American history
Last week the state of Arizona passed and signed an additional high school graduation requirement: an American history and culture examination. While I suspect it is a function of the ongoing immigration hassle, I think it is a good idea, given that we have changed to an exit testing philosophy for graduation (from a GPA base) and should be adopted for all states, if it is not already in place. Seems to me a further good idea would be to couple whatever preparation serves this test with citizenship preparation education. Not only would it benefit those immigrant students nearing the age qualification of 18, but from what I can see, too many non-immigrant students have far too little knowledge of our history and the responsibilities of citizenship.
I”m probably too old to have an opinion, but I think the core concept may have merit, but surely need more work. I get impression that the same tests are given to all, the passing levels are set low to accomplish graduation, and the individual test scores are used as proxy variables for “grades.” And, no I don”t think all students should be forced in to being “treated equally.”
One of the basic education errors has been to downgrade respect for work. Preparation for university may be fine, but the major goal has to be to prepare high school graduates for the rest of their lives and almost all high school have successfully eliminated all classes that taught students how to do “things,” develop skills, and get an idea of what they want to do, including further education.
Guff Worth, Lakeport
Something to ponder
Mr. Del Bosco”s answer to my question (RB 2015 Jan. 21) points out something I have been wondering about for a very long time. God”s thoughts and way are not ours so we are not able to discern the will of God.
With this in mind we have no way to determine if God”s will (God who knows all beforehand) is for good or for evil. An example is Christ”s definition of Adultery. When God created us he knew that we would become corrupted and have adulterous thoughts, but the 10 Commandments only contains, “You shall not commit adultery.” Nothing about thinking about it, and man has to think about something before he can perform the task. Then Christ comes along and tells us that thinking about it is just as bad. As Mr. Del Bosco points out, we all think about it so Christ saying that it is the same doesn”t appear to have had the intended consequence.
Does this transfer to the other prohibitions? If you think about killing someone have you already done it? I have several thoughts in response to a action by another person that I think has done me wrong, but do I act on those thoughts? Most I reject as immoral and don”t carry out. So why did Christ (God) set this additional restriction? Did He change His mind about this when He sent His son among us? Was it to cause us additional grief? Good or evil?
On to Abraham/Issac. I am confused as to how this relates to Christ dying on the cross. What sins was Issac”s death to redeem? And why was the sacrifice never carried out if it was redemption?
The comment on Job was even more difficult to grasp. Was the whole point to show that Job ”… through suffering; to get us to change our mind …” would change his mind concerning his belief in God? And I thought the lesson was to believe in God even through adversity. But if you say he was broken then it must be so.
But there is no answer for the killing of the babies in Jericho. To me this is evil, but as I am ”… stubborn and hard hearted …” I suppose I must me wrong.
Kevin Bracken, Kelseyville
