Weekly Math Updates

January 30 , 2008

Contents:

  • Republic or Democracy?
  • The New Fuzzy Math Buzzword
  • Poster Project Update
  • WMD Comics Contest

Republic or Democracy?

Hi folks,

Monday night I sent this email to Vern Henshaw and the seven members of the school board.

Vern,

    Even though we disagree on the form of government currently in use by the United States and you insist on indoctrinating parents and students that we are a Democracy, I am appreciative that on the cover of the latest Shareholder Report you did manage to get one of my "In God We Trust" posters in the shot. It was a nice touch though I wish the text were bigger so people could see the subtext, "The National Motto of the Republic of the United States of America."

Oak

“The preservation of the sacred fire of liberty, and the destiny of the republican model of government, are justly considered deeply, perhaps as finally, staked on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people.”
-George Washington

For those of you that haven't received the latest ASD Stakeholders Report I'm sure it will be in the mail soon for you.  Splashed right on the cover is the phrase we've all come to love:

"Educating All Students To Ensure the Future of Our Democracy"

I had thought they were going to change this.  Evidently not.  Evidently the board and district personnel don't understand the history of our country very well and what Vern Henshaw belongs to, namely the NNER, a group designed to indoctrinate our children in a socialist mentality.  If you never saw the email I discussed this in, here's a link:

http://www.oaknorton.com/mathupdates/20070829.cfm

The short of it is the group has many troubling stances that they want in the classrooms including the gay agenda (I'm not saying Vern wants this, but he belongs to the group).  It's a lot easier to implement that under a Socialist Democracy which is what this group desires.  Constructivism fits right in with this philosophy because students lose their ability to reason and use logic when math skills suffer.

The agenda for the group states:

Why Do We Focus on Democracy?

Many different forms of government have tried to meet this challenge: fascism, socialism, communism, and democracy, to name a few.  Democracy, while certainly not without its flaws, seems to offer the best hope of enabling us to live together in relative peace and prosperity.  This is because democracy has a great virtue that the others generally lack: real democracy strives to ensure that everyone in a society contributes to the decision-making processes that affect their lives.

This is in direct opposition to what our Founding Fathers wanted.  They had strong words against Democracies as a form of government and felt so strongly about it they wrote it into the constitution.  Not only was the federal government to be a Republican form of government, they guaranteed each state would have one.  Representational government.  People do have a say but it's not mob-rule.

U.S. Constitution Section 4 - Republican government

The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence.

Does Vern hate Utah?  Under a Democracy we would have nearly zero input into a presidential election.  "Who cares what Utah thinks, I just need the population centers to vote for me."  Maybe Vern wanted Al Gore to be president because he got the majority of the popular vote against Bush.  Maybe he doesn't like how our elected officials vote and wants to ensure every member of society gets a say in every piece of legislation that comes before any body of government.  That would be great.  Let the mobs rule.

The New Fuzzy Math Buzzword

Further into the flier you'll find all the nonsense about a program the district calls "balanced math" wherein they tell people how careful they are to balance traditional with fuzzy math, never mind they can't define this or find a study that shows mixing them is beneficial.  The new buzzword for fuzzy math appears to be "innovative" as in "Both traditional and innovative teaching methods are employed by Alpine School District teachers."  I guess what works isn't innovative because it's not changing anything.

Poster Project Update

For those of you that are newer to this list let me direct you to the official website for what I'm talking about:

http://www.InGodWeTrustPosters.com

The short of the project is that Utah has a law requiring a poster in every school that says "In God We Trust" on it and to display it prominently.  When I learned about this law a year or so ago I asked my oldest child if she'd ever seen one of these posters in her elementary school.  She said she hadn't.  The next time I went to the school this was on my mind and I noticed a large poster in the main hallway of the school that my daughter had passed probably multiple times a day for several years. 

When I realized the posters were having no effect on the students, I asked for your help to raise money to put these posters into every classroom of our district.  The Superintendent had agreed to help distribute the posters until he saw the word "Republic" on them and then turned us down.  You again came to the rescue and helped carry them into every school to donate them to the teachers if they would like to display one in their classroom. 

I also purchased a couple thousand extra posters on my own to start spreading this into other districts in the state.  At the time I thought the math fight was mostly over so this would be my new project, but then we got the non-world-class standards redo last year and I realized we weren't done.  I was getting overwhelmed by the amount of projects and work I had to do so I asked if anyone knew of someone looking to do an Eagle Scout project and we got a volunteer (victim?). 

Last week I was informed that every school district in Utah has now committed to accepting the posters and distributing them to their teachers.  Quantities have been determined and bids are being put out right now.  Fund raising will soon follow and I hope some of you might contribute to the cause to ensure every student in Utah sees one of these wonderful posters designed by Bob Bonham, our WMD Comic artist.

This to me is an important accomplishment, not only because it will tick off the ACLU, but more importantly for the message it will send our children that the source of all blessings in life flow from a trust in a loving God that cares deeply for us and will protect and preserve us if we keep an abiding faith in Him.  I know that to be true.  It's a wonderful time to be alive and a wonderful country to live in, in spite of the difficulties we face.  God lives and loves us...even the fuzzy math lovers. :)

WMD Comics Contest

In the next couple months we will hit the 100 comic mark.  This alone is an accomplishment and I want to thank Bob Bonham for all the time and effort he's put into these comics to provide us with comic relief in the face of maddening struggles to get through to educrats that won't listen to parents and can't provide any evidence to support their fuzzy positions.

Even though I have several pages of ideas for comics yet to be drawn, I would like to hold a contest to generate an idea for the 100th comic from you, the fans.  The format of your submission should be a general description of the scene and the text for anyone speaking.  The contest will end in a couple weeks and the winner's comic idea will be the 100th comic, assuming we get any participants.

If you are in another state and have an email list for your group or site, please forward this out to them and let them know they can get these comics each week if they go to the site and subscribe. The list of email addresses is private for the comics so there's no need to fear spammers getting them.

The other thing I'd like to ask you for is if there's been a particular comic you have really laughed at because you related so well to it.  I would like to gather a few *testimonials* to post on the WMD website and also to know how many of you really enjoy them! :)

 

Till next time,

Oak Norton

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http://www.oaknorton.com/mathpetition.cfm

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