moment.

So how did these children learn???

For one important reason. The basics were drilled into them by rote. Math. Reading. Spelling. Geography. And in the later years of grammar school, political sciences and CIVICS. What was CIVICS. Every student had to know how our government worked. How an idea was forwarded into a bill and how a bill became a law. In fact, every student in my grammar school dreaded the final CIVICS test. WHY? Because the only way a student could graduate into high school was to pass the CIVICS test. Fail the test - no matter how good your grades and you did not graduate.

So what did the students of the 1950's and the 1950's have that student today with all their computers and "new thinking" not have? These students had to learn their lessons by rote. Repeating and repeating them until they learned to spell, read, do math, and write. It was not difficult. Just took time and the real possibility that failure was not an option.

A student studied because there was consequences if you did not meet at least a "C" in all subjects. Failing meant being held back. No one wanted that - even to "cool" kids or the "tough guys". Everyone wanted to graduate out of grammar and high schools.

And what happened. Most students graduated and were able to enter college without having to take remedial classes to "catch-up" with all the other students in college. And even those students that for whatever reason did not go on to college were able to read and do math and think logically. That is totally unlike the majority of the students of today - as proven by the world's rate of 23rd in math, science and reading out of all nations.

So the solution is simple. Get back to rote and test, test, test. Make keeping up with the rest of the students a positive social thing. Stop paying students to go to school. Stop rewarding bad behavior.

Rote is best for everyone - no matter what you want to be in life. Rote will give everyone the basics. Rote will create a baseline of minimum knowledge for all students and raise all people up.

And that's the way I see it...
Straight Talk with Jay Clifford

Employment figures and the government's figuring

We all know someone who lost a job, been downsized and cannot find a job in a similar industry or salary level.

I BELIEVE the unemployment figure of 9% is just plain FAKE. First of all, i understand that it takes an increase of 150,000 new jobs to drop the unemployment level by one tenth of a percent. That's 0.1%. That would be like going from 9.4% to 9.3%.

Then the government's own figure state that only 36,000 new jobs were created. No one knows how many were full time jobs in the private sector or government jobs. BUT new 36,000 jobs is NOT ENOUGH to reduce the 9.4% level to 9.0%.
So you know someone is playing loose with the math.

Then there are the tens of millions of unemployed whose benefits have run out. These people are NOT COUNTED in the unemployment figure. With tens of millions of NOT COUNTED UNEMPLOYED, the REAL UNEMPLOYMENT NUMBER IS MORE LIKE 17% TO 19%. With quick math the suggests that 60,000,000 are unemployed. SIXTY MILLION PEOPLE. Something is wrong here and it's our government's wasteful spending

So you see why I believe they are "fudging the unemployment numbers."

The obama stimulus failed. Admit it and let's do something different. It's crazy thinking to continue to do the same thing and expect different results. To get different results, you need to change what you were doing. IT IS THAT SIMPLE.

Where are potential jobs??? In the private sector - not in creating government featherbedding or government patronage jobs at unbelievable high salaries. That's the Chicago way and it does not work for Chicago (except for the politicians in power in Chicago) and it will not work for the United States Government.

We need to foster an environment for people to become self-employed. This is where the new jobs will come from; not from government directed and funded future businesses that have not even been created yet.

The government believes you will think that more jobs are being created than actually are by creating fake and lower unemployment numbers. The government is trying to "pull the wool over your eyes." You do not let this happen in your normal life, why would you ever allow the government to do this to you now??????

Demand government cut over-spending.
Demand government reduce the spending budget - not freeze it at these high levels.
Look out for yourself or the budget will grow and the only alternative will be for the government to DE-VALUE THE DOLLAR AND REPLACE THE DOLLAR WITH A NEW DDOLLLARR AT 1 DDOLLLARR FOR EVERY 10 OLD DOLLARS. MAYBE EVEN REPLACE THE DOLLAR WITH A NEW DDOLLLLARR AT 1 DDOLLLARR FOR EVERY 100 OLD DOLLARS.

WHERE WOULD YOU BE THEN??? BROKE !!!! THAT'S WHERE.

And that's the way I see it...
Straight Talk With Jay Clifford