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Text Box: Old School or Homeschool? May 3, 2007 by drgloyd More and more people seem to be making the jump from sending their kids off to school, to homeschooling them. This is a surprising trend considering the very difficult task that educating a child can be. Schools, whether public or private, are by far more convenient than homeschooling. There are teachers and administrators who plan endlessly to come up with the best standard curriculum possible to prepare students for the future. They even have standardized tests to assess students’ learning abilities and success. Most importantly, they have to deal with any and all of the headaches that may come from the constant struggle of forcing students to behave themselves and to cooperate with the learning process. Homeschooling puts all of the planning, accessing, disciplining, and other responsibilities directly into the hands of the parents alone. Why is it then that so many Americans are choosing to homeschool their children rather than send them to a professional educational institution? Perhaps the most obvious reason may be for the customizable, individualized education that can be given at home. In an ordinary school, a teacher spends the majority of his or her time attempting to teach a lesson to a large group of students. Those students all learn at different rates and through many learning styles. It is relatively easy for an individual student to be overlooked this way. Homeschooling, on the other hand, allows parents to know what their child is learning and how fast. If a child needs extra time and help to learn something, the parents can give him or her that extra time and help. If a child grasps some lessons with ease, the parents know that they can move on to prevent boredom. Another reason has more to do with what is actually being taught to the students. Religion, for example is something that has been almost completely eliminated from most schools. Even in institutions such as catholic schools, parents have little control on what their children are actually being taught to believe. Many parents aren’t comfortable with typical sexual education, yet it is mostly out of their hands once the decision is made to send their children to school. By making the decision to homeschool, parents have complete control over what is being taught to their children because it is the parents who are doing the teaching. Finally, there is the issue of safety. It is uncommon to not hear something in the news about students being harmed or being put in harms way because of some incident that happened at their school. Many schools have had to significantly increase security in recent years because of sexual assaults, weapons, drugs, and gang related violence, not to mention incidents such as the Columbine High School and Virginia Tech massacres. However, parents who choose homeschooling can feel that their children are safe and protected from these horrific acts because they have their children at home. Professional educational institutions may be easier and far more convenient, but for many American parents, one-on-one attention, a curriculum that coincides with their beliefs, and the safety of their children are huge reasons to choose homeschooling. Some parents are willing to work hard themselves in order to provide their children with the best possible education. They feel that their children are far too important to entrust into someone else’s care just for the sake of convenience. That is why they homeschool.

Text Box: Suffering from Presenteeism April 19, 2007 by drgloyd
You are sick. You have a cough and a runny nose. You’re entire body seems to ache and you think that you may have a fever. Maybe it is not too bad right now, but you can just tell that it is going to get worse. If you call in sick to work your boss will be steamed, and missing a day’s pay can cause all sorts of financial havoc. Like most of us on days like this, you are struggling with more than just a little bug; you are struggling with the decision of whether or not you should go to work. The truth is that taking a day off when you are sick may be the best thing that you can do for yourself, for your boss, and for your company. If you go to work, you will be preventing your body from effectively fighting off your illness. I doubt that on the job is the best place for you to get some decent rest, and most physicians will tell you that getting some rest (along with drinking plenty of fluids) in the early stages of a cold or flu is the best way to fight it off. This means that going to work could cause you to get worse and to be sick for a longer period of time. That could eventually lead to you having to miss even more time off of work. Should you choose to go to work, you would probably be much less productive than normal. According to The Harvard Business Review, sick employees in the workplace cost companies billions of dollars in productivity. You will not be thinking clearly, and more of your time will be spent on things like blowing your nose and making extra trips to the bathroom. Now, your boss not only has to deal with you not getting your work done (or at least not done well), but he has to pay you your normal wages for not doing it. The effects of going to work sick can spread further than to you and your boss; it can reach throughout the company. While a few of your coworkers may feel as though you should have come in anyway, nobody will want you around them if you look, sound, and act as if you have “the plague”. The constant sounds of sniffling, sneezing, and coughing can be a huge distraction for them, and therefore contributes to the lack of productivity. Plus, they don’t want you to get them sick. If you think that your boss might get a little angry at you for calling in sick, imagine how he will feel about a fourth or more of his employees missing work. When you go to work sick, especially within the first day or two of your illness, you are likely to be contagious. You expose your coworkers to the illness and then they repeat and continue the cycle. Nearly 75% of us go to work while we are sick. It is so common that the term “presenteeism” was coined to describe it, and it accounts for 60% of company healthcare costs. That means that two-thirds of us are actively contributing to the decline of productivity in the workplace and to the rising costs of healthcare. We must all do our part to control the presenteeism epidemic that has been sweeping our nation. Although it may seem commendable to fight through the misery and go to work, it very well may be a far better thing for you to just stay home and get yourself some rest. It will save you from prolonging your suffering, and it could help to save your boss and his company a fortune. So, stop questioning yourself and make the call. Your health and your job just might depend on it.

Text Box: Traditional Family Outcasts April 5, 2007 by drgloyd
Ward and June Cleaver may have raised Wally and Beaver quite differently in today’s world. It seems as though the traditional family is almost as much a thing of the past as riding in covered wagons or grunting as a primary form of communication. Nearly 50% of marriages are expected to end in divorce, most households rely on at least two incomes to get by, and most parents ship their children off to some form of daycare as early as possible. Worst of all, this has been going on for so long now that it is expected, and our society makes it hard to break away from these growing trends. Today, the thought of having a traditional family seems alien to many members of our younger generations. First of all, the family that I grew up in was traditional except that it was my mother who usually worked rather than my father. There was no 4K, so I stayed at home and was taken care of until I was old enough to start kindergarten. It had been just the same for my brothers and sisters who were all products of the same two parents. Because of this, I spent my early years believing that this was the norm, and I was blinded to the changes that were already taking place in our society. It would not last long. When I was about six years old, a couple who were friends of my parents got divorced. They lived far away from each other and custody of their children was divided between them. They each remarried to people with children of their own, and this became my first real experience with divorce and mixed or blended families. Then, my sister, who was only seventeen, became pregnant and moved in with her boyfriend. It was not long before I realized that the traditional family was becoming less and less normal. A few things have changed since then. My sister had three more children and my parents were given custody of the first two. Not too many people even seemed to question the arrangement. My older brother married and had a baby with a woman who already had one child. They divorced a year or two later and both children now live with the woman’s mother. I also have another sister who is a single mom. All of these situations seem to be perfectly acceptable even though they would’ve been unheard of fifty years ago. Now I am married and have three children of my own. All of my children have the same two parents and were not put into daycare. This probably would have seemed pretty normal 20-30 years ago, but my wife and I are both finding that many people find our “traditional” ways odd, such as when my oldest son started kindergarten at McLane Elementary. His teacher, other school staff, classmates (many of whom come from broken homes and blended families), and other parents (many of whom are divorced or have never been married) all assumed that he had been in daycare, or at least 4K, prior to enrollment in 5K. Not a single person that we spoke with seemed to even consider that it may have been his first experience in a school environment. Although it sometimes means struggling to make ends meet, I work and my wife stays at home. Recently, my wife’s three-year old niece asked her why she didn’t work. It was a question which we have heard many times before from other young relatives and friends of our children because it’s not what their parents do. Some adults have even implied that that my wife must be too lazy to have a job because the “normal” thing to do is to have a job, even though my wife may work harder at being a housewife/stay-at-home mom than they do at their job, and she receives little reward for her troubles. You can see the signs of our society’s acceptance all around us for these changes too. I noticed that St. Joseph’s Hospital changed maternity ward wristbands for fathers of expected babies so that they now read “significant other” rather than “husband”. Some of the bigger companies, like Quad Graphics, have onsite daycare for employees with small children. The economy has adapted to the point where a second income is almost a requirement, and the further we get from the way it was, the harder it is to get back. I would like to sit back and watch Ward and June trying to raise two teenage boys and pay for that nice house on a single income in today’s economy. Traditional family lifestyles are fading away quickly. The less traditional our families are in their ways of life, and the more society accepts these non-traditional ways, the more alien the traditional ways of life become to us. Today, the Cleavers might seem as strange as the Munsters or the Adam’s family to some, while TV families such as those found on “The Brady Bunch” or “Different Strokes” would be welcome and would not seem very strange at all.

Text Box: Life, Love & Listening May 8, 2007 by drgloyd My wife and I have a problem with listening to each other. Basically, I accuse her of not listening to me and she accuses me of not listening to her. Honestly, we are both right. Our lives get so crazy, and there are so many things going on with work, school, and the kids that it is hard to listen to each other and have a meaningful conversation. Consciously making the effort to actively listen to each other has made a big difference in our ability to understand each other and get along better. First, we have acknowledged that what the other person has to say is valid and important to them so it should also be important to ourselves. It may not be the most interesting thing for me to hear how much my three year old has been whining all day, but it is important for my wife to be able to tell someone how stressed out she gets at times. Conversely, my wife may not be too interested in how hard my day at work has been, but it is important for her to be able to listen to my thoughts and feelings about the day. Second, we have to be able to tune out all of the external stimuli – which is not so easy to do. The dog may be barking, the cat meowing, the boys fighting, and the baby crying so it can be very hard to focus on each other. A solution we have found for this problem is to have our daily conversations once the children (and pets) are in bed. Or, asking our older children to please go play quietly for a few minutes so that my wife and I can talk. Another obstacle to actively listening is assuming and trying to finish the other person’s sentences. Once you are married for awhile you begin to think you know everything about your spouse and even what they are about to say – so you don’t need to listen. We have learned that we need to focus on the other person words by being quiet and looking at the other person’s face - not looking away and jumping to conclusions. It is also important to go into the conversation with an open mind. If I am still mad at my wife for something she did last night I certainly am not going to listen to anything she has to say today. Our minds and relationship to each other have to be clear and open in order to take in any more information and to care about what the other person is saying. Last, after listening to what the other person has to say it is imperative to let them know that you were listening and understand their point of view. You can do this with facial expressions like nodding your head or smiling to show you agree or by frowning to show that you may not agree. It is also good to repeat what they have said so that they know you have understood them. Making the effort to actively listen to each other has paid off immensely with me and my wife’s ability to get along and feel validated with our thoughts and feelings. It is surprising to find out, after almost six years of marriage how little you may know about your spouse’s feelings on a certain subject. We also respect the other person much more when they show respect for us by listening.

Mind World Media

Text Box: The Blame Game: Global Warming Edition January 9, 2008 by drgloyd Mankind has doomed the earth. At least that is what we are being led to believe by most media outlets and some political propaganda campaigns. For years now, the debate has raged over whether or not “global warming” is real and what the cause of global warming is. I do not believe that man is to blame for global warming, but that global warming is a natural occurrence. This belief can be backed up by many members of the scientific community who say that it is caused by several factors including volcanic eruptions and solar activity and is most likely just a normal part of the earth’s natural warming and cooling cycles. Many of the people who point to man say that most scientists agree that man-made pollutants are the primary cause of global warming. However, according to globalwarming.org, a Gallup survey showed that only 17% of the members of the American Meteorological Society and the American Geophysical Society believe that the warming of the earth during the 20th century was the result of an increase in greenhouse gas emissions (par. 10). The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) argues that man-made greenhouse gases are the cause of the earth’s warming. Yet, there are several natural causes for the warming of the earth such as variations in the earth’s orbit, solar activity, and volcanic eruptions which release massive amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. The Cooler Heads Coalition, a sub-group of Consumer Alert, mentions the fact that 98% of greenhouse gases are produced naturally, that they are made up mostly of water vapor (par. 8). Some evidence even suggests that many man-made pollutants, like most aerosols, may actually contribute to the cooling of the earth. The average global near-surface atmospheric temperature rose approximately 0.74° Celsius (1.3° Fahrenheit) over the last century, but that is not an adequate amount of time to look at. According to John Carlisle, author of “Global Warming: Enjoy It While You Can’, the climate has had a fairly predictable schedule of 100,000-year glaciation cycles over the last 700,000 years. He says, “Each Glaciation cycle is typically characterized by an abrupt warming period, called an interglacial, which lasts 10,000-12,000 years. The last ice age reached its cooling point 18,000 to 20,000 years ago when the average temperature was 9-12.6º F cooler than present. Earth is currently in a warm interglacial called the Holocene that began 10,000 years ago” (par. 5). The earth has gone through several warming and cooling cycles throughout its existence; at one point, Vikings were able to farm Greenland which is now covered in ice. Therefore, we do not know what really should be considered a normal temperature range. What we do know is that most of the earth’s warming over the last century occurred prior to 1940 and that there have actually been some signs of cooling in the atmosphere in the past eighteen years. One might also look to other planets for evidence. According to Times Online’s article, “Climate Change Hits Mars”, the temperature of Mars has risen by about 0.5C since the 1970s Viking mission, according to NASA scientists. This is about the same temperature difference that the Earth experienced over the same time period (par. 2). Since there are no humans living on Mars, humans cannot the cause of the changes on mars. The problem is that there are many other differences between the two planets such as distance from the sun and amount/quality of the atmosphere. The truth is, most hard evidence suggests that natural and not man-made changes are responsible for our planet’s climatic behavior, while even the UCS agrees that man-made global warming theories are based on consensus due to models which project possible future outcomes. It is models similar to those which our local weathermen use regularly in their attempts to tell us what the weather will be like next Tuesday. Yes, we all know how inaccurate those predictions can be.
Source Citation: Carlisle, John. “Natural Factors Cause Global Warming.” Global Warming. Ed. James Haley. Opposing Viewpoints®. San Diego: Greenhouse Press, 2002. Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center. Thomson Gale. Moraine Park Technical College. 15 Mar. 2007 <http://find.galegroup.com/ovrc/infomark.do?&contentSet=GSRC&type+retrieve&tabID=T010&prodId=OVRC&userGroupName=mptc_main&version=1.0> Cooler Heads Coalition. “Global Warming In Brief - Q&A.” globalwarming.org. Global Warming Updates. Consumer Alerts. 11 Nov 2000. 12 Mar 2007. <http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:64bqETwb3g0J:www.globalwarming.org/article.php%3Fuid%3D65+%22globalwarming.org%22+%22gallup%22&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=2&gl=us&client=firefox-a> Times Online. “Climate change hits Mars.” From The Sunday Times. April 29, 2007. 5 May 2007. <http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1720024.ece> Union of Concerned Scientists. “The Theory of Global Warming Is Scientifically Credible.” Global Warming. Ed. James Haley. Opposing Viewpoints®. San Diego: Greenhouse Press, 2002. Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center. Thomson Gale. Moraine Park Technical College. 15 Mar. 2007<http://find.galegroup.com/ovrc/infomark.do?&contentSet=GSRC&type+retrieve&tabID=T010&prodId=OVRC&docId=EJ3010222210&prodId=OVRC&userGroupName=mptc_main&version=1.0>