One in a row....

I've been spending a lot of time talking with my kids lately. Perhaps the old man is becoming garrolous in his old age, or perhaps it's my upcoming birthday that is reminding me that my time on this Earth is finite. I know that I may not have the opportunity to teach the kids everything I know, so the next best thing I can do is to teach them how to think, question, and learn.

Kathy and I were sitting on the back porch last night reading the newspaper together. I found something that I wasn't very happy with, so I asked Kathy a few questions:

"If you knew that a hurricane was coming that would put the entire city under 10 feed of water, and you knew that not all of the people would be able to get out, what would you do before the hurricane arrived to help the people afterwards?"

Kathy thought for a moment, then said that she would buy food, water, clothes, blankets, and pillows to give to the people after the hurricane left. ( I guess she doesn't like wet pillows.)

"Where would you keep all your stuff? The city is going to be full of water."

This didn't require any thought at all. "I'd put it someplace outside of the city where it would be safe."

Next question: "Ok, if the storm is 300 miles in diameter and Phoenix is at the center, how far away would your stuff need to be in order for it to be safe?"

Kathy has always hated word problems (don't we all?), but this one was easy. "It would have to be at least 150 miles away to be safe. Or maybe up in the mountains, but it would be hard to put it all there."

Moving right along, my next question was "Ok, if your stuff is 150 miles away and the storm has blown down all the trees, broken up the roads, covered everything with mud and water, and knocked out all the power lines for stoplights, how long will it take for your stuff to get where it needs to go?"

Kathy has spent a considerable amount of time traveling the backcountry with me in my Jeep, so she has a good idea of how long it takes to travel when there are no real roads to follow. She replied that "It would probably take a couple of days to get it all here."

Ok.....time to set the hook.

"In all your calculations about how much stuff to buy, where to keep it, and how long it will take to move everything, how did you account for the skin color of the people living in the town?"

At this point Kathy looked at me like I had lost my mind and made perhaps the most profound comment I've heard yet regarding hurricane relief: "That's stupid. It doesn't matter what color their skin is. Everything is still going to be wet."

Out of the mouths of babes.

It was time to show her what pissed me off in the first place. I opened the Monday, September 19, 2005 edition of The Arizona Repulsive to page B3, showed her the section titled 'News to Use - A clear, concise current events feature for young readers' and pointed out the section of the article which dealt with the response to Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. The article quotes the well known social commentator Kanye West as if his statements are factual and not opinions.

".....relief efforts were set up to help the poor, the black people, the less well-off as slow as possible."

The newspaper also presents the following statement as if it were fact, not a question open for discussion:

Most of those trapped in New Orleans were trapped because they were black and poor.

Oddly enough, this section of the paper does not appear on the AZ Repulsive website. There is a Newspapers in Education section, but the lesson plan displayed on the web page does not match what appeared in the print edition.

Kathy was not very happy when she read the article......and even less happy when she realized that it was intended to be a classroom aid for teachers. She threw down the paper and asked, "Why would they do that? They're not telling the whole story. You can't decide something like that without knowing the whole story."

I answered her question the best way I knew how. I looked her right in the eye and said,

Baa ram ewe

Baa ram ewe

To your breed, your fleece, your clan be true

Sheep be true

Baa ram ewe

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