Last week, I read an article in the Times where some Bush voters explained that they voted for Bush because they could relate to him better, that he seemed like a decent man, and that Kerry was a snob.
This, of course, enraged me. And I ranted on to Steve about how it’s understandable that people vote by their guts, but they shouldn’t admit it. Voting for someone because he seems like an ordinary guy is not a valid reason to choose the leader of the free world. I once voted for a guy because his nickname was “The Iceman,” but I usually keep that to myself.
Anyhow, Jonah overheard my rant and turned to Steve and asked “What’s a snob?”
Steve replied, “A snob is a person who thinks he’s better than other people”.
Jonah thought about it for a moment and then proudly announced, “I’m a snob! I am better than everyone else.”
Yes, that’s how we raise them in the blue states. We’re snobs and we’re proud.
Apt. 11d 
As a proud Illinoian, where we have a Democratic governor, two Democratic senators, (what other state can say that), I have to say that we were totaly amazed by Bush’s win. I work at an Afican American elementary school, in a south suburban school outside of Chicago, and I have never heard one person say anthing positive above Bush. We also had the carpet bagger Keyes run against Obama, who even the Republicans could not stand. We got very few political ads here in Illinois, so I guess we did not know what was happening. My son Sean was going to school in South Dakota, and he was shocked by Daschles’ loss, said it would never happen. The only protest I can do is cancel my Newsweek, and not listen to the nightly news, in Protest, as I did in the Reagan years. My only consolation is that in two years, Bush will be a lame duck. I only hope in the meantime, he doesn’t start the draft because Sean who is in his final year of school getting a computer degree, says he will go to jail rather than go to Iraq. How the sixties’ tends to repeat itself. Hello to you other blue staters. My oldest son lives in Cincinatti, and gets his van cut off because he had a Kerry sticker, so it could be worse.
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I love the way “blue state and red states” has made it’s way into the lexicon of American speech. I repeated your Jonah story to my 11 year old, who loved it. Mandate, my ass!
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I don’t know as ‘snob’ is the right word, exactly: ‘nasty arrogant social climbing gigolo’ captures it a bit better. There are lots of stories out of Mass of this guy jumping queues because of his status – the DYKWIA stories, ‘do you know who I AM?!’ And really inauthentic, pretending to eat at Wendy’s and then having shrimp vindaloo catered into the bus. Customized sports references to the town he was in, and he would get them wrong.
Kerry was a dreadful candidate. And he almost won. If the Dems can come up with someone more attractive next time – and I mean, coherent and consistent message, some positive view of why we would be excited to have him as opposed to ‘I’m not George Bush’ – I don’t see any reason they can’t win.
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I would pose another question – do our kids need to be intellectually challenged from the get-go? Obviously, the answer is yes.
But the conundrum is not what they learn in school it’s what they (and you) bring to school that matters most.
I speak about this because my wife teaches kindergarten and we constantly have this discussion about what part parenting has in a child’s progress at school?
Based on what my wife tells me the most important factor of a young child’s development at school is the child’s home environment. And the most important attribute or trait (according to my wife) that the child must have to be successful at school is “love”.
If that child is loved (feed & clothed is nice too) he/she will find comfort in the classroom (because most classrooms are loving places). Without that underpinning the child in confronted with myriad problems that can only be addressed by the parent and/or eventually by CPS. (Hunger, anger, poverty are all issues that impact the ability of that child to learn and grow.)
However, most parents (so I’m told) expect the school to do the bulk of teaching. Most feel that the school or teacher should shoulder all the responsibility for the educational growth of that child. My wife is fond of saying that she should be teaching the parents rather than the children – because for some reason most parents (regardless of socioeconomic circumstances) aren’t very good at parenting or teaching their children how to behave or learn. (An example would be parents jerking kid out of school because of a particular curriculum or class – and then blaming the school for not teaching the kids the correct values/behaviors. Is it not the parents’ job to teach values and respect – not the schools?) I digress…
It is not merely a question of should our children be smarter than us – it’s a question of can we contribute to a positive cycle of learning and growing so they are not forced to live by our standards of smartness/dumbness but rather they find their own level of excitement and joy in learning.
They can only learn that joyful process from you the parent.
I believe that it’s teachers like my wife (who give so much love to her kids) who can contribute mightily to a child’s smartness – but it’s the love of learning that you give them that matters most.
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