Abortion

At mass yesterday, my priest brought up the topic of abortion-not surprising for a Catholic. I will layout his specious argument against abortion.  Each of us was put on Earth for a special reason.  Einstein was put on Earth to produce his famous Theory of Relativity. If his parents had aborted him-we would never has the theory.  I disagree that no other scientist would have developed the theory. Calculus was developed independently by Newton and Leibniz.  Neptune was discovered independently by John Couch Adams and Urbain Le Vernier.  We did not abort the person who would have cured cancer, as he claimed.

If we are to argue that a loss of one life can have a negative impact, such as his examples of Einstein and Walt Disney, what about a positive impact.  What if Stalin's parents had an abortion or Mao.  Millions would have been saved. The argument goes both ways.

Charter Schools

A few weeks ago, 60 Minutes had a piece on how successful a chain of charter schools were. I found it interesting that the schools were using methods of teaching that I used when I first began teaching in the 1990s.  Back then many teachers were using project-based learning.  I was able to a theme- connecting reading, writing, mathematics, science and social studies and the students researched a project of their own choosing. I would guide the students through the research-some needing more guidance than others.

Unfortunately, due to state and federal mandates, I am no longer give the freedom.  I must teach prescribed lessons  within a given time frame with fidelity to the text. I am reminded of a scene from The Godfather.  One of Michael's (The Godfather) is asking him to have more freedom to protect his territory. "I am not asking for anything, just take off the handcuffs."  I am asking for the state to take off  the handcuffs and I will be more successful than these charter schools.  All schools should have to play be the same rules.