My 9 yr. old son is in the 4th grade. He's a very bright boy, but has had problems in classroom behavior and in getting work done in school. (we've already been through Ritalin, psychologists, etc.- the thing that works is consistent discipline...home schooling is not an option, either.)

He gets along with the other kids OK, but he is not exactly flavor-of-the-month among his teachers. He does his assigned homework regularly (mostly because I stand over him to get it done) but today he brought home a doozy.

His assignment is to: "Write a good editorial based on the information contained in this bar graph. Be sure to include your opinion. (85 words or more.)"

The subject: Gun-Related Deaths Among Kids Ages 5 to 14.

The info is based on a bar graph, dated from 1990 to 1993, inclusive. In these four years, the bar graphs are in two categories for each year: (A)Ages 5-9, (B)Ages 10-14
The info is as follows:
1990: A) 121; B) 560
1991: A) 94;  B) 614
1992: A) 111; B) 667
1993: A) 141; B) 700

There is no attribution, no sources listed, and I know just how I'd answer it, but my son has no idea how to answer it in terms and language appropriate for a fourth-grader.

Yes, I deeply resent the indoctrination and politicisation that this really is, , although I'm sure the teacher would say that it is not, but at this point, my kids and I have to get along with this teacher and the school system.

Any idea, thoughts, comments? His work is due tomorrow, BTW.

Problem is, if he uses outside information, he's following the directions incorrectly, because it says "Based on the bar graph."

Come up with some response like "As children get older, they are more likely to be involved in gun violence." Make sure to note that correllation is not causation, etc., few other things (though careful it doesn't look too much over your kids' level.)

Then tell your kid he's just been re-educated, and take him shooting.

Hey...

  Here is a thought. Tell your son to write an article on how statistics and so called expert opinions are the cause for balent misrepresentation of the majority of subjects that can be discussed today in modern america.

HEEHEHEH I know it would be hardered for a kid to handle that but I did the same thing to a couple professors at school.

Shit an intelligent person could make a statitiscal demographic that states that Cronic Masturbation is the Leading Cause of Vechicular Death in the US... AHAHAHAHHAHA

Your son should write aboutthe fact that guns are almost always portrayed on tv as toys and/or in a careless manner.  He might mention some of the shows/movies that he watches where guns are misused and irresponsibly represented.  Let him state from his own experiences watching tv shows and such, and have him say that he isn't surprised that kids are mimicking what they see on tv.  Need more help?

The editorial should be on how the media uses faulty sources and information to make their point.  You'll have to help him out here, but slant it as, "Gee, everyone knows these numbers are phoney, but here they are cropping up again.  How many media sources don't bother to check, and why don't they, and we (paper suposedly publishing the editorial) are going to do the right thing here and not try to whitewash you the reader....."

Teacher didn't say write about guns, said write about the information in the graph.  That's an important difference and gives you an out.

Have him make the statements about these stats clearly state that these deahs are the result of single parenting in homes without proper education and disclipline, created by liberalism running rampant in public schools!  [:D]

Also, mentioning the fact that 10-14 year olds are much more capable of understanding, operating, finding, and using guns than very small children.  Also, younger children may be more closely supervised than older children.

Pick your battles.  There is an obvious outcome expected from the data presented.  It's not worth trying to make a point. Just have him do it, but use this as an example of:

1. Always ask where the statistics came from.
2. Know that there are lies, damn lies and statistics.
3. Life will, at times, dictate that you "play the game" even when you know better.

Take the time to discuss the project with him so he understands what is going on.  

Polish this turd for all it's worth.

edited fer spellin'!

This would be tough.  At that age they are not expected to question the "facts" that are dished out.

In my best 4th grade common sense approach... "Someone should teach the kids firearm safety so less accidents would happen".

btt

Well, you could "help" your son as many have indicated and I wouldn't fault you for it.  
However, you could also contact your son's teacher and explain that you don't want your young son exposed to political indoctrination (of any kind) in class.  You might also have a talk with the principal of the school.

I'll bet there are other parents who have the same feelings that you do, yet are too timid to speak up.  Then again, I'll bet there are a bunch of anti-gun ninnies saying 'it's about time they teach these kids something in school!'  Morons.

Anyway, many of the parents probably haven't even seen the assignment.  But, because of your son's need for special attention from you, you have been presented an opportunity.  Good luck in whatever way you choose to handle it.

Well, it doesn't state how those numbers were collected, so your son can only assume that those numbers were out of the 5 billion or so people in the world. Based on that assumption, then one could reasonably argue that it is pretty safe to let kids play with guns because the number of kids who drowned last year in the US alone is higher than those numbers.

I would also go talk to the principle and tell them that the classroom is no place to push a social agenda.

Best suggestion so far!  We need more NRA and Eddie the Eagle!

I would also threaten to bring up this subject at the next PTA meeting or with the school board.  Granted, they're all probably a bunch of flaming liberal idiots too, but the teacher and principle would probably rather not have to deal with that and may give up rather than have to face an inquiry, even one from their good buds on the school board.

If your kid were mine, the first sentence of the report might go something like this:  "The data show a rise in firearms-related deaths of adolescents as the Clinton Administration came to power that culminated in the tragic massacres at Columbine High School and other schools throughout the United States."

Tell him you are going to teach him a lesson in politics today.

Give the answer that gets him the grade. Send him to school wearing a NRA t-shirt.

Ladies and Gentlemen, we have a winner.

I don't know if it'll be possible, but when and if I ever have my own kids, I will not let them be indoctrinated by the Public Schools. If home-schooling isn't an option, how about Private Schooling. Choose one that agrees with you, possibly a Christian School.

I went through the Public School System from 1987 - 2000. It is a load of crap. If they are not portraying guns as evil, they are having students write the President (Klinton at the time) asking for more lands to be set aside to never be touched by humans or some other kind of PETA crap. One teacher in 1993 had our class write letters to the newly elected Bill Klinton, asking him to take action on Global Warming, Endangered Animals, etc... I wouldn't write it, becuase I don't believe that these are the important issues. I got a C in that class. This woman was a member of PETA, a Vegetarian, and a Liberal. Guess what ? She tried to push all her beliefs on her students by teaching slanted science. I.E. If we continue the Destruction of the Forests, we will have no clean air by such and such a year. GLobal Warming will raise water levels and sink this area,m Now do you want that ?

My American History Teacher once got pissed because on the Class trip to Washington, I commented that Clinton was a worthless POS traitor who didn't care about America. He only cared about the money. Of course the comment upon seeing Marine 1 leave the White House, "Damn, I wish I had Missle to Shoot that worthless Son Of A Bitch Down." didn't help either. Something to the effect of he was a great man, our president and other nauseating stuff. I wonder what the SS (Secret Service) would have done if they had heard my comment ?

Good advice FatMan.  In our society, we are always going to find people who will push the anti-gun agenda in whatever forum they have available.  We must do our part as parents, business people and community leaders to make sure people know the difference.  My two boys are not in school yet, but I had a long talk with their pediatrician when he asked my wife if we had any firearms in our home.

The key words are "information contained in the graph", and "Be sure to include your opinion".
A valid opinion is that there is insuffcient data in the graph to draw a conclusion.  It is also a valid opinion that there is not enough data in the graph to determine the nature of any spikes in the graph. I.E. from 1990 to 1991 the number of deaths in age group 10-14 rose by 54.  Were more children of this age group introduced to this cross-section of the population?  Did a large portion of the 5-9 age group enter the 10-14 age group.  Did the overall population of the cross section grow proportionally with the spikes in the graph?  It is also a valid opinion that although gun related deaths among children are tragic,  there is no way to determine from this graph that gun related death are the prominent cause of deaths to minors, without knowing its proportion to other causes of death.

I'd call the teacher and ask them to clarify where they going with this assignment to you as the parent. I see it like the doctor asking if you have guns in your house.

The kid is [i]10 years old![/i].  What a crock!

Help him out, dad.  I't part of your job to help him with his homework, and a critical part of your job to help him form a personal philosophy with which to live his life.  First thing - data with no background information or sources is to be A) doubted, B) verified, and C) put into context.

Here's a source you can use:  [url]http://webapp.cdc.gov/sasweb/ncipc/mortrate.html[/url]

According to the CDC the numbers are accurate (as far as I checked).  Now compare to current data:

1998  A)96; B)433
1997 A)107; B)439
1996 A) 97; B)510
1995 A)107; B)641
1994 A)105; B)660

So, the first thing is, the data provided has apparently been selected to give the appearance of an ever-increasing trend, when, in fact, the rate peaked in 1993 and has been decreasing ever since.

Now, look at total deaths (all injuries, not illness) for those same age groups over the same period:

1990 A) 1,929; B) 2,514
1991 A) 1,869; B) 2,592
1992 A) 1,777, B) 2,517
1993 A) 1,793; B) 2,669

Overall, the percentage of death by firearm is pretty high.  Now, how many are firearms accidents?

1990 A) 59; B) 146
1991 A) 41; B) 162
1992 A) 48; B) 132
1993 A) 38; B) 137

Who is intentionally killing the rest of these kids?

Just my $0.02.

Yeah.  Pull your balls up firmly between your legs and be in the principal/administrators/superintentdant/grand poohbah's office in the a.m. and politely request that your son be allowed to show his bar graph capabilities on a non-political topic. If the Big Guy/Gal won't listen to you or back you up, [i]immediately pull your kid out of that indoctrination camp and home school hime![/i] Christ, man, have the faith of your convictions and stand up or roll over and die a coward's death in the Communistwealth of Massachusetts.

shooter [devil]

I ran across the same kind of thing in my youngest daughter's 7th grade math class. In her math book the first chapter was about the spotted owl! She had to write an essay on the chapter giveing reasons why it is important to save the owl and oh btw how many mice most a owl eat in one day to live. Like you home school was out of the question, and pvt schools cost more then retired military pay can aford. But, I helped her write the paper, and by the time we where through we had the spotted owl wiped out and put 10,000 people to work. I got the call, went to school, met with the teacher, and explaned that not only would I pull Tammy out of her class, I would pull her out of the school and get a lawyer, to sue the school board. I might not win, but her career would be over. No more essays in math class, at least that year, Tam got an "A" for the year. Its hard but if you put up with it, it will just get worse.

95thFoot, If I were you i'd be incredibly proud of your son.  Sounds like the kind of shit I got put through before they caught on that I didn't do what they said mostly cause I already knew what they were gonna teach me.  I'd cut out the homework strictness, because 99% is just a note to the parent that the teacher isn't doing their job.  mindless rote excercises do little to produce a nimble mind.  Help the little guy to move ahead of the class in the stuff he brings home, they'll never notice that he's still acting up, and if you're lucky maybe he'll get some more advanced work (no one learns the easy way, challenge him to more than decoding some nonsense he'll be able to figure out in a year or two anyway.  Make sure his foundations in the basics are strong, if the schools across the water are as bad as they are here even a kid upto grade level now would have been considered a moron way back when (I have an 11yr old cousin in 6th grade who doesn't know 90% of what i knew by first, or 50 percent of what most of my classmates knew by 3rd or 4th grade.  Sad, but they need someone to push a button over and over again.  I hope this comes across well meaning, I'll admit I have a real mean streak towards the average "educator" or "instructor" whereas I have great love and admiration of some teachers I was fortunate to have.  I'm still surprised I bothered finishing HS a few years back and am proud to say I never went to college (tho I am taking an EMT course now similar to what many colleges have, but it's a different setting, and not a money trap to make some administrator's wallet fat.  Good luck to you and your son, never forget the power you have over him as his role model.  I lived with my father and grandparents on his side since I was 12 and was amazed at how badly I spelled and how well they did until I realized I spell better than most people, and in the categories I'm interested in much better than them, but wishing i was as good as them was always a goal worth pursuing (tho i believe now that learning spelling is really done through reading =-)  Have a good one, let the kid do the homework if he can and write a note to the teacher asking that non political statistics be used for his assignments in the future.  the numbers you listed could have been for anything.  Wait 'til you see the stuff they put on the SATs...
-bill
P.S. Rew: I read a book in a math class once, but it was actually a theoretical novel about geometry.  Called Flatland, i don't recall the subtitle or author right now, but i reread it a few years later and liked it.  Doing reports on something that wouldn't be endangered if it tasted good on the other hand is unacceptable.

I would also nominate the responce that these deaths are the result of firearm MISUSE. Point out that anything can be misused. Perhaps the Ted Kennedy DEADLY car incident is called for. Perhaps "ponder" how many children were saved by competent LEGAL use of firearms in self defense, feel free to provide your own statistics.

On a side note, unless my child were a serial killer or something, I would NEVER subject him to a psychiatrist. Very few children actually NEED ritalin or any other meds. These are options of lazy or part time parents. So your kid is a jerk with a wild hair up his ass? Congratulations your child is NORMAL.

There is your answer RIGHT there.

Have him write a paragraph about how statistics are misleading, and statistics WITHOUT ATTRIBUTION that CANNOT be verified should be ignored.

How about this response, it should work for the assignment and be a lesson to you son.

From the bar graph one possibility of the results is that as children who misbehave and are not disciplined get older they get into more serious trouble and are more likely to end up being shot.

On another note, it's interesting that they used 1990 thru 1993, the highest years for gun death in the the last 12 years.  In 1999 there was under 500 for all of 14 and under.  Perhaps he could comment that the bar graph is meaningless today because it's out of date.

Today I wrote a letter to the editors of a Michigan paper because of an anti-gun letter they printed by the President of Michigans' Children Hospitol.  In it he claimed that every year more than 39,000 people die by firearms.  This is BS as the number was over 39,000 only once, in 1993.  In 1999 it was around 28,000 which includes accidents and suicides.  Only 10,000 homicides.  I backed my number up with a source and the paper is considering publishing it.

Good luck.

OT, I know, but watch that Ritalin crap. It's just a stimulant like any other speed or meth. And like crystal meth, it causes psychosis. Just a warning.

I would be making things very difficult for that teacher, after my child did his homework in a scathing way.

"Based on the data provided, the older kids were taller and more willing to climb, invade the parents' privacy, and find a gun that was stupidly and negligently laying on a top closet shelf by an idiot parent."

And I get extra credit for a run-on sentence.[:)]

All I can say is that I have a PhD in social science and this assignment is a good example of what is wrong with the schools.  Bar graphs are for idiots who cannot deal with actual data, and they have grouped the data in such a way as to remove any meaning the underlying data might have.  What is worse is that the data is completely meaningless unless it is in a context such as total firearms ownership or total deaths in these agre groups from other causes.  Try graphing actual gun accidents versus accidental pool drownings of skateboarding accidents for the same age groups.

GunLvr

Due to behavior problems, school officials told us to tell docs to put him on all kinds of wacky meds (Ritalin, Dexedrine, Wellbutrin [sp?]), prescribed to us by a shrink, and our son went to four psychologists over a period of four years. All came up with differing treatments that in retrospect, were laughable and simultaneously harmful. His behavior hardly changed exc. he became more of a passive zombie. The last drug he was on was some sort of smoking cessation drug, and he grew incredibly thin, despite his ravenous appetite, and was eating us out of house and home, until one day, I put a stop to it all, and flushed the pills down the drain. the cure proved worse than the disease- whatever that disease was supposed to be.

We gradually got away from the psychs, who had about thrown up their hands and said 'we don't know what to do with him'. Then _I_ started to raise him MY way, and he has got a lot better. Our house is run sort of like a boot camp (well, not as neat....). I find the structure really helps him, and yes, he does get R&R... I feel like R Lee Ermey sometimes... :^)

He is doing MUCH better, and yes, I WILL be contacting his teacher tomorrow about this latest &#*%.

BTW my son did do his homework in a "scathing" way- but I prefer to call it "critical". :^)Remember, the hippies of the 60s said, Question Authority? Well, they are now the authority, and they just got questioned by my kid- I will transcribe his work ASAP.

Foot, get him the [i]fuck[/i] [b]OFF[/b] Ritalin [b]RIGHT NOW[/b].  If you don't, both you and he will pay a significant price in his teenage years regarding his development.  And to anybody else with a child in school, if an admnistrator or teacher tells you your child needs to be on a neuropsychoactive med because of 'behavior problems', kindly ask them for a copy of their medical degree.  I just absolutely am stunned that not only do today's so-called educators have the self-important arrogance to even assume the responsibility of diagnosis and treatment, but that parents actually are cowed enough to listen to them.  Any teachers out there care to debate the subject?

shooter

At first, I thought, that I would be jumping all over this if it was my kid.  I changed my mind after I recalled a show done on todays high school kids.  It showed this fat bitch kid that would do the homework the way SHE thought it needed to be done-not per the instructions given.  She would write about what she wanted (if she did it at all) and basically ignored the teacher.  Well kiddies, unfortunately, you do not decide what you do while in school, you are not in charge, your teachers, no matter how politically/liberally fucked, generally know what they are doing.  If you try to do projects the way you want, and not per the instructions-you will lose- especially in college and real life.  Now of course I would probably write the school and/or teacher and question their topic, but I would also remember that life ain't always fair nor does it always conform to exactly what you want it to be all of the time.  Don't be a Sara Brady and lobby against the evil tobacco companies just because now you finally got cancer....

Easy there... I am now 30 but was on Ritalin for many years,  I think I took it from age 5 to age 10 or so.  I saw medical doctors.  They constantly paid attention to my dose, always ensuring I took the minimum necessary to keep me focused in school.  

Ritalin was a blessing for me.  I'm perfectly normal and I was a National Merit Scholar and I scored very high on IQ tests.  I'm not trying to impress, but don't overreact against Ritalin.  It is over-prescribed but for some kids it is a blessing.  Just ask my parents.

David

Well, the psychs had me on just about everything from Ritalin to Melarail. None of it had a damn bit of effect. After about 7th Grade, I and everybody else calmed down naturally. Kids are supposed to be that way at that age. Don't worry, when he gets to HS he should be OK. If not, that is when you should worry. I did very well in School. In fact, I got a scholarship. My first 2 years of College were paid at 100% (1998 - 2000), my 2nd two years were/are being paid at 75% (2000 - 2002)