What should K-12 schools teach?

 For openers, the three Rs, Reading ‘Riting and ‘Rithmetic.  Once the kid can read he/she can learn anything that is worth learning by simply reading.  Plus, reading is fun.  Settling down with a good book is a good time, IF the kid is fairly good at reading.  Writing is highly prized.  Companies will hire people who can write instruction sheets that customers can understand, advertising copy that sells product, procedures for manufacturing that result in quality product, reports to stock holders or government regulators.  There is more to writing than the Great American Novel.

   Arithmetic is addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.  Even in this day of hand calculators I think kids need to understand what is going on before the numbers displayed by the calculators mean anything.  They need to know about borrow and carry and remainders.  They need to know about percents.   They need to know about fractions and decimals.  If they have any idea about dong a STEM major in college, they need algebra and trig in high school

   Then they ought to have at least one good course in US history.  It needs to be real US history such as is found in Morrison and Commager, not Critical Race Theory.  In my day civics was part of US history, but it would not hurt to have a separate civics course.  In addition to teaching the division of the federal government into legislative, executive, and judicial branches, it ought to teach about the big state-small state compromises made back in 1789.  Such as the Electoral College, constitutional amendment procedures, and the bicameral legislature.

   A wood shop course.  I still remember stuff from middle school shop and I use it daily in my own shop.  Perhaps Drivers Ed in high school.

  When the kids get to high school we would be better off if we required one course in chemistry, one in physics, and one in biology of ALL students.  So much of modern life revolves around issues of science and technology that the country would be well served if the new citizens had a high school understanding of the sciences. 

  Things we should NOT be teaching in public schools.  Today’s political issues. Stick with historical political issues.  LGBQ and other issues related to sex and gender are not appropriate.  Perhaps a single Sex Ed course that explains about pregnancy, how to avoid it until after graduation, including contraception, and periods.  No more. 

Powers and Thrones, by Dan Jones, copyright 2021. 636 pages

 The middle ages run from 500 AD to 1500 AD in round numbers.  Historians will say medieval times start with the deposition of the last Roman emperor Romulus Augustulus in 476.  And I might say they end with Columbus in 1492.  The 500 to 1500 is close and easier to remember. 

 The first section of the book discusses the Roman Empire with emphasis on things passed down to medieval times like Christianity.  Jones misses a few points.  He does mention that the Romans controlled all the lands around the Mediterranean Sea.  He fails to point out that control of all the shorelines allowed the Romans to eliminate piracy in the Mediterranean.  Pirates need ports in which to refill their water casks, restock their provisions, and sell their loot.  When every port has a Roman governor with legionnaires to back him up, pirates have a problem.  So big a problem as to put them out of business.  Removing the pirate threat boosts the Roman economy since in those days everything was shipped by water. 

  Another interesting fact.  There is a histogram of Mediterranean ship wrecks over time.  The number of shipwrecks is proportional to the amount of shipping.  The histogram shows shipwrecks at a low level until maybe 100 BC.  It grows rapidly to a peak right around the time of Augustus Caesar.  Then it starts down.  By Constantine’s time we only have a quarter of the shipwrecks we had in Augustus’ time, which means Constantine only had a quarter of the commerce to tax as Augustus had.  Jones makes no mention of this histogram.  Either he didn’t know of it, or he didn’t think it relevant. 

 

Russian Video of tanks pulling back from Ukraine Border.

I watched the video.  It shows a couple of unfamiliar diesel engines, Russian design and manufacture perhaps.  Followed by a lot of flat cars.  Each flat car has one tank loaded onto it.  The video view is at pretty long range for a side of the train shot.  The train goes thru a steel arch bridge.  The bridge steel is all pink, a very unusual color for a steel bridge.  No rivets showing.

   I thought the whole video clip looked like a model train layout.  

Things must be getting tight in the car business.

 I came out of Walmart the other day and found someone had left a note in my car, offering to buy it.  My car is a 2005, 17 years old, a couple of rust spots, and a front bumper trim piece held together with duct tape.  Not what I would call a really good looking car.  

Maybe that semiconductor shortage the newsies keep talking about is getting really bad and Detroit just isn't shipping many new cars 'cause the cars won't work without those semiconductors.  Makes you wonder about car companies that allow themselves to become dependent upon something that they don't make them selves, or at least have a US supplier for. 

Supply chain is breaking again

 Stopped by Wallymart for catfood.  Last time I scored a 40 can carton of Friskies.  This time all I got was 4 cans for Friskies and 3 plastic containers of something else.  Cat eats two cans a day, so I only have a few days of food for Stupid Beast. 

Land lines are not what they used to be

 The phone rings.  I get out of my chair and answer it.  Sometimes I get dead air.  Sometimes I get a sales pitch so broken up by flaky caller's phone as to not be understandable.  Sometimes I get a foreign accent so thick that I cannot under stand it.  Sometimes I get a weak voice that mumbles and I hang up. 

   You would think the buyers of this advertising would do a little quality control and shape up the worst offenders.  They are paying for each call placed, not whether the call sells any product for them. 

What happens in Ukraine?

On the Russian side we have

1. A whacking big Russian army, and some Russian navy, camped out, in the snow, on Ukraine’s borders.  It would just take a telephone call from Putin to get them moving into Ukraine.  That’s at least twice, maybe more, the size of the Ukrainian army. 
2. Putin has the Germans, and plenty of other European countries almost hooked up to enough Russian natural gas to heat all their homes and run all their electric plants.  Putin knows (or he ought to know) that the Germans need that gas and will do a lot to keep the pipeline deal going, even if the Americans want to shut it down.
3. He knows Biden is mostly out of it, and even in his better days was not very brave, and will do nearly anything to avoid conflict.
4. It’s probably up to Putin alone, if he thinks invasion of Ukraine won’t cost too much he will do it.  If he thinks it will hurt Russia he won’t do it.  Unless we have another Oleg Penkovski (legendary sleeper mole in the Kremlin), we won’t know until it happens.

On the American side we have:

1. NATO and other treaties that give us a lot of support all over Europe.
2. Serious economic strength, far greater than the Russians have.  This strength would be better used if Biden made some straight forward threats of economic sanctions.