Re: Minutes and Meeting Announcement!

Thanks for the compliment. After sleeping on it overnight, I woke up
even more unimpressed with those books. They would down right condemn my
son's family and confuse my kid. Two of D*'s cousins had Odyssyes
when they were 5, one now drives a stock car twice a week. I laugh just
trying to imagine the expression on Bret's face if I were to tell him to
avoid risk.

My son and I have already taken apart an engine, and he can identify the
piston and cylinder. .. I can't remember seeing any of these kids with a
clean face – not even at church. .. when I was a kid D*' age, we
built cities in mud and collected snake skins and spiders. My friend's
father worked at the University and would identify them for us.

No one in the family was fat. In fact we were all skinny. ..avoid going
outside between 10 and 6 .. I am still trying to digest that one. .. and
I don't see our school teachers putting sun screen on the kids before
recess. No school in the nation does that. And who is to say so much
sunscreen would be a net benefit anyway? I keep reading about cancer and
artificial hormone affects caused by sun screen. There was an article in
LeMonde about a study that demonstrated that sun screens have hormonal
affects. There was so much hypocrisy in those books.

I am a manager/computer architect / mathematician. I work on
microprocessors. Lately I have been working on startups. On my current
project I'm trying to break a code commonly used for encryption on the
Internet. One does not have to be an introvert to be a mathematician ;-)

I see you work in the area or nutrition? Are you associated with the MD
Anderson cancer center? I suppose you identified with my comments about
the cafeteria. It was reheated fried chicken strips today, with french
fries and of course some raw veggies. Alternatively one could get a
hamburger.

Hey did you catch the spaceship one coverage? Wow, now that must have
been a ride... Would you put up $20,000 for a ticket into orbit? .. Now
now, it might be a bit risky .. ;-)

-tom

On Tue, 2004-10-12 at 11:05, Amy.H@somedomain wrote:
>
>
> WOW...I am totally impressed with your analogy. What do you do in your
> profession? I was so pleased to see so many interested and involved parents
> at the meeting last night. It is critical to have angels watching over our
> children. Amy
>
> Amy H
> Program Manager, Prevention
> Austin Metro Market
> American Cancer Society, Texas Division, Inc.
> 2433 Ridgepoint Dr. - B
> Austin, Texas 78754
> Office: 512.919.1833
> Mobile: 512.743.7646
> Fax: 512.919.1846
> www.cancer.org
> 1.800.ACS.2345
>
>
>
>
> tom lynch
> <tom.lynch@somedomain
> cc: aH@somedomain,
> 10/11/2004 09:23 PM Glenn.Williams@somedomain,
> Please respond to john.bart@somedomain,
> tom.lynch lcray@somedomain,
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> Subject: Re: Minutes and Meeting Announcement!
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Traci,
>
> So is the Harcourt text the only choice? Or is it in the running with
> others yet to be seen?
>
>
> All the texts were a bit different. I read most of the 3rd grade text.
> In summary, this text was good at explaining processes, but it had
> biases against rural people, against exercising outside, against Asians,
> and against boys and those with extroverted personalities. It blindsides
> a whole segment or our student population. Surely we do better than
> this.
>
>
> In more detail:
>
> +1. I liked how they showed a whole process for things, e.g. with a
> picture of cranberries on the bush, floating in a bog, and then on a
> truck going to the grocery store.
>
> +2. They hit most of the fundamental points.
>
> --3. Their explanation of calcium was only appropriate for Western
> Europeans. Asians often can't digest milk the way Western Europeans do,
> so the calcium sources listed in the book were inappropriate for them.
> They mentioned nothing about calcium rich vegtables or fish, which would
> be appropriate for people who do not eat/digest milk (currently the
> majority of the population of the planet, and an ever growing segment of
> students.)
>
> +4. It was good how they talked about advertising.
>
> -5. Funny they didn't connect eating sweet things to the acid that
> causes cavities. No mention about sodas or the corn syrup containing
> chocolate milk in our cafeteria. Is Harcourt owned by Coke?
>
> -6. Their discussion of hygiene seemed to be written by a shy girl who
> grew up in an affluent suburb with overprotective parents. When I think
> of hygiene I think of avoiding stagnate water, avoiding mosquitoes, not
> handling wild animals too shy to run (probably sickly), not drinking
> water from a creek, washing hands after toiletry or handling domestic
> animals, and more fundamental things... They only mentioned one of
> these. Studies have shown that excessive cleanliness, as they seem to be
> advocating, actually leads to such things as the development of
> allergies and asthma. In addition these lessons make it seem like active
> boys and farm kids are somehow less acceptable. (Boys who never have
> dirty fingernails are probably overweight.)
>
>
> -7. They tell kids to be active, and then suggest they not go outside
> between the hours of 10 am and 6 pm. (pp 34-35). We don't live on Mars.
> It is natural for kids to be playing outside during these hours.
>
>
may be quoted inmay be quoted in%> -8. They never mentioned how to identify a rabid dog, and what to do;
> and many other things that kids should know. Especially those who play
> outside. It seems the authors haven't spent much time outside as kids,
> and thus don't know who to tell kids what to watch out for.
>
>
> +/-9. The second grade text had a better section on avoiding danger. The
> third grade text had a poorly done section on avoiding “risk”.
> Apparently Rousseau's Emil was not a source for this text. What about
> astronauts? What about my son's three cousins fighting for what they
> believe in Iraq? No it is not the case that people avoid risk in all
> cases. One should avoid frivolous risks, not ones meaningful to a
> person. Boys often take more risks than girls when playing sports and
> games outside. Hence, this chapter was gender biased also. The message
> was that boys and extroverts in general should not exercise in ways that
> are natural to them.
>
>
> ---
>
>
> I think points 5, 6 and 7 fly in contrast to the oral introduction given
> about these health books addressing a period of an explosion in obesity.
> It appears that introduction was given to us more to compensate for the
> lack of the topic being covered in the book than anything else. In fact,
> these books are biased against activity, boy play, and rural life. The
> content given would aggravate the obesity problem.
>
>
> I would also remark, it seems silly to show pictures of fine food,
> stress the importance of eating it, and then run the kids into the
> cafeteria for reheated fried fish sticks and chocolate milk, with a
> slice of carrot or corn syrup apple sauce. In addition it seems funny to
> stress activity in a textbook for a system that only gives kids two
> hours of exercise a week and playing field games is an option in an
> after school program once a week. Who are we kidding? This is not
> establishing activity habits, and kids will see the contradiction and
> dismiss any text.
>
>
>
>
> In my humble opinion,
>
>
> -tom
>
>
>
>
Received on Tue Oct 12 14:03:04 2004