Back to School 20/20

Last night my husband and I watched an episode of 20/20 on ABC.  The headlines I heard were along the lines of sex scandal, food complaints, pranks, and something about arrests at school.  This episode caught our attention as a homeschooling family!  (The episode can be seen here - 20/20 episode).  The official subtitles were the following:  Teacher Caught Having Group Sex; Silly and Shocking School Pranks; When Student Discipline Goes Far.

The sex scandal was beyond my imagination when they were speaking of the young female teacher's actions, texts, invitations, and victimization!  WHAT????  Both parties should have known better...

Pranks have been around forever but what about the dangerous bombs that were created as harmless pranks?  My biggest questions is when is learning taking place?  It seemed as though when interviewing  the main prankster, not a lot was mentioned about the school, how the teacher's reacted, or how often these occurred.  If I were a teacher there, I would be disappointed that more learning, or at least, more instruction hadn't taken place.

The discipline issues were too outrageous to contemplate after seeing the previous segment.  At one school pranks are the normal; at the next a student is getting handcuffed for doodling on her desk?  WHAT????  (This young lady will have a police record for the rest of her life.)  The child with the tantrum probably needed her mother to come and pick her up.  She was in preschool or very early elementary - old enough to be picked up and held and carried.  Instead she was screaming and being bent over a table while being handcuffed.  What small child has not had a tantrum?  What are adults supposed to do about these?  Ignore, spank, reason, handcuff?  I like ignore option!  Parents should be in control of these children, not police!  I also found out from the episode that corporal punishment is still legal in many states' schools.  Hmmm?  Yet Delaware basically outlawed it for families.  Read the interpretation of the law here.  This is a totally different issue, though.

The last 20/20 segment was about the lunch menu....  Food always stirs various emotions in everybody.  I'm all for the kids being full, but at the same time, have you seen stats on our obesity rates for this country?  Have you seen some of our kids at the mall?  THE GOVERNMENT SCHOOLS (AND LUNCHES) HAVE TO DO SOMETHING DIFFERENT.  Maybe this is not exactly the answer, but it is a step in the right direction if you ask me.  I'm not for over-sized portions and Super Sized Meals like at some restaurants.  If our kids were taught portion control at home, this would be no big deal right now.  Nutrition has fallen by the wayside in our fast-paced, fast food world.  850 calories is not that bad for a lunch!  Granted there should be carbs and proteins on the tray.  Check out this article from livestrong.com....    Teen calorie consumption requirements

Also, for a good read on many of our problems concerning food, check out this book:  Winning the Food Fight by Steve Willis.

What does this 20/20 episode mean for us?  I'm glad we are homeschooling for EVEN MORE REASONS NOW.  No serious worries of my kids being handcuffed or seduced...  No complaints of poor lunch meals at my house.  AND - I provide my kids with two snacks a day and a well-balanced lunch in the middle of the day with very few desserts.  No one complains of being hungry after a meal, but they do look forward to their healthy snacks!  In fact, I try to incorporate learning when ever I can into creating healthy lunch, snacks, dinner.  They are often involved in the planning of meals too.

For example, my brother came home from TX and cooked a meal for our family; he let my girls assist with the big production.  It was delicious and they learned a bunch.