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Comments and opinions expressed on THE KNIGHT SHIFT are those of Christopher Knight and not necessarily those of subjects discussed in this blog, of advertisers appearing on it or of any reasonable human being. Any correspondence/irate letters/lawsuit threats/Nigerian e-mail scams can be sent to theknightshift@gmail.com.
As was reported here a few days ago, the Rockingham County Board of Education voted to rescind its vote in April to implement mandatory school uniforms at Reidsville Middle and Reidsville High schools beginning this coming year. Members of P.O.T.S.M.O.D. (People Opposed To Standard Mode Of Dress) fought hard and with heart to get the board to overturn its decision ever since the April vote that initially required it.
I got something in my e-mail and I'm gonna post it here, because I think this is one of the bigger reasons why school uniforms in Rockingham County is a bad idea. This is from Nashville, Tennessee, from an organization called Safe Haven Family Shelter...
Safe Haven and Metro Nashville Public School Children Need Our Help
We need school uniform clothing donations to help our kids! As many of you know, Metro Nashville Public Schools have implemented a school uniform dress code. All of our children will be in need of school uniform clothing. Safe Haven understands the plight of families that cannot afford brand new uniform clothing. Therefore, we be allowing Metro Davidson County families to purchase uniform clothing from our thrift store, Family Thrift, for as little as .99 up to a maximum price of $3.99 for new and gently used clothing.
"I would much rather have families save one or two hundred dollars on clothing and be able to use it for food or rent," stated Safe Haven Executive Director Bruce Newport. "Our mission at Safe Haven is to provide programs for homeless families and to prevent homelessness."
All proceeds from the thrift store will be used to help continue to serve homeless families and provide community outreach programs. The Family Thrift store is located in the Priest Lake Plaza shopping center, at the intersection of Bell Road and Murfreesboro Road, and is open to the public.
Per the Metro Nashville Public Schools website, the following are acceptable uniforms:
Given how this is already a difficulty for families to cope with in a major metropolitan area, I can't begin to imagine how much more grief it would be to have imposed a similar policy here in rural Rockingham County.
And I'm not just saying that either because it's author, Jenna Olwin, is such a dear friend of ours. I mean, if she had written crap, I would not be mentioning it here even though she is a wonderful person. But the fact of the matter is, Jenna is a very good writer and she doesn't write crap, at all. That would be fully counter to her nature. She's too much an inherently awesome authoress, because she writes well and she's never failed to make me think about whatever the subject is in some new and fascinating way.
Well, for her contribution this time to Silhouette, the Christian blog that she collaborates on along with several others who are way out there on the upper-left corner of the Lower 48, Jenna writes about Harry Potter and Christianity. And the whole piece is just plain golden. Here's a snip from it...
I was one of the original cave-dwellers who never even heard of Harry Potter until the release of #4, and one of the suspicious types (ashamedly) who attended a church showing of Jeremiah Films' Harry Potter: Witchcraft Repackaged. When I picked up that first book, I fully expected to be bothered by dark thoughts and horrified by pagan ideas. Instead, I found a kinship to Harry and companions that took me through the story in less than two days, kept me reading and re-reading sections all week and made me hardly willing to return it to the library even to get the sequel.
My week with the first book proved to me that the Harry Potter stories are not about witchcraft. Nor does the backdrop of magical imagery bear any real connection with actuality. Harry Potter is to wizardry what Tim Allen's Galaxy Quest is to space travel: fiction based on fiction. The forms of Harry's magic—wands, brooms, cauldrons, spells, charms, etc.—may be traced to a wide selection of pagan spiritualities, but the use of those items is drawn from magical fantasy and fairy tale, and J.K. Rowling obviously took care to keep religion out of it. Rowling also pokes sly fun at some of it, having her characters use things like leech juice and beetle eyes in potions, and she openly mocks the "imprecise" art of Divination ...
There's much more at the link, including some stuff that I don't dare quote here 'cuz I don't want to steal Jenna's well-earned thunder from this one. It really is one of the clearest and succinct article discussing Christianity and Harry Potter that I've found anywhere, anywhen.
A few days ago was when I first heard that Web Junk 2.0 on VH1, in an episode titled "Animals & Other Crap", had a segment featuring my first school board commercial. Here's the clip, which includes some pretty hilarious commentary by Web Junk 2.0 host Aries Spears (I was literally in the floor laughing while watching and listening to his witty remarks) ...
The ad has been featured on VH1's Web Junk 2.0 and in The New York Times, Raleigh News & Observer, and The Charlotte Observer. Knight deserves kudos for promoting a fiscally conservative message to a diverse audience in a novel and entertaining way. Judging by the almost 60,000 views and overwhelmingly positive comments, it's possible that Knight has done more for his cause with a cheesy one-minute clip than he could have done by serving on the school board.
Y'know, if given the choice between winning a seat and being able to reach possibly a lot of people about why stuff like No Child Left Behind should be fought hard against, I would take doing my best to get the message out over the win any day. In the long run, it's going to be things like that, that make the biggest difference for the best. Anyways, thanks for the kind words Tom! And thanks for the good laugh Aries :-)
Last night the Rockingham County Board of Education, after months of outright frustration on the part of parents, students and other citizens, voted 7 to 3 – and with 2 abstentions – to rescind its April vote to implement Standard Mode Of Dress (the euphemism for school uniforms) at Reidsville Middle and Reidsville High schools starting with this upcoming academic year.
Now for the full skinny on what went down, at least from the vantage point of one of the members of P.O.T.S.M.O.D. (People Opposed To Standard Mode Of Dress) ...
After last month's meeting, when members of the board refused to acknowledge citizens' concerns about the uniforms and the legitimacy of the initial vote, I had vowed to show up at the July meeting dressed in my Jedi Knight costume: admittedly, and I even said this last night, as an "attention-getting device". And that's exactly what I did. I put on the outfit early yesterday afternoon and wore it when Tracey McCain from WFMY News 2 came by to do a quick interview. Earlier she went to the house of Samantha Fettig – who deserves bigtime props for her leadership of P.O.T.S.M.O.D. these past several months – and covered the students there who were working on picket signs to carry outside the schools' Central Office yesterday afternoon. A little after 4 p.m. I left home and headed to the office. Vehicles from WFMY News 2 and WXII Channel 12 were already there, and a short while later a huge "mobile studio" from WXII rolled into the parking lot.
A few minutes after that Samantha Fettig, Susan Imus, Wendy Inman and the high school students who've been part of P.O.T.S.M.O.D. arrived with their signs. Samantha's son Chris Fettig also showed up… dressed as a prison-striped convict! WXII's Melissa Marsh interviewed us for a quick story to run during the 6 o'clock news. Here’s the clip ...
And here are the students and several of the adult members of P.O.T.S.M.O.D. protesting the uniforms on the other side of Harrington Highway across from the Central Office ...
And just for the record: wearing a Jedi costume – which includes two layers of shirts, a tabard, a waist sash (all muslin), thick belt and heavy cloak over all of that, in 90-plus degree hot July sun ... tends to make one a little sweaty, to put it mildly. But, it was way too much fun to have done that, especially for a good cause :-)
I went back up into the office at about 5:30 'cuz by that point the heat in that outfit really had become somewhat overwhelming. Going in I saw board chairwoman Elaine McCollum (who was also my old high school homeroom teacher), board members Lorie McKinney and John Smith and Nell Rose, and school superintendent Rodney Shotwell. Ummmm I think "amused" would be a good way of putting their reaction to my attire ... but in a good way, not the "oh Lord this guy's a nutball he's not going to try to do the Jedi mind trick on us is he?" sort of way.
I went downstairs to the board meeting room and it wasn't long before there was a considerable media presence getting ready to cover the meeting: Melissa Marsh's crew from WXII, Erich Spivey and his team from WFMY, and Kira Mathis from News 14 Carolina. Also on hand were Heather Smith from the Reidsville Review and Jonelle Davis from the News & Record.
The meeting convened and after the traditional Pledge of Allegiance, then approval of the agenda and with no intervening business, Elaine McCollum declared the public comments portion of the meeting to be open.
Now, I must confess here that I didn't take good notes during public comments about who exactly said what. By this point I was really struggling to stay cool (in the thermal energy sense) and focused, and all the stuff that I had in my hands didn't allow for much dexterity in taking notes. But the following will give you a pretty strong idea of what happened during comments. Here are some photos (thanks to Erinn Murphy for taking these!) ...
Here are the news stories covering the meeting ...
At around 8 o'clock, during the Consent items on the Agenda, a brief recess was called for. After the meeting resumed, the board went through the Action items and spent considerable time discussing issues pertaining to year-round schools. This went on until around 9:20, when the meeting arrived at Reports/Discussion items and after Dr. Shotwell gave a series of reports, the evening finally arrived at item 7.3: the superintendent's report on Standard Mode of Dress implementation for the next school year.
Dr. Shotwell absolutely must be commended for following through with another survey – this one giving the parents the option of choosing NOT to be in favor of the school uniforms – in light of how much confusion and accusation and appearances of impropriety that surrounded the earlier survey. According to the figures from this new survey, which was taken around June 23rd, combining the results of polling parents of students at both schools yielded a strong 57 percent opposed to Standard Mode Of Dress, compared to 42 percent who said that they were in favor of the uniforms: a marked reversal from the stats of the initial survey.
Dr. Shotwell, for the purpose of relaying to the board his report on feasibility of implementing SMOD at Reidsville Middle and Reidsville High schools this coming year, talked about his research and discussion with administrators at schools that do have uniforms, particularly talking about the experience that one middle school in neighboring Guilford County is having with the uniforms. Which on the surface seems to be a rousing success there. The thing that makes SMOD a fairly feasible thing in Guilford County and that is lacking in Rockingham County, Shotwell noted and what was discussed at length in the ensuing dialogue, was that many lower-income students with SMOD in Guilford can be accommodated with the required attire out of the generosity of local contributors, be they individuals or corporate and other larger interests. And the fact is, there is no comparable "charitable infrastructure" in Rockingham County that could likewise help lower-income families acquire enough needed uniforms if SMOD were enacted. Because of this, Shotwell made the recommendation to wait at least a year before implementing SMOD at the two schools.
What happened after that was easily the liveliest – some might even say chaotic – discussion among the board members that I've seen in a year of regular attendance. Whether the schools were the least bit prepared to enact SMOD was an issue immediately pounced-upon. At-large member Lorie McKinney asked if the board was ready to decree which items of clothing that students could wear, and noted that some students are allergic to certain fabrics: was that matter being taken into consideration? The issue of discipline for those students who refuse to adhere to SMOD was addressed: Dr. Shotwell said that schools would try to be prepared to assist students if they needed it (i.e. the teachers at the schools he studied had 3 belts per classroom, to lend to students who did not have belts of their own to wear). Chronic violation of the uniforms mandate would result in calls to parents, then in-school suspension and then corrective action at the principal's discretion.
Celeste DePriest – one of the four who voted in April to not implement SMOD – said that she still did not believe in enacting this policy. Reida Drum – one of the nine who voted for the uniforms – expressed that it was a good policy that should be followed-through on. Dr. Jim Austin, who also voted for the uniforms, then asked if there was an "escape clause" available as an opt-out for those parents who did not want or could not otherwise participate in school uniforms for their children. I overheard a number of people in the audience note that there were a lot of reasons why parents would not want their children to wear uniforms … which could possibly even include religious reasons (I've known some Christian families who maintain a strict dress code among their own for their children: SMOD as was voted upon in April would even violate many of these families' beliefs on modest dress).
Then Dr. Austin started talking about the support in the community for Standard Mode of Dress. He stated that he believed the numbers from both surveys could be considered accurate: "People change their minds," he noted, and that there had obviously been a "valid change of statistics." Austin said that he was now very much troubled about the prospect of putting in place a policy that there was no longer support for, and that he had to question how he could go on supporting it.
Dr. Austin made the motion to put the matter up for a vote to rescind the April vote of approval for SMOD. "The time has not come in Rockingham County for uniforms," he said, adding that this would be an unwise policy without gradual adjustment to the idea beginning with earlier grades, and that without an escape clause out of SMOD that the system would be wide-open to legal challenges.
Board chairwoman Elaine McCollum seconded the motion.
And then Ron Price – honest folks I am not out to "get" this guy, he does it all on his own to demand the ridicule – had to weigh in. Price said that he agreed with Dr. Austin that there had been a change in public opinion, but he said that the earlier decision to implement the uniforms was sound and should be upheld. Then Price totally lost it: he outright blamed a "small group in the community" that was making "loud noise" for "changing public opinion". Yes, Ron Price said that ladies and gentlemen: that people had changed their minds and that he did not like it. He did everything short of calling out names of individuals for their "activities" in spreading the word about the uniforms. But when he expressly called out Reidsville television station WGSR for giving P.O.T.S.M.O.D. an outlet for its views and blatantly said that WGSR was "bad for the community" ... well, not for the first time in a school board meeting, I saw and heard members of the audience chuckling and laughing at Ron Price.
The guy has lost it. I hate to say this, but when an elected official lets a tiny teevee station get stuck up his craw and that he has to lash out like this ... well, it doesn't exactly inspire confidence in that official, does it? I heard one person say that Price sounded like "a whiney teenager". Which is ironic 'cuz I've watched and listened to a lot of real teenagers get up to speak since this all started, and none of them ever acted like how Ron Price did last night.
(Look when something sticks out like a gangrenous thumb, the tendency is to point to it, ya know?)
Elaine McCollum then said that she had been thinking a lot about this matter in the past month and that she had especially "been listening to children really closely". And, McCollum said she had come to realize, the SMOD issue had become something that it had been thought it would avoid: dividing the community. "We need to cancel out that vote," McCollum proclaimed, "and start over only if there is real interest."
Reida Drum then brought up a survey that had been conducted in April: one that it was said did give parents a clear option of voting "no" to the Standard Mode Of Dress. That survey, Drum announced, was 53.1 percent in favor of the uniforms and 46.9 percent opposed: practically the opposite again of the June survey figures. Lorie McKinney quickly noted that some people who were contacted for the April survey were parents of students who were no longer students at Reidsville High School: "I see definite questions about this survey," McKinney said, adding that she knew of one person whose child was already well out of the schools and thus she should have no say in the matter. "She's a taxpayer," Drum responded. Some in the audience very quickly pointed out that if this was the case, then all the taxpayers in Reidsville should have been polled about whether they supported the uniforms.
And now, Herman Hines chimed in, with what had to be the most colorful and impassioned spiel coming out of the board during the entire night. Once more, Hines indicated that he was going to abstain from a vote to rescind, on the same grounds for his abstention from the April vote: that unless this was something affecting students county-wide, he wasn't going to have anything to do with it. But he said some things that I believe haven't been stated very much in these proceedings: that the matter of clothing is something that ultimately is the responsibility of the child's parents. "It starts at home," Hines said. That unless the mother and father take an interest in their children and lay down the boundaries of what their children can and cannot do, then anything the schools tried to do was really a moot thing. Hines did heavily imply that the schools absolutely do have a say-so in how the students come dressed, and that when he was an educator he had a policy of confiscating hats and caps from students who already knew that those were not allowed: "When I retired in 1985 I had a lot of hats and caps," he quipped, to considerable chuckling from the audience.
Personally, I thought that Herman Hines had a lot of good things to say. Maybe not necessarily about Standard Mode Of Dress directly as an issue, but he is right: unless the parents do involve themselves with their children, beginning in the home, then there's really very little that the schools can do for those children.
Throughout this entire discussion by the board, it was becoming creepingly obvious – and eventually blame was laid directly on this – that the administrators at the two schools had, intentionally or not, encouraged the belief that there was widespread support for Standard Mode Of Dress ... and that this led to a lot of mis-information. By this point it was being widely agreed by most that the entire process that had led to the April vote to approve the uniforms had been "sloppy" and with little real thought or consideration. Tim Scales was especially emphatic in registering his disgust with the process: "I will never support SMOD in Rockingham County again because of how this was handled."
Wayne Kirkman had some of the final remarks of the discussion, protesting that "we didn't just make up the SMOD dress code. We thought we had the information." He then said that "we've taken a lot of heat for the past four months" about the uniforms. Earlier during the public comments portion of the meeting, Kirkman – while never mentioned by name – was referenced in derision by many speakers (including Yours Truly) for his comments in Sunday's Reidsville Review that "School is about learning, not about individuality. It's about how to find a job."
Finally, the vote was called for.
Voting "yes" to rescind the April vote to implement Standard Mode Of Dress at the two Reidsville schools: Celeste DePriest, Lorie McKinney, Amanda Bell, Elaine McCollum, Nell Rose, Jim Austin, and Reida Drum.
Voting "no" to rescind the April vote to implement Standard Mode Of Dress at the two Reidsville Schools: Wayne Kirkman, Ron Price, and John Smith.
Abstaining from the vote were Herman Hines and Tim Scales. Scales announced his abstention by saying aloud that "I've had enough of this!"
Standard Mode Of Dress was rescinded – not postponed or otherwise delayed, but completely done away with – with 7 votes out of 12 that could have possibly been cast.
The rejoicing from P.O.T.S.M.O.D. was politely delayed until the board members finished with two additional items, after which it was announced that the board would have to go into closed session for discussion of personnel items. But before they closed the doors, there were several minutes of reaction and outright jubilation on the part of the SMOD opponents, and the members were thanked for their vote to rescind the policy. After all these months of tension and frustration, it was finally over.
And, a lot of people didn't hesitate to let their hair down a bit in the spirit of the moment. While I was at the front of the room meeting with several of the board members, Dr. Shotwell produced something out from under his place at the table, that he had made it a point to go looking through storage for this just so he could have it at this meeting ...
Here he is, Dr. Rodney Shotwell, Superintendent of Rockingham County Schools, with a full Darth Vader mask sitting on his desk:
And here are "the Two Chrises" - Fettig and Knight - in their costumes:
By the way, all while this was going on, I might have just been seeing things but I could have sworn that Ron Price, while sitting at his place at the table, was using a small flash camera to snap at least two photos of me after the meeting. Curious, that ...
After the meeting went into closed session, the P.O.T.S.M.O.D. people congregated in the parking lot. There was a lot of hugging and high-fiving and chest-thumping and plain-out celebration! We hung out for about a half-hour, then went home. But from the looks of all the e-mails that have been flying among the members, this was definitely a binding experience that, I really can't help but think that brought us together in a very unique and powerful way and that's something that will always last.
The people of P.O.T.S.M.O.D., I can't say enough how much of an honor and privilege it has been to work with Samantha and David and Chris and Wendy and Eddie and Susan and Bob and Terri and Cliff and Sherion and Judy and Rebekah and Erinn and Angela and Tina and Melanie and Jill ... and anyone else that I might have momentarily slipped my mind (not kidding folks: I sorta did get some heat exhaustion from that crazy lil' Jedi stunt yesterday, so my brains are a bit frazzled at the moment).
Sometimes, the good guys do win.
Thank you to everyone in P.O.T.S.M.O.D. who worked so long and hard, and sacrificed so much, to see this happen last night.
And to the members of the Rockingham County Board of Education who voted to rescind the vote and remove the uniforms policy: from the bottom of my heart, thank you. I've said twice now that if you would admit to having made this mistake and would make amends for it, that you would win our respect. Last night, you definitely did that. The stock that I have put in you has gone up tremendously because of this.
The right thing was done last night. Time to move forward. But always remember: this moment has been won ... but P.O.T.S.M.O.D. will still always be out there, somewhere, if there's ever a need to call for them again. We're like Batman: we lurk and we watch and when we have to we come out. And like Batman, we don't tire easily either.
Am still working on getting the full report about last night's meeting up. It's written, but it's taking a bit to encode the video of the news clips that I want to include with the report. That should be done in the next hour or so.
In the meantime, here is the full text of the remarks that I made - while wearing my full Jedi Knight costume - before the Rockingham County Board of Education last night.
Good evening. My name is Chris Knight, I reside at 1516 Sherwood Drive in Reidsville, and since most of us came here to discuss uniforms, tonight I've chosen to wear my own.
Your purpose, as part of this democratically elected republic, is to present a bulwark against the citizenry becoming overwhelmed by its own appetites. That your particular task involves the education of the next generation gives your charge considerably more crucial import than that of most functions of this government.
But when you fail to heed not only the legitimate concerns of the voting public, but also what absolutely should be among the dictates of your good conscience, then you have failed utterly in the carrying-out of your duties and are become something that is quite alien to the vision of the Founding Fathers.
Indeed, in the past few months, regarding the Standard Mode of Dress issue, I have seen this board act less as our public representatives and more as if it was a sovereign lord that believes itself beyond reproach.
I wear this costume to symbolize the frustration that most of us had during the previous meeting of this board. For well over two hours we addressed this board about why we are opposed to the Standard Mode of Dress. Not only because we believe that the uniforms are an inherently wrong idea, but also because in light of how the uniforms policy was implemented, our own good conscience has led us to demand that the vote to mandate the Standard Mode of Dress be completely rescinded. Not postponed, nor put off any longer, but taken fully and immediately off the table.
The vote to implement the Standard Mode of Dress was based on fraudulent data, and it remains an open question as to whether or not this was done intentionally. That this board is apparently determined to see it enacted despite the dubious procedure that led to the vote, does nothing to increase our faith in the board and in fact is drawing us to disrespect it that much more. I said last time and I will say it again: if you do the right thing by rescinding this vote, we will respect you. But if you insist on perpetrating this fraud, how much reason do you give us to trust you at all?
And the example that this board is setting for the young people of this county is that it is perfectly acceptable to in effect lie if that's what it takes to achieve one's goals. By refusing to acknowledge our protests in this regard, the board compounds this grievous sin by demonstrating that it is not only okay to lie ... but that it should be exercised without apology.
Please tell me: is the cause of mandatory school uniforms enough to justify setting this kind of moral example to our children?
You haven't addressed our concerns. You have instead attempted to use the assignment of a new principal at Reidsville High School as political cover away from us. Now we've returned, once again forcing consideration of an issue that you should have felt led to confront on your own, for sake of good conscience. You have failed to do that. You have further failed to demonstrate that you are sincerely listening to your constituents. Because of this and in the spirit of many students who have gone before, we have been compelled to employ an attention-getting device. The result is that now the world is watching this board and is bearing witness to what it is doing.
I doubt it is perceiving this board's actions on the uniforms issue as earnest leadership. Real leadership entails having the courage to admit that you were wrong. Running away from the matter and being disingenuous with those who have elected you is not leadership. That's the furthest thing from real leadership there can be.
Here, tonight, you once again have the opportunity to show leadership quality by making this right, for all of the reasons that I, and many others have brought up not only regarding the morality, but the very legality of the vote to implement the uniforms. But since the last meeting other concerns regarding this matter have crossed my mind.
If implemented, the uniforms will be an expense far above and beyond that of necessary personal cost. I know of no comparable expenditure that parents are called to make for their children's education. And in fact, I have been told by a number of people who have better minds than my own on the subject that it could be argued that in requiring parents to subsidize a government policy out of their own savings, that this is tantamount to levying an indirect form of taxation. I need not remind you that under current North Carolina law, no school system is authorized to levy taxes.
Is this school board willing, or could it afford, to see this premise tested in the courts?
Is there an ample stock of uniforms in the area to accommodate the students at both schools throughout the year? Or will some parents have no choice but to drive all the way to Greensboro or Burlington or Danville to purchase these uniforms. Once again, this would obligate travel costs that would in any other situation be needlessly exorbitant for some families of limited income. Has this also been taken into consideration?
For sake of time and because there are many others wishing to comment about this tonight, I will attempt to keep my remarks as brief as possible.
But now, there is one more reason why this board should rescind the uniforms policy. It was one that I was prepared to touch upon but the argument did not truly achieve its substance until yesterday morning's edition of The Reidsville Review.
One of the members of this board stated the following, and I quote from the paper ...
"I voted for what's best for our children and what will make the schools safer," this member said. "School is about learning, not about individuality. It's about how to find a job."
Members of this board: this is wrong. And it cannot possibly be more wrong. I would even dare to say that any member of this board who holds to this belief about the role of education has so little understanding of what education is supposed to be, that he or she should be voted off of this board at the earliest possible opportunity.
There is little doubt about why public education was started in America. One of the provisions of the Northwest Ordinance was for the establishment of public schools. Why? Because Thomas Jefferson, among others, wisely understood that the strength and vitality of America depended on her citizens being fully capable of reading and critical thinking. For America to survive, Jefferson and the other Founders knew, her people must be educated and enlightened, and as fully much the individuals that God created them to be. For there to be a government of the people, by the people and for the people, it is first necessary for the people to be masters of their own fate. So it was that part of the Northwest Ordinance was a plan for public schools ... for the express purpose of educating the people to be something more than what the world around them expected and defined them to be. Free government was dependent upon a free people ... and it still is.
This is why our public schools are the most coveted and lusted-after institutions for political control. Too many who claim interest in education do not see our children as individuals. They see them as a collection of assets to be exploited for selfish gain. To them our children, and we who are of age, are nothing more than bags of meat to be tagged. We are numbers in a system and to these people, our only purpose is to breathe and to eat and to consume and to spend and to watch television and to do as we are told and then to die. That is the totality of our existence to those who consider our children as nothing more than interchangeable parts of a machine.
That is not what our children are. They have a name. They have a soul. What they make of their lives is between they and their Creator. It falls unto us to do everything in our power to make sure that they go into life as equipped and enlightened as they can possibly be so as to meet its challenges and wildly surpass them. Anything less than this, is tantamount to putting our children in intellectual and spiritual bondage.
They should not be reduced to being mere factors to be plugged into an equation in order to achieve an expected outcome. Education is not supposed to be a precise science. Education, however, is a fine art. It is the art upon which all others are founded. This county isn't nearly thankful enough that it's managed to have and maintain the teachers – each of them a gifted artist in his or her own right – who are willing to share their love of their chosen subject matter with their pupils. They want to be free to practice their art.
But we – and by that I mean systems of education across this country, even many that are private – have turned this highest of arts into an industrial machine. We've allowed the soul to be taken out of the art of education. And now it seems, in reflecting upon this member's words, that this is all that our education is supposed to do: stamp out soulless automatons with a fixed designation that is beyond their ability to alter.
I see this board continually take measures that whittle down our teachers' passions and stifle their creativity and drive. It's no wonder that many of our children cannot learn: they do want to learn. I don't know of any child who did not on the deepest level desire to learn. But public education has become a system that frustrates our teachers and frustrates our children in turn. And by implementing the Standard Mode Of Dress, this board would heap on yet another unnecessary thing for our teachers to have to accommodate. I've spoken with a lot of teachers across many schools in this county. They want their freedom. They want to be trusted again by this administration to do what they were trained to do and have spent their lives longing to do. You aren't doing them any favors by forcing this ham-fisted measure on them.
This statement by the board member speaks volumes about why the Standard Mode Of Dress should not only be off the table, but something that should never have been considered in the first place.
If you want to improve the education of this county, indeed in this country, then do what you can to make the students WANT to learn. They really do want that, as much as the teachers want to teach and to teach HERE. But you are driving them away from both this area and their interest in learning out of this lust for more heavy-handed control.
Perhaps this is where we who are out here and some of you on the board differ. I wonder if it's something that's even reconcilable.
You would have our children shackled to a desk. We would see them fly as the eagles.
You would have them conform. We would have them dare to question and if need be, to defy.
You would have them be under control. We would have them control themselves.
We want them to be as much as possible the individuals that God has purposed for them to be. They are not here to do nothing more than to help pay for your Social Security.
There are some educational institutions that do mandate uniforms, but most of these can afford to do so because they already fully understand the true mission of education. This school system is not one of them.
I am here to demand three things:
First, that the Rockingham County Board of Education immediately vote to rescind the April vote to implement the Standard Mode of Dress, out of regard for the morality of the situation.
Second, that if it is yet believed that the students would benefit from having a standard mode of dress, that a serious attempt be made to determine how agreeable the parents and students are to the idea. This would mean bringing in an outside agency that is unattached to the school system in any way to conduct the survey. Much of the problem that has brought us here again tonight results from the fact that this school board failed to act in a way that would avert the semblance of impropriety, by letting the school system carry out the survey. If the parents and students honestly want the uniforms, then fine. I've no problem with that. But that requires an honest determination of fact: something that has been entirely absent in these proceedings.
Third: I want to sincerely ask that the members of this board of education take a few steps back, and introspectively consider what its goals are for the children of Rockingham County. And I want you to ask this among yourselves: is it your intended mission to stamp out replacement parts for the mad machine that is our society? Or are you doing your absolute darndest to nurture and encourage the growth of individual minds, equipping them with ability and the wisdom to use it, so that they will be capable of making the choices that will guide this nation and this world when it is time to pass the torch to them. I sincerely hope and pray that your mission is the latter. But the very notion of imposing school uniforms in the present context flies fully in the face of this noble goal. For that reason alone, I ask you to abandon the Standard Mode Of Dress completely and without condition.
If nothing else that I have said tonight has persuaded you to desist from pursuing the Standard Mode of Dress, I have a few more words to share, and they are most assuredly not my own. Some have asked that if I'm dressed as a Jedi, where is my lightsaber. Well, I didn't bring my lightsaber tonight ... but I did bring the surest Sword of all ...
(holding up Bible)
The words of the prophet Isaiah, chapter 10, verses 1 through 3:
"Woe to those who make unjust laws, to those who issue oppressive decrees, to deprive the poor of their rights and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people. What will you do on the day of reckoning, when disaster comes from afar? To whom will you run for help? Where will you leave your riches?"
The uniforms policy is unjust, because it is based on a falsehood. It will definitely be oppressive in the sense that it will hit many people hard in the pocketbook. And how many single-parent families is this going to affect?
What will you tell them?
James, the brother of our Lord, asks this also: "Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to him, 'Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed,' but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it?"
The Standard Mode of Dress will make very many of the students, in the words of James, "without clothes". And the board has made it quite clear that it cannot provide adequate clothing for all, instead effectively telling them nothing more than "I wish you well."
If you can not respond to we among your constituents about these concerns, then how can you respond to the words of these great and noble men?
I just got home. I am feeling quite rank after wearing a full Jedi Knight costume since 4 this afternoon.
Here's the quick tally: with 7 "yes" votes, 3 "no" votes and 2 abstaining, the Rockingham County Board of Education rescinded the Standard Mode Of Dress - the euphemism for mandatory uniforms - at Reidsville Middle School and Reidsville High School this coming school year.
Sometimes, the good guys do win one.
More later. First I've got to eat and shower and probably go to Wal-Mart to pick up some Gatorade so I can restore some electrolytes :-)
Full report, including lots of pics, real real soon!
EDIT 07-10-2007 4:30 a.m. EST: The report isn't quite finished. Part of it is capturing/encoding video of the news coverage that this got, so it can be embedded as YouTube clips. I'm going to get a few hours sleep, and then come back and finish this up. Expect a complete report, maybe around 10 or so this morning.
I'm making this post to convey the following information: that in the past day or so this blog has received a heavy amount of traffic. It's much more than usual. And looking at the logs, right now the vast majority of it is from searches for "transformers" along with "score" and usually "jablonsky" or "cd" or "soundtrack", and that's taking them to this post that I made yesterday about how much I'd love to buy a CD of the movie's score.
I can only assume that many, many people out there are wanting a soundtrack CD of Steve Jablonsky's orchestral work from Transformers. At least four people have told me personally that they want to see this happen. That they would gladly buy this as soon as it came out.
If anyone responsible for the marketing of Transformers happens to read this, I sincerely hope they understand that there is a massive demand for this soundtrack. Not the one that is out now, with the songs... which I'm sure is nice and all. But it's Jablonsky's original score for the movie that we are most aching for a chance to get our hands on.
I would love to see this come out before the summer is over. It would most assuredly be a hot seller. In the meantime, while it's available use the above link to download the menacing music of the Decepticons.
Here's the story that'll be running in tomorrow's Reidsville Review about the meeting this coming Monday night of the Rockingham County Board of Education. It's widely expected that the public comments portion of the night will be dominated by P.O.T.S.M.O.D.: People Opposed To Standard Mode Of Dress, the group that's fighting the mandatory uniforms at Reidsville Middle and Reidsville High schools this coming school year.
Here's part of the story...
Monday, POTSMOD plans to attend wearing costumes and black armbands to show its opposition to school uniforms. Former school board candidate Chris Knight said he will attend the meeting dressed as a Jedi knight to get the board's attention.
"It's a result of this past meeting where the public comments section was dominated by opposition to uniforms," Knight said. "But the board ignored our concerns."
Samantha Fettig, a parent involved with POTSMOD, said she felt the board scoffed at people's concerns. It seemed to some parents that board members considered the new principal problem a better reason to dismiss the policy than the public opposition.
"How can you pass something when you're in a room full of people who oppose it?" said Fettig.
Fettig argues the decision to implement mandatory uniforms in a Title I school is unfair. Sixty-nine percent of Reidsville Middle school students and 52 percent of Reidsville High students receive free or reduced lunches.
"It seems they're picking on the poorest people in the county," Fettig said. She said uniforms seem good on paper, but students change out of uniforms as soon as possible when arriving home. They need a second wardrobe to wear outside class. For parents who can barely afford a child's lunch, uniforms for one student or more are too expensive.
Edward Inman, another parent involved in POTSMOD, said even if the school board provided uniforms for free, some believe the issue has gone far beyond clothing. To upset parents, the board has been dishonest and has violated the First Amendment rights of the students.
Inman said he has never been fond of public speaking. But on behalf of his two children, who will be students at Reidsville High School in the fall, he has driven from Reidsville to Eden and spoken before the board.
"My children are going to know I tried everything I could to stop this," Inman said.
As was first announced on this blog early last month, I have every intention of coming to Monday night's meeting and addressing the board while garbed as a Jedi Knight from the Star Wars movies. I've been working on my remarks for a few weeks now, and the pitch is pretty much finished. One slight change in plans is that originally I said that I would not be wearing a lightsaber with my costume. My custom-made "metal tube" lightsaber will remain at home for sake of any safety concerns. But since the lightsaber is so much a part of the Jedi "look", I am building a lightweight cardboard tube replica that will hang from my belt.
It is very much my understanding that there will be quite a few others who will make a prominently visible show of disapproval of the uniforms at Monday night's meeting.
There may be some more items related to this story in the next day or so. I will post them as they become available.
Don't know if I'll see it more times than I saw Independence Day in the theater when it came out, but I caught Transformers (here's my original review) again this afternoon at the Grande in Greensboro and this movie... just keeps getting better and better! Think that after you give your brain a few days to absorb the "shock and awe" of the first time seeing it, that you can relax and enjoy it a bit more the next time. Once again, I almost cried at the scene where the Autobots come together for the first time: I definitely think that's a beautifully orchestrated sequence, made all the more powerful by the awesome musical score by Steve Jablonsky (I will gladly buy this background score CD the day it comes out... if it comes out at all, still no word on that).
Something that should be noted: Transformers seems to be attracting a very wide-range of people in to see it. Of course there were the late-20s/early-30s types that grew up with the original Transformers toys. But at both showings I've seen quite a lot of younger people and folks considerably older: like, old enough to be their parents and grandparents.
On the subject of Transformers, I'm seeing that a lot of people are trying to see some kind of political message one way or another with this movie. The same thing happened with 300 a few months ago and I thought it was silly then. It's even more ludicrous now. Some are saying they'll swear-off seeing this movie because supposedly it's "liberal crap". I don't know where the heck they get this notion from: the scene where the President wants some Ding-Dongs, perhaps? If anything, this is one of the most respectful blockbuster movies toward the U.S. military that's happened in quite a long time (maybe since Independence Day). No doubt it's going to be a big hit among members of the armed forces. I've heard one person say that this movie was "obviously" inspired by George W. Bush since Optimus Prime says that "Freedom is the right of all sentient beings". That's an even crazier claim than anything I heard about 300, because that quote is the exact same one found on the box for the original Optimus Prime toy from 1984! It's not political one way or another: it's alien robots beating the snot out of each other... where the heck is the hidden agenda in that?!
I might see it once more in theaters, and then pounce on getting the DVD when it comes out toward Christmas, probably. In the meantime, it's definitely a movie worth watching in a crowded theater with hundreds of others in the most profound amazement and enjoyment.
As of a few minutes ago, my quest to re-read all of the Harry Potter books before the release of the final novel reached another benchmark, as I finished Book 4: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.Immediate thoughts after reading this one again: this is the book where the Harry Potter series really hit its stride. A lot of things from the previous novels converge here and the tale begins to take a very, very dark turn. I think that Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is the Potter books' equivalent to The Empire Strikes Back, in the sense that right up to the moment when Vader told Luke the big secret, Star Wars was still a fairly innocent fairy tale... but with five words, the tables got kicked upside-down and nothing was the same again. So too is there irrevocable change in the wizard world by the closing pages of Book 4... along with the promise of much worse to come.
This time reading it, I couldn't help but see a lot more of Rita Skeeter than I noticed of her the first time I read the book. That was just one of the details that I was able to appreciate more this time around.
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire reinforces something that I've been thinking about for some months: that 20 or 30 years from now, somebody is going to have to re-make the Harry Potter movies. Only this time tighter and more faithful to all of the little nuances of the books. Since the last time I read Book 4, I've watched the Goblet of Fire movie ten times, at least. Re-reading the original book the past few days, I was genuinely shocked at how much material was omitted from the book for sake of the movie. The most obvious thing that comes to mind readily is the absense of Ludo Bagman from the movie. And the plot thread about Barty Crouch Sr. and Winky (the scene where Crouch relieves her of duty, I always thought that would be a pretty funny thing to have seen in the movie). But this is such a dense and multi-layered book, I don't know if anyone right now could have pulled off a 100% faithful film adaptation.
This book is also notable for something that I think with the passage of time, has made this detail of the story much more relevant: the fact that the Ministry of Magic, as an agency of government, is too damn ineffective and too fixated on putting on appearances to make people happy. Sounds a lot like our own government, doesn't it?
Well, it's late, and I need to turn in. Tomorrow I start re-reading Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, which is my favorite of the Potter books for a lot of reasons but especially because this is the part of the story where the people decide that if the government is going to keep screwing things up, then they have to take matters into their own hands. Order of the Phoenix is the best damned treatise on defying authority when it needs to be defied that I've seen put out in the past ten years. I just hope the movie coming out next week can do it justice.
So tomorrow it's Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix... which at this rate I'll be able to both finish before the movie comes out :-)
I'm barely keeping up with this project. Mostly 'cuz I want to be as un-spoiled about it as possible, I guess. I managed to do that fairly well with Revenge of the Sith and I really went into Transformers as "virginally" as possible (at least so far as already being a childhood fan of the toys goes, anyway). I want to see Indiana Jones and the ... (whatever #4 is called) next May in the theater, with the person who I've seen every other Indiana Jones movie with: my Dad. And enjoy it for the first time along with him.
That said, this news, if true... raises my eyebrows bigtime. And leaves me wondering about just what direction this is going to be taking.
Well, this afternoon Lisa did some grocery shopping and she bought some Pace Chunky Salsa (medium flavor). Since you're only supposed to use Dave's Insanity sauces in well-diluted portions of whatever you are planning to eat, I decided this would be a good a time as any to try the sauce. I got a plate, poured out a helping of Pace salsa, and then finally opened the Dave's Ultimate Insanity up and poured one tiny drop of the stuff onto the salsa. I mixed it all up really well with a spoon. Then I got some tortilla chips and commenced to dipping and eating.
Folks, whatever reputation that Dave's Ultimate Insanity has, it is well earned. After the first bite, I thought the salsa tasted different than it usually does: it tasted much better. I enjoyed the flavor for about ten seconds and then my tongue started roasting. Somebody in the last day or so had warned me that you don't feel it immediately, that it takes several seconds for the sensation to hit. And boy, did it ever! This is definitely the hottest condiment that I have ever sampled in my entire life.
But it wasn't really unpleasant by any stretch. After you get over the initial shock and eat some more, Dave's Ultimate Insanity is pretty good. But it does have its consequences. My mouth was still burning about two hours after finishing the plate of tortillas and salsa. And Dave's Ultimate Insanity can also boast of being quite effective at clearing out your sinuses if they're feeling stuffy from pollen. Usually whenever I'm particularly overcome with allergy I order a Papa John's pizza loaded with tomato sauce and that clears me right out. Now I know that I can use Dave's Ultimate Insanity for the same effect.
I'm seriously thinking of mixing a drop or two of this with garlic butter marinade when I do deep-fried turkey come Thanksgiving. It might add a pretty neat kick to it.
So there ya go: I gave Dave's Ultimate Insanity a try, and I liked it. Worth recommending... but please be careful when handling and pouring this stuff!
Unlike the past two years, I haven't been downloading all of the new season's episodes of Doctor Who after they aired in the United Kingdom. But the two that I have seen were remarkably good. Still don't know if anything this season can compare to last year's "The Girl in the Fireplace": without a doubt one of the most beautiful and haunting stories that I've ever seen told in the television medium.
(Let's look on the bright side: there's no indication that there's any episode this new season that will be as absolutely atrocious as last year's "Love & Monsters", either. Yegads... what the HELL was the BBC thinking when they let that one go into production?!?)
Anyway, tonight at 8 p.m. the Sci-Fi Channel will start the American run of Doctor Who Season 3 (or Season 29 if we're counting the original series... as we should) with the 2006 Christmas special "The Runaway Bride", which picks up the action right where it left off at the end of last season's "Doomsday". Then after "The Runaway Bride" at 9:30 will be the first regular episode of Season 3/29, "Smith and Jones", which finds the Doctor hooking up with new traveling partner Martha Jones.
Want a teaser for what's to come this season? How about this: the Doctor is, indeed, not alone. Because he is back. Longtime Doctor Who fans will know what I'm talking about.
So let the word go out: the Doctor is back... and it's about time!
There was so much good to say about Transformers that I forgot to mention something very important: the awesome, epic orchestral score composed by Steve Jablonsky. If you haven't seen the movie yet (and you really should if you want to experience your jaw hitting the theater floor) it might surprise you that the original "Transformers" theme song isn't used anytime during the movie, unless it came during the tail end of the credits that we didn't happen to catch. Here again, even in its music, Transformers has grown up with this movie.
I am dying to have a soundtrack CD of Jablonsky's score! But right now the only album from the movie is Transformers: The Movie Album, which has a collection of songs in the movie by artists like Linkin Park and Smashmouth. Which is not a slam against those guys, but what I really want is the glorious orchestral score from this movie. Here's hoping and praying that a CD of it gets released sometime soon!
