Manns Medium

The world is constantly changing but there are somethings that never change.  One of those things is the competition between people of who is better, bigger, bolder and smarter than anyone else.  Today we attempt to measure the intelligence level of people by some tests which was created by a group of people claiming and receiving acknowledgment that they are supposed to be the elite of intelligence.  The sad part of all this truly is that no one is smarter than anyone else.  It is simply a matter of opportunity and aptitude than it is about anything else. Consider this, you make straight “A” s in school and immediately you are viewed as smarter than the other kids in your class but this same straight “A” student would have a very hard time putting those mastered skills in action the very first time he/she has an opportunity to do so.  You can learn everything about the engine of an automobile from a book and repeat those lessons as eloquent and articulate ...

Ashley Madison was a typical mixed race child with her daddy’s features and her mother ways.  She was a social butterfly when she was born but slipped back into her cocoon when reaching grade 5.  Her family wondered what happened to the care-free child of birth but never was able to help her break out of her shell.  They tried desperately to return her to the person she was at birth but failed in every attempt because Ashley was not ready to blossom.  So all that they could do is constantly remind her just how special she was and to make sure she knew that the world was a much better place with her in it. Through the years, Ashley remained somewhat settled within her shell and her parents would see glimpse of her when she was around family.  It seemed that the harder she tried to make friends, the less successful she was.   Ashley's  interest in art was sparked when her parents purchased an art set for her one Christmas and that proved more h...

You listen too much to what people say especially when it comes to the mass shooting in California and so many others like that.  The number one question asked is if it was the action of terrorist and the number one lesson we spread is how important it is that we do not let the terrorist win.  But then there comes a story and a few more stories like that one, soon it begins to become clear.  The terrorist have won and those who refuse to believe it are the ones who keep us blind to it. Consider this story “ At school on Oct. 24, 2014, J.A. misheard what a friend told her. "It sounded like you said, 'We're going to play with chemicals,'" she told the friend, and both girls laughed.  Two other girls told a fourth-grade teacher that J.A. and her friend were talking about chemicals. The teacher sent them to report it to a guidance counselor.  The guidance counselor asked J.A. and her friend about it as they stood in line to go home on the bus. The two girls were ...

As it is often the case, we spend more time trying to find others to blame for something that went wrong instead of trying first to find out where we, as individuals, went wrong.  While filing lawsuits may correct the behavior in some, it only fuels the many and makes us even more determine to not first look to ourselves for an answer but depend even more on the answers to come from others.  While the below article is a sad time for all of us that breath air it is also a lesson on how we can begin to correct this problem if we could only see deeper into that image that stares back at us in a mirror. The article is titled “ Parents sue Florida school district over bullied son's suicide ” written by Tiffany Walden for the Orlando Sentinel.  It is a story about a complete failure on all parts which resulted in a young life being extinguished but it is also a story about a young life making a serious choice and while we mourn this young life we should also celebrate his ...

When it comes to educating our children, there appears to be more excuses than results and even though each individual person may have their own interpretation of why one thing is clear.  The Rockford School District is doing the very same thing, the very same way expecting a completely different result.  Now who says that educators are always the brightest bulbs on the tree? Another school year is about to begin and this same old tired story is resurrected.  Written by Reuben Jones for one of our local TV stations WREX the article titled “ RPS 205 looking at expanding year-round schooling” is reported on yet once again.  The article recalls “in just a few weeks Haskell classrooms will fill with students. Haskell is one of the only schools that are open during the summer. Early education to fifth grade students at Haskell Academy get a six week summer followed by two months of school and then a three week vacation in the fall.  Other RPS 205 students typic...

When someone mentions autism, many of us have to shrug our shoulders as we are really not sure what they are talking about.  Our immediate focus of the definition is someone who displays the symptoms senior surviving mammals would have called “mentally retarded” but what if I told you that autism is nothing more than the daily actions and activities of every single person on this earth and in this universe but more profound. If you pay close attention to any child displaying any activity that society deems as autistic, you will find that it is the very same activity that those not diagnosis with this condition displays.   For my son, he re-focuses but rubbing his fingers together directly in front of his eyes combined with the short run or jog back and forth.  While this may not be the activity displayed by many of us, consider this.  It is well known that in order for some of us to concentrate on the task at hand, we must doddle especially when on the phon...

There are far too many instances where this takes place so for the sake of brevity and not to confuse too many people, let us concentrate on just one.  I am speaking of the Office Discipline Referral Form.   It is the policy of District 205 that a parent/guardian/caretaker must accompany the student back to school if they were suspended but this is after the suspension.  Due Process says that you are innocent until proven guilty, so any reasonable parent must assume that if their child gets suspended, an investigation into the offense was properly done and presented to those who decide on suspension.  If any reasonable parent assumes this, then they must also assume that their child or ward was exposed to this part of life without them being present to defend or supply a representative for their child or ward’s defense.  This, in turn, teaches the child that they have no voice because those representing the petition to suspend are adults and will be believ...

When it comes to proving how vain, selfish and completely immature, human being are, nothing makes the case better than this story. It’s the story about school district police departments taking advantage of the free military gear that the U.S. Government is giving away.  So let me get this straight, educators have a very hard time coming together to find a solution to the problem of their failure to properly educate our kids but they can surely come together and gather military supplies for their school police departments.  Why do schools have their own police departments anyway?  It can’t be because it is so large that it needs one, this would be why the town or city that they locate in has one.  It can’t be because the rules at school differ that much from the ordinances and rules found in that very same town and city the school is located in, so why.  Must be because of the enormous amount of funding that district receives and since they do not wish to ...

In any investigation, those who are in the know should realize that a tragic trend is beginning to emerge.  Investigators are imitating television when it comes to discovering the truth about crimes being committed.  Often television shows depict the star of that show figuring out what happened by number of means and script writers are getting more and more loose with how things really should be by making the scene more about the person than the crime.  Investigations are never about the person; it should always and forever be about the crime.  If there is no crime committed then there is no damage but if there is any possible chance of misconduct then it needs to be cautiously examined. Nothing makes this clearer than the article about “a 6-year-old Pennsylvania boy whose mother allegedly held him underwater in a bathtub died Saturday, four days after his younger brother drowned, the Allegheny County Medical Examiner's Office confirmed”.  It says that “Cou...

Lately it is getting harder and harder to understand why the actions some people take does not give them pause and still remains even more abstract after some answers to why are given.  We continue to wonder just how we lost our sense of humanity and when will it ever return.  Those questions still remain elusive and they become even more relevant after reading this story. It is a story of how far some of us have fallen from any sense of grace and civility and can be found in an article titled “Officials say two employees at a Utah school have been placed on leave during an investigation of why lunches were taken from students who owed money on food accounts”, written for the Associated Press.  In this article it is described as “a Utah school cafeteria manager and a district supervisor have been placed on paid leave while officials investigate why lunches were taken from students who owed money on food accounts, a district spokesman said Friday”.  Now the first q...