Open Forum: California ruling
Issue date: 4/10/08 Section: Opinion
As a former public school student, I found the commentary that ran two weeks ago by Joy Pavelski about the California ruling extremely offensive. While I agree that the ruling was wrong and that states should not dictate how parents choose to educate their children, I cannot agree with the way Pavelski portrayed public schools and especially the parents who choose to send their children there. She comments on how homeschooled kids don't know how to "get to third base without running, apply lip plumper, or text unnoticed during class," as if these kinds of misbehaviors are the fault of the public school. If a child acts in these ways it's not because of their schooling but because of their parenting. As a public school kid, I can speak from experience when I say parents who send their kids to public school can be just as in touch and involved in their children's life as those who home school. If a child is participating in the kind of behavior Pavelski suggests, it's because the parent doesn't care enough to pay attention to their child's actions, not because the public school is indoctrinating them into lives of sex, vanity and dishonesty.
I was insulted when Pavelski implied parents who send their children to public school do so out of selfish or greedy motives. To say that a parent sends their child to public school because they want to make more money or because they don't want to be "bothered" by their child is a horrible and hurtful thing to say. I only ask that the Collegian and its writers avoid passing judgment on others and take a minute to consider that Hillsdale is made up of all kinds of students from all different backgrounds.
--Claire Murphy
Amphitheater impractical
I have to agree with Ryan Thompson: Building an amphitheater on a campus where it snows two-thirds of the time we're here and rains for most of the rest of it makes no sense, Socrates notwithstanding. Bless the Class of '08's pea-picking hearts, and certainly any seniors with practical misgivings should have objected when the project was proposed.
Maybe, as some imply, all the good ideas were taken, but let us hope for better things; perhaps my class can do something useful. such as, rip up the paisley sidewalks on the front lawn and put them where people actually need to walk.
--Hannah Mead
Waiting for the Barbarians
Ayn Rand defined an altruist as "a person who keeps sacrificing himself and his values, which means: sacrificing his friends to his enemies...his strength to anyone's weakness, his convictions to anyone's wishes, the truth to any lie, the good to any evil."
The recent article "Arms Race," about registration, epitomized this sense of a twisted altruism. Instead of promoting a system that lauds achievement and human goodness, Maria Schmitt creates a condition that attempts to strip away accomplishment and redistribute it to academic looters. By contending that students should sacrifice their place in a registration line to someone who is less qualified is nothing less than academic theft. This theft represents the pinnacle of barbarism.
One of the most basic tenets of capitalism, or humanity in general, is the concept that hard work should render some sort of reward. I put in my fair share of blood, sweat and tears, and because of that effort, was able to register as a senior after my second semester here. I was only able to do that because of the massive amount of capital I put in. To suggest that I have some moral obligation to forfeit that capital to someone who has not worked for it represents a heresy of the worst sort.
If I wanted to take a class that was totally unrelated to my major, while knowing full well it would cause a peer to graduate a semester late, I would not hesitate to hand my card to the smiling lady in Central Hall. It's not just about missing one class, it's about sacrificing principles. If you want to sacrifice your basic human principle, and become a dry husk of an individual, in the name of a twisted altruism, be my guest.
But that is what really matters.
--Jake Morgan
I was insulted when Pavelski implied parents who send their children to public school do so out of selfish or greedy motives. To say that a parent sends their child to public school because they want to make more money or because they don't want to be "bothered" by their child is a horrible and hurtful thing to say. I only ask that the Collegian and its writers avoid passing judgment on others and take a minute to consider that Hillsdale is made up of all kinds of students from all different backgrounds.
--Claire Murphy
Amphitheater impractical
I have to agree with Ryan Thompson: Building an amphitheater on a campus where it snows two-thirds of the time we're here and rains for most of the rest of it makes no sense, Socrates notwithstanding. Bless the Class of '08's pea-picking hearts, and certainly any seniors with practical misgivings should have objected when the project was proposed.
Maybe, as some imply, all the good ideas were taken, but let us hope for better things; perhaps my class can do something useful. such as, rip up the paisley sidewalks on the front lawn and put them where people actually need to walk.
--Hannah Mead
Waiting for the Barbarians
Ayn Rand defined an altruist as "a person who keeps sacrificing himself and his values, which means: sacrificing his friends to his enemies...his strength to anyone's weakness, his convictions to anyone's wishes, the truth to any lie, the good to any evil."
The recent article "Arms Race," about registration, epitomized this sense of a twisted altruism. Instead of promoting a system that lauds achievement and human goodness, Maria Schmitt creates a condition that attempts to strip away accomplishment and redistribute it to academic looters. By contending that students should sacrifice their place in a registration line to someone who is less qualified is nothing less than academic theft. This theft represents the pinnacle of barbarism.
One of the most basic tenets of capitalism, or humanity in general, is the concept that hard work should render some sort of reward. I put in my fair share of blood, sweat and tears, and because of that effort, was able to register as a senior after my second semester here. I was only able to do that because of the massive amount of capital I put in. To suggest that I have some moral obligation to forfeit that capital to someone who has not worked for it represents a heresy of the worst sort.
If I wanted to take a class that was totally unrelated to my major, while knowing full well it would cause a peer to graduate a semester late, I would not hesitate to hand my card to the smiling lady in Central Hall. It's not just about missing one class, it's about sacrificing principles. If you want to sacrifice your basic human principle, and become a dry husk of an individual, in the name of a twisted altruism, be my guest.
But that is what really matters.
--Jake Morgan
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