Percieving is believing

Life is all about perspective. What experiences you have had predicate what views you uphold. With a elementary school teacher for a mom, and an avid interest in reading that included the monthly union notices from the ACE, CTA, and NEA offices, I grew up quite pro-union, especially in the realm of education. How dare anyone impose teacher pay on a scale determined by "merit"? The ways we have of measuring teacher aptitude are based solely on student achievement - which eliminates any other factors that might play into the student's performance. These may be as varied as familial interest in school, appearance of behavioral issues, hunger level, interest, and roots in the community - factors which the teacher frequently has no control over. This is clearly a dumb idea, but has good intentions.

In the same way, I had firm opinions on NCLB. Like any good liberal, I was certain that this Bush plan was as stupid and ill thought out as the rest of his presidential term. But, last year, to enter the public forum debate, students were required to research the academic achievement of the NCLB. I was certain that the evidence would prove the neg (the opposition) to be irrefutably right. After all, all the articles I had read said that the program was screwing up our education, yeah? But, as I looked at reports and studies, the topic became more convoluted. The tests showed that the scores were increasing in tested areas - not only on the official NCLB test, but on the international, theoretically unbiased, NEAP. Well, crap. I had to reverse my original assessment to some degree. NCLB did what it was supposed to have done - it increased scores in Math and English on tests. My perspective suddenly shifted on this topic based on new experiences. What happens in your life makes your viewpoint what it is.

I never will get drunk - after getting drunk-dialed by my godfather all my life, I know what sort of embarrassing situations, a loss of control will put you in.

I am not having sex until marriage - my mom's siblings all had kids before they got married. Sometimes this worked out for them and sometimes it didn't. I don't want to put myself or my kid into that sort of situation - when it didn't work out, it was the kid and mom who were shafted or stuck.

I'm paranoid about cool people. After a good banishment from normal social means, what self-respecting nerd wouldn't be?

Naturally, someone else might have a different position. For example, my boyfriend's father offered to buy him some condoms for college experimentation purposes. His ideas of the appropriate situation to have sex and mine are very different. Who knows what experiences gave him his viewpoint; I only can know my own. Although it would be informative to implant one's experiences into another person's mind, it cannot be done. Nope. Nosirre. The only way to not butt heads and yell at your boyfriend's father for encouraging unwanted random sex is to -le gasp- compromise. In essence, I promise not to reproof the man or to invoke mother-of-boyfriend if he doesn't bring up the subject again. So far this is working. But life may throw another curveball and provide a new experience to change my viewpoints once again. I just hope that it isn't how to have the abstinence talk with dad-of boyfriend.