A desire to stir things up

I don't know what's gotten into me, but I am in a kind of fiesty mood lately. After writing the letter to the principal/superintendent/personnel director because of the fiasco at Josh's school, I guess a fire has been lit under me or something. I probably won't stir up any trouble, but I kind of feel like it.

Last week we had our weekly Orators (speech team) meeting after school. These meetings so far haven't lasted very long, but I think they're necessary for the team to get together to discuss important issue and to make decisions. One of my students stayed for the meeting and asked me to email her coach saying she would be late. I did as she requested and wrote her a pass when she left to go to practice. The next day, the student said that her coach requested that she not miss any more practices because she made a choice to be be in volleyball. I asked her what about her choice to be involved in speech? Is that less important? I have a problem with this for several reasons. 1. If the coach had a problem with her being late to practice because of another school sponsored activity, she should have discussed it with me as the sponsor and not relay the information through the student. 2. I am disturbed by the great deal of importance given to sports in most school districts and the fact that it never seems to be o.k. to miss a sports practice or be late to it for any reason other than death. 3. Although I think being involved in competitive sports can be worthwhile for a student, I feel that if they choose to be involved in other worthwhile activities (especially those that are academically challenging) that they should have the right to attend extra practices for it as well. But I will keep my mouth shut for the moment and not stir up trouble. I just think it's a bit ridiculous because if anything, speech competition will help these kids far more than being in athletics. They will have more of an opportunity to get scholarships because of speech competition, than a team trophey. Good communication and speaking skills will benefit them far more in life than the ability to serve a ball.

Now for my second rant. I found a copy of the local newspaper in my yard when I was cleaning it up and I skimmed through it and found an article written by a protestant minister about "these young folks with tattoos." I was quite bothered by the disdain of the article. I felt that the guy was make huge assumptions about people that have tattoos and their moral character. I happen to have a tattoo. I love my tattoo. I'm thinking of getting another one that celebrates my faith. Now, I don't particularly care for the look of those with numerous tattoos all over their body, but that is my preference on appearance... not a judgment about someone's character. It's not that I want to really take a stand on people's right to be tattooed and encourage it, but it isn't always an indicator of what is going on inside a person. Someone could have some "bad" tattoos that they got while growing up and making mistakes as most people tend to do at some point and then have a complete turn around. That person may have to live with those tattoos as a reminder of a bad time in their life... but it's their choice. I thought that the Christian faith was to teach about love and acceptance of all people including the sinners. Who are we to judge them?

Now I'm off of my soap box for the moment. At least it hopefully makes for more interesting posts. Oh.. I got two emails in my box on match.com, but I can't read them because I can't afford the membership fee at the moment. At least on yahoo personals, you didn't have to be a member to be able to read an email that someone sent. Well, I better get back to cleaning. Company will be arriving in about an hour.