[Lowfer] bcb am

[Bill Ashlock]

Some more food-for-thought on this lack of younger generation participation:

I got home tonight and read in the local paper that most of the high school 
clubs are to be eliminated this year due to lack of funds. The list included 
the math team, the science team, the etc etc etc team. Now wait a minute 
---- since when does a club have to be a traveling team?? Looks like we have 
not only phased out neighborhood sports, such as backyard softball and 
replaced it with organized parent-attended softball teams but also have 
phased out neighborhood science projects with traveling teem competition. 
What's the fun anymore in semi-individual scientific experimentation that 
used to gain us so much encouragement from our parents? "Ya got to join the 
science or math team Jonnie, you're good in math"  - "and it will help get 
you into college".  So it's heading out to another school 50 miles away on a 
gas guzzling school bus with a well-paid driver and answering scientific 
questions that really counts. And oh how much we cheer when the team comes 
back a winner! ......And when they go all the way to the state finals.....!! 
     #### Rubbish! There's got to be a way to reverse this trend. What we 
are really doing is overcontrolling every activity our kids can possibly get 
into.

12-14 years ago I used to teach computer science to the 5th graders at my 
kid's grade school from 8:00 to 9:00 before school began and before I had to 
be at work 10 min away. I wouldn't have had had better attendance if I had 
been giving away $10 bills. They just ate it up! Some of the advanced kids 
even built computers from bare boards. Maybe there would similar interest in 
radio communication that would cover a lot more distance than their FRS 
walkie-talkies? ..... and using that neat-sounding Morse Code! ..... or 
using that computer in the closet to pull in some REAL distance!

Bill A

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