Naming Babies and Ruining Your Life In Middle School
Post written by: beagooddad
A family in Italy named their son Friday. He was baptised Friday and spent his first five months as a Friday. Then the courts got involved. They decided that Friday was not an acceptable name “because it recalled the servile savage in Daniel Defoe’s novel Robinson Crusoe and because superstitious Italians consider Friday an unlucky day.“ So the court decided that henceforth, he shall be named Gregory “after the saint whose feast day he was born on.”
For the record, I think I now find the name Gregory offensive so they might want to start looking for a new name.
The lesson is of course that you should always consult with the local government officials before naming your child to make sure that the courts are not aware of any possible offenses your child’s name could cause others. I’m glad we were able to sneak in all of our names before this trend catches on in America.
Also in the news: Are we putting too much pressure on kids at too young of an age? Should kids in middle school need to think about guiding their academic life toward college? That’s a lot of pressure on kids that should be spending most of their time wondering why their voices are changing and why those two girls giggle every time they walk by.
I’m a big fan of encouraging kids to constantly learn new, exciting, fun stuff. I am a huge believer that the A/B/C/D/F scale is a horrible system. After all, why would we skip E. Don’t these academic people even no their alphabet?
Is it possible to run a public school system where kids advance grades because they actually learn all of the things required in that grade instead of just managing to score a 70% or better? Is it possible to get rid of ACTs/SATs and actually start teaching kids to want to learn instead of how to pass a test? Is it possible for kids to play basketball or an instrument because it is fun and not because it will look good on a college entrance form?
Probably not until we find a way for people to believe that they can have a decent, happy life with a decent job without going to the best possible college that they can squeeze into. I have a 2 year degree (most of which was earned after starting my career), have been working as a programmer for 8 years since leaving the Air Force. I make decent enough money and have perfectly acceptable work responsibilities. And I have had zero dollars in student loans for quite a few years now.
December 18th, 2007 at 3:11 pm
Changes can’t come until educators are able to teach individuals instead of groups….By that I don’t mean a 1:1 teacher /student ratio…I mean a teacher teaching to each students needs and abilities at their rate of learning with the support of parents, technology and expeeiences in the areas of the childrens interests. Certainly the teacher/student ratio would have to be less than 1:25 but I beleive it could be done with a ratio of 1:10 and technology.
In Wisconsin the trend is going in the opposite direction, I am sorry to say. LOVE MOM
December 18th, 2007 at 3:14 pm
Wow, the fancy crystal christmas tree costs 600.00.
December 18th, 2007 at 8:40 pm
after 18 years of working as a nurse in the nicu and labor and delivery, i have witnessed too many times names that really needed someone to step up and perform an intervention and have the parents think long and hard over the consequences of their unfortunate choice…think ahead maybe 12-13 years or so. i value my career too much right now…i have four more college tuitions to pay for…so i bite my tongue. but someday my next job will be the name police. seriously, some misguided souls just don’t consider the consequences of their sense of humor or lack of sense when they bestow an unfortunate name on their beloved child. don ‘t worry, i won’t arbitraliiy reject the name and rename the child. i’ll just gently suggest the parents think long and hard, perhaps imagine junior high with the child carrying that name or imagine trying to get a job 20 years later before they put that name down on a birth certificate.
okay, i’ll step down from the soap box now.
December 19th, 2007 at 10:44 am
My daughter (11yo 5th grade) is super hyped up on her grades. if she gets less than a 95-96%, she completely freaks out. And I mean tears and yelling at herself and everything. I’ve talked to her and tried to get across to her that the point is to do your best, i’ve talked to her teacher who agrees with me, and she has tried telling Meg not to be so hard on herself. Meg says she is worried about getting into a good high school. I tell her that its not that hard, that she just needs to do her best and she’ll get into a fine school. (I need to mention here that we are from a less than wealthy suburb of Cleveland Ohio, and she goes to a small Catholic school. She wants to go to one of the all girl Catholic High schools in the area) Her cousin is in her class, wants to go to the same high school and doesn’t care as much about her grades, they are very close, so it doesn’t appear to be peer related.
My sisters step kids could care less about how they do in school, and neither could their mom! The state has actually sent letters because some days she doesn’t feel like taking them, they’ve missed almost half of the year. Her myspace page shows her and her boyfriend smoking pot in front of her kids. Yes my sis & her DH are trying to get custody, but I swear our county is the most screwed up. Their mom likes her $800+ a month and is putting up a huge fight.
My sis-in-law is a Cleveland public school teacher. She has several students who, as punishment, are kept home from school, or if mom doesn’t have anyone else to watch the little ones, the older kids stay home. She teaches 6-8 grade.
That said, I agree that some parents do put way too much pressure on their kids. Some parents will never value an education at all. Some parents think that a college degree is the be all end all to happiness, and in some ways they are right. The economy here is super stinky, we were named the poorest city in the US. I want my kids to go AWAY for college, just because I want them to have the opportunity to see a little more of the US and encourage them to move to where the work they love is. (Unless you’re in the medical profession, it isn’t here) I think that the obsession with grades for some people is part of the back lash from under-performing schools, and good old No Child Left Behind. If your kid doesn’t pass the test, they’re labeled. If you school as a whole doesn’t perform year after year, it is labeled. No one wants the label. The label sounds the death knell for your community, if your schools aren’t performing, the people who can leave.
I’m not sure about abolishing the A-B-C-D-F grading system. In some ways I do agree, how are you going to fail a 5th grader in Social Studies when you really aren’t teaching anything that she will use past this year, (There are only so many applications to the Aztec and the Mayan people), but in others I’m completely against abolishing it. Do you want a NICU nurse (I’m in my externship for that right now) taking care of your baby if he/she got a “Pass” in a class that had no set objectives? Or would you prefer that he/she had to meet a minimum requirement just to get into Nursing School, and another requirement to graduate. Or do you want to work in a building that was engineered by someone who didn’t have to meet any standard to get her/his little piece of paper that declared him an engineer? I think the answer is probably somewhere in the middle, but I don’t know what it is.
December 19th, 2007 at 10:45 am
Sorry about my Novella, and the pic of the felt tree is coming!!! My camera is charging, and that takes for-ever!!!!!!!!
December 19th, 2007 at 11:18 am
Wow! outstanding post about the current reality for many middle schoolers and their parents. I found a few other articles and blog posts that inspired some thoughts of my own on the topic. When you have two minutes stop by:
http://www.thinking-forward.com Thanks again for shedding some light on a topic that is on the minds of many today.
December 19th, 2007 at 11:29 am
Angela, just one quick comment about getting rid of the ABCDF system. I’m not advocating PASS/FAIL. I’m more suggesting that kids advance when they know all of the material. Not 70% of the stuff. Therefore, advancing a grade or getting a degree would mean you actually learned the things the class intended to teach. I’m not really sure how to best implement it, though.
Also, as a general comment, none of this will really work until we can commit enough money and train enough teachers to get the class size much lower than 30 kids per class. Especially at the grade school, that’s just insane.
December 19th, 2007 at 11:31 am
Laura,
Maybe they need to have a child naming class be part of the battery of classes first time parents go to. Right between breathing class and how to put on a diaper class. I would have gone to one of those.