My website

Please visit my website - you'll get free first chapter reads of my two Bonanza novels, a visit to the museum I manage and a sneak peek at other material!

Go to All Voices

and you'll see my complete post on "Children Left Behind: an outsider's inside look at education." I could sure use your input - and all I need are 10,000 views to earn a little money, too! Help me keep writing!

http://www.allvoices.com/contributed-news/2207020-children-left-behind-an-outsiders-inside-look-at-education

Kids Left Behind - Our education system

I'm going to be posting an article on this subject at All Voices - a site I was invited to and that will hopefully give me more exposure than I get here.

But a little background - I took a job as a teacher's aide at a school system near me, hoping it would mean I'd get to help out in the classroom. I'd gotten a master's in history but realized too late that I should also have gone for a teaching certificate. I got to help a little in a grade school classroom, as a special education aide, but the experience I had there so horrified me that the next time a special education assignment was handed to me (at the high school level) I turned it down, saying I'd need to talk to someone about the experience I had.

No one responded to talk to me.

The next time they called me, it was for lunchroom/recess supervisor. I guess I'm off their special education list now.

I just have to share the experiences I had at both assignments, and hopefully generate some conversation because I feel that there are changes that need to be made, and if I can do anything, anything at all, I have to try. I stand to be persecuted for it, but that's often the price of honesty. I will post a link at my website when this article is available for reading online.

Thanks for visiting.

My Theory of Longevity

Quite simply put - the more perfect the body symmetry, the longer a person lives, and the better their quality of life.

Sound simple? It is to me, someone who has body flaws that are currently wrecking havoc on my life and ability to get health insurance.

Think about it - why do some people live longer when they seem to do everything wrong, smoke, drink too much, don't eat right, that sort of thing? Because their body is in perfect alignment - with itself!

Now this is something the doctors will have a hard time diagnosing, I suspect. But my neck is long, and my head is a little too big, and now, in my 'later' years, I suffer from a lot of neck and head pain. And it's been undiagnosed, now, for nearly 10 years. Doctors think I'm crazy. But I've never had a major injury to either head or neck. Unless you count that time I fell off a galloping horse. The only thing I remember hurting at that time is my rib cage.

So let's think about it. I have a stepfather who has a crazy number of medical problems like diabetes and takes a ton of pills, but except for that he seems pretty healthy and active for his age. Symmetrically, he must be in pretty good shape!

The lady who just died at age 115? Probably perfect.

But how do we come up with a wellness test for this? Actually, the medical field would benefit for having all kinds of harmony tests for people -- like vitamins, what kind our bodies or lacking, stuff like that, and I'm sure people who are curing cancer can invent a simple symmetry test.

But when we find where we're out of line, what can we do about it?

That's the hard part--nothing. Nothing except understand it, which, believe me, would help me a lot right now. And maybe depending on the problem, they could suggest some simple yoga moves, new sleeping positions, certain kinds of chairs depending on one's job - what an economic boom it could be!

Doctors would especially benefit by clearing out their offices for the truly sick people and help the rest of us enjoy our health, pain-free.

I'd pay for a little wellness - would you?

Comments on Civil War & Bloody Peace

I hope you will add any comments you might have for this piece here. I'd like to know if it sounds like something you might be interested in reading, and if not, why not. Thanks!

If you haven't read it yet, I have the introduction at my website under "Projects in the Works" at www.chasingthevrykolakas.info

From the Website?

Have something to say from the Vrykolakas website? Did you chase it down only to be disappointed by what you caught? What can I do better? Please tell me here - and don't be distressed that you have to sign up first - it's easy and costs nothing.

Pay your Kids to Learn?

I read an article recently where the pros and cons of this idea were explored. I am one who did pay my children to learn - or, more precisely, I paid them to get good grades, which encouraged them to learn good study habits. I gave them small amounts of money for each A, and a straight A report card got them a bonus. Once they got to high school, they no longer got money for good grades, but they had already developed good study habits. By high school, they had chores around the house to earn money, or they had jobs. Learning to spend their own money since they were small has also been beneficial.

The pros in this article were as I described - that since education was meant to suit us for the work world, anyway, why not show how the incentive system works? But I think that the attitude toward the incentive has to be the right one, and it has to be stopped before the child learns ways to abuse it. One called it a bribe system, and indeed, if the parent uses this word with the kids, that's what it becomes. But when we say the focus is on learning good study habits, and the child knows this is the reason for the reward system, the whole attitude changes. Another problem is when parents make the rewards far greater than they should. Then it becomes a spoils system. A car as an incentive? While I've known some parents who won't let the kid drive unless the grades are at least a C average (insurance can be expensive!), rewarding with a car for good grades can certainly encourage a child to cheat.