Huh.

Why? It’s because health officials in Howard County convinced the local government that teenagers are at too high a risk for melanoma and other types of skin cancer, and therefore shouldn’t expose themselves to indoor tanning. While one can argue that yes, tanning beds do increase the likelihood of getting cancer, banning our youngsters from going to tanning salons is not the right thing to do.

The ban, which takes effect today, means that teenagers who want to look like they went to Florida in the middle of January will have to either settle for pale skin this winter, or seek un-conventional methods of getting an artificial tan. All because it wouldn’t be nice to expose them to harmful rays. (Maybe Howard County would like to legislate which hours teenagers can be outside in summer, too.)

Now, this is exactly one more example of government intervention where it shouldn’t be intervening at all. The government — local, state and national — should promote healthy living and let us know what’s out there, in terms of maintaining a healthy lifestyle. But banning us from doing something like going to a tanning salon is nonsense. If 16-year-old Jane Q. Public wants to strap on her bikini and go to a tanning salon, that’s her business. (Heck, if 60-year-old Jane wants to do the same thing, that’s her business, too. Who am I to judge?) Aside from parents, who’s to say she has no right to do that?

I myself don’t frequent tanning salons, and thus have never been in a bed. (Whether by natural or artificial UV light, the results aren’t pretty.) But from what I understand from friends who do go to them, the salons give potential tanners a heads up that, yes, the lights are potentially harmful. And then it is up to the customers to decide whether or not they want to go forward and get a tan.

The bottom line is, people are smart enough to decide for themselves whether or not they want a tan. And they’re smart enough to do some research about salons, artificial tanning in general, the health risks, and decide if the pros outweigh the cons. Putting a ban on people under 18 from tanning won’t resolve anything. It’s just like underage smoking…teenagers who want to smoke are still going to get cigarettes. Most teens are taught — at an early age — the dangers of smoking and the consequences on the human body. But they choose to light up anyway.

Who’s to say that teenagers (and indeed, anyone really) wouldn’t go try and find some sort of underground method of getting their tan? They might know someone who knows someone who has a cheap, black-market kind of tanning bed, and get some artificial rays that way. Now, assuming this underground salon doesn’t know what they’re doing and has sub-standard beds, etc., isn’t that more dangerous for our kinds than for them to go to a “professional” salon?

Besides, in addition to all of these questions, I have yet another, this one directed at an institution we call government: Don’t you have more important things to worry about? Whether you’re in a local town, a state capital or Washington, methinks the answer to that question is “yes.” There are staggering debts everywhere, which we’re expecting our grandchildren’s grandchildren to pay off. There’s talk about nationalizing healthcare, which the House of Representatives gleefully voted “yes” to last weekend like the cat that just ate the canary. There are our brave men and women in uniform, fighting overseas for reasons we’re not really sure about, and some people are trying to figure whether or not we should bring them home.

These issues aren’t just for the seemingly far-off folks on Capitol Hill; they touch us closer to home also…including those in Howard County. I would guess these topics would carry more urgency than putting a simple ban on underage tanning.

If anything, the teenagers of Howard County, Maryland ought to use this issue as a civics lesson. It’s classic example of how government works…err, doesn’t work. And they ought to follow the example from their older fellow Americans across the country, who’ve hosted many a town hall debate about healthcare over the last few months. Why not host a town hall with their local officials and get this law overturned? This is America, the last time I checked. We CAN repeal laws…look at how we used the 21st Amendment to repeal the 18th.

Also, this should serve as a warning to those same teenagers that government likes to slowly slither its way into our private lives and try to control them, one little bit at a time. Next thing you know, it’ll write laws forbidding grocery stores to sell candy and other types of junk food. Or requiring people to only drive their cars are certain hours of the day. Need I go further with my examples?

It’s just a bad idea to ban those under 18 from using tanning beds…in Howard County or any other locale. It’s just another example of government extending itself, and it doesn’t promote personal responsibility on the part of the private citizen.

Sincerely,
Adam Hopkins

November 12, 2009

Tanning Ban Is More Than Skin Deep in Restricting Rights was originally featured on Whiskey and Gunpowder. Visit Laissez Faire Books for the best selection of libertarian book titles.

Someone wrote in arguing that countries like China, India and Japan ought not to be used for role models in reforming America’s education system. The point is that the styles used in those nations focus on rote learning, and there’s also a very high-average standard.

Someone else wrote in lamenting the lack of self-control most public students have when they’re in the classroom…and the parents who endorse such behavior. This readers point was that, if students would be quiet, sit still and listen to their teachers (and if parents would enforce discipline at home), our country wouldn’t be facing the education deficit it is now.

And yet, another reader chimed in with the belief that all of the above suggestions, plus mine from my article, should be combined together to solve the problem.

So Here’s Where We Start

As I mentioned in my previous article, the United States has a long way to go in order to catch up with the educational standards of countries such as China, India and Japan. These three nations and others consistently rank ahead of our in terms of student tests results and overall readiness for working in the “real world” upon graduating high school. One of the things most Asian countries such as these are well known for is what’s known as “rote learning.” For those who don’t know, rote learning makes students learn various facts, figures, etc. through rapid repetition. The idea is to get Johnny and Janey Q. American, Jr. to memorize and memorize more…as some critics would point out, at the expense of understanding.

If all rote learning involves is rapid, intense memorization, then why teach our children that way? Some of you might be asking, “Why do we even want to be like China anyway?” The answer is this: Frankly, we can’t get much worse than what we are now! It’s sad to think, whenever I flick on the ion bombardment tube at home (otherwise known as a television) and I see these so-called “reality” game shows, the lack of common knowledge so many of these contestants have. It shames me to think how many of my fellow countrymen don’t know that George Washington is the first president of the United States, or what the Pythagorean Theorem is, or that the human heart is a muscle, or that the sun is a star.

It’s time we get back to the basics, so to speak, and get our students to actually have some kind of working knowledge of these and other facts and figures. And it’s also time we get Little Johnny and Janey American, Jr. some kind of appreciation for their natural sense of creativity…the kind of creativity which has allowed American ingenuity to lead the world for so long.

Package the Lessons, Not the Students

So with all that said, I’d like to take a few moments to expand on the American Renaissance. Or, at least the points I made about it in the last article. I stand by my points that we need a greater appreciation of the fine arts in American public education. There’s certainly not enough of it taught, and certainly no attempt to correlate it to math, science, history, etc.

On top of limited instruction of the visual and performing arts, one of the biggest problems with our education system is how our students are just moved through grades 1-12 as if they were manufactured goods in a factory. Little Johnny and Janey go through inspections at the end of each grade and receive either a “pass” or “fail” grade. If they receive the latter, they’re usually sent back to repeat that grade…or, sometimes, they factory just ships them out to the department stores of life, just hoping someone will buy them and overlook the students’ defaults. Most of the time, these shortcomings are not the factory workers’ (i.e., teachers) faults, but rather a broken down factory process that simply wouldn’t allow for some personal attention to make the final product better.

If you want a good product, you have to give it some individual attention. It requires catering to that products individual needs…perhaps taking some extra time with it…and even changing the process in the factory if enough manufactured products keeps coming out unprepared for the marketplace. Likewise, our education system’s negligence (sparked by Uncle Sam’s ineptitude) has pushed through many, many fine students who are not ready to compete in the global marketplace. Johnny and Janey American need an education that’ll tailor not only to their specific needs, but also their personal interests. And that’s how we can make the Renaissance practical…

No Place Like Home

I’ll concede my plans for the Renaissance are best utilized in a system where the students accept responsibility — and the parents enforce it. In any society, the schooling is only as good as the parents and guardians who get involved in their children’s education. I say, shame on the parents who don’t care about their kids’ futures. And some people might make the argument that parents can provide extracurricular activities in the fine arts if they wish to do so. But then again, they could also just shove Johnny and Janey American Jr. into some math camp, too.

My point is this: A lot of parents out there really do try hard to teach their kids right and wrong. Some are more successful at it than others. There are some kids out there that just flat out don’t want to learn, no matter how tough their parents are about getting an education, and these kids will just act up. And let’s be brutally honest about our media… They only report on the bad things — the sensational stories, the ones that drive up ratings and get people talking. The stories about Little Johnny becoming an Eagle Scout and Little Janey winning first place in the local science fair contest aren’t gonna cut it. But I digress…

So the American Renaissance is all about improving education in more areas than just one. An awakening to the visual and performing arts will be the central theme of it all, no question. This revival can only come with reforming our education system so that students can see just how different lessons in the academic subjects relate to their own lives…and inspire them to grow. It requires discipline on both the childrens’ and parents’ parts—and for Uncle Sam to just stop overburdening teachers with having to teach to ridiculous standards. But the Renaissance can be achieved. And so can Johnny and Janey American Jr.’s success.

Sincerely,
Adam Hopkins

April 22, 2009

A New Kind of Rote Learning was originally featured on Whiskey and Gunpowder. Visit Laissez Faire Books for the best selection of libertarian book titles.

So while Mr. Obama takes his teleprompter overseas to explain how this “change” will positively affect the lives of everyone, everywhere, we here in American still face rising gas prices, healthcare costs and a busted real estate market. But all of those pale in comparison to the greatest deficit we’ve got to pay back — one that hardly anyone wishes to talk about: The education deficit.

Hardly anyone’s talking about it because this is the kind of debt you can’t measure in mere dollars. But you CAN measure it in sense…and right now, the U.S. Government isn’t making much of it at all. The education deficit we’re rolling up right now is leaving one heck of a mess for our children, and their children and the next several generations ahead of them. Education is one of those backburner issues for most politicians — the kind they only speak of at election time, and even then they talk about how they’re going to make it better, without talking specifics.

But anyone who has or knows children in our country’s public education system knows darn well about its shortcomings. We take little Johnny American Jr. and set him in a kindergarten classroom at age five and expect him to learn his alphabet. Then we push him on through grades 1-12 giving him scores of written tests on all the basics of math, science and history — after forcing him to robotically memorize fact after fact after fact, rarely ever giving him a chance to ask the big question: “Why?” I could take it a step further: Why are these facts the way they are? How do they connect to me personally?

Our kids aren’t given the answer as to why. Rarely are they even given a chance to put different historical events together and figure out how they connect to each other, and to the present. Math and science are taught straight up, factually and logically, from their textbooks. The great scientists of the past often engaged each other in rugged, hard-fought debate over the laws of nature and their affects on this world… But our high school curricula don’t give Junior the opportunity to do the same. And the greatest tragedy would be, if he grows up to be the next Isaac Newton and doesn’t even get to realize his potential, much less use it.

Just think, the middle schooler living next door could be a future Albert Einstein, Benjamin Carson, Warren Buffett or even a future president. (I’m talking about the type our Founding Fathers envisioned, not someone who follows in the footsteps of every White House occupant over the last half century.) But we don’t let these future leaders explore how what they’re learning in the classroom relates to world events. Nor do we — because we’re too busy force-feeding them with bland “facts” — let them explore their inner creativity to the point where they can appreciate what it takes to be the next Einstein, et al. We’re put the next several generations of Americans in a huge deficit…and not the kind Washington seems interested in bailing out.

Coping with the Intangible Deficit

As I said earlier, Congress is busy spending more and more money everyday, without any care to the monetary deficit we everyday Americans have to pay for. And part of this spending involves throwing more money at all kinds of park-barrel projects…everything from fighting crime to improving infrastructure to ensuring Johnny American Jr. gets a decent education. If throwing money at the problem were all there was to it, we’d have nicked this education deficit decades ago. Ah, but our congressional delegates don’t realize (or don’t care) that more greenbacks don’t equate to better education children (and more productive working adults).

So what are we left with, then? American kids who are dumbstruck in the face of their generational counterparts from places like Finland and Japan. Depending on where you get your news from, we’re falling behind “emerging market” countries like China and India — and even some other Third World countries — in terms of getting our high schoolers to graduate on time. And the thing to note is, these kids aren’t going to get more competitive just from Congress throwing more money at the problem. No, we need a total reform of the education system altogether.

What I’m talking about here, is a renaissance… The American Renaissance. Yes, a rebirth of thinking and appreciation of learning. And this is one area where we can actually take a good lesson from our so-called allies in Europe. Just read the history books and see what happened over there during the 15th and 16th centuries…a greater appreciation of the fine arts and new scientific achievements.

I think it’s no coincidence the most talented artists of the European Renaissance were also some of the era’s most adept scientists, engineers and architects. One can only imagine what this world would be like without Leonardo da Vinci’s scientific endeavors. Not only did he paint for us The Mona Lisa and The Last Supper, he also made bold attempts to understand human anatomy and physiology. Plus, da Vinci designed the ornithopter (a precursor for the helicopter), the machine gun and even an armored car. As for other forward-thinking minds, Michelangelo painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel; but what a lot of people don’t appreciate about him was how he and his assistants designed a brilliant scheme in architecture to hold him in place, far above the ground, while he labored for four years to make his masterpiece.

So what do all of these Renaissance artists and thinkers have to do with Obama’s agenda? Absolutely nothing! And thank goodness, that’s the best part. They DO, however, have something to do with what we Americans need to do to get out of the education deficit. For too long, our education system has focused on solely reading and writing and ‘rithmetic, just spitting them out to our children and hoping they get it without question, and expecting to just grow up and do something with their lives. All the while, states have cut back on requirements for the visual and performing arts, to the point where high schoolers are required to take only one art or music class in order to graduate.

Coming from a high school program where the visual and performing arts were emphasized and admired, I got very blessed with my education. I’m one of the lucky ones. I might not have been valedictorian of my graduating class, but I got to explore a creative side of me that, I dare say, has been an asset to me throughout my young career thus far.

And Uncle Sam wonders why our high school graduates lag so far behind our rivals in Europe, Asia and elsewhere…

We’ve Had Our Revolution; Let’s Have Our Renaissance

So how do we implement this American Renaissance? Well, believe it or not, folks, it doesn’t require any extra money spent at all. Not by Uncle Sam, not by the state and local governments. Not by lobbyists and event not by concerned parents and teachers.

What we need is to stop holding our teachers back and let them spend more time helping little Johnny and Janey relate various academic subjects to their individual experiences and interests. Government regulations have our teachers’ hands tied behind their backs, as they’re forced to teach the curriculum to fit any given test. But does teaching to the test — and even passing said test — make the student a brighter, more competitive component of the American economic engine? I don’t think so.

That’s where the arts come into play. We need more classes in the visual and performing arts. Johnny American Jr. needs to grow and nurture his sense of creativity — through painting a still life and/or singing in the spring concert — as much as he needs to learn his ABCs and how to multiply two times two. Several studies show students who take an interest in the arts do much better in other academic areas of study than those students who don’t. It’ll also get him away from the books long enough to see that he can think and do for himself, and show other people just how he interprets the world and expresses himself.

With that said, art and music teachers can work in concert with instructors of other academic subjects to show our youngsters how the arts relate to other areas of learning. Basically, we need to nurture that sense of self-growth and creative development. And the best way to do that is to let our students show they can be creative in the way they come to conclusions about various debatable topics. Now, I’m no scientist, but who’s to say that Newtonian Physics is the end-all, be-all for all scientific study? What if there’s some other kind of force out there, that we don’t know about or understand, and we need to figure out how best to use it? Wouldn’t be nice if the next generation of Americans were out on the front lines, developing ways to improve our quality of life to fit this new force of nature? And there are some mathematical problems out there we just can’t solve at this time with trigonometry or calculus… Ought we not to instill some sort of appreciation of the arts in our kids now, so they can have the creative minds to figure out new formulas for solving these problems?

But the biggest question I ask you is this: Do you want America to be competitive again? I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of seeing us lag behind China and India in the number of students we graduate from high school each year…and the number of students who are actually ready to become productive members of their nation’s workforce. I’m tired of seeing our teachers distraught by having Uncle Sam and various state regulators holding them back, thus holding little Johnny and Janey American back. I’m tired of seeing them have to teach to the test…and seeing the government dumb down standards for learning, which only hurts our youngsters in the long run.

I want to see the next generation of Americans be creative and original in their thinking. I want them to appreciate the connection between the past and present…and between art and math and music and science. In order for that to happen, the Fed needs to get out of the way and let teachers and administrators do what they do best…educate our children! Certainly our students can learn much more from their instructors in a growth-inspired, artistic-driven environment than from a set of cold, distant government standards…many of which have no practical application to what’s happening in little Johnny’s community, by the way.

So as President Obama makes the people of Europe all giddy (at least those other than the London protestors), he ought to think about bringing forth the American Renaissance here at home. Now that would truly be change we could all believe in.

Sincerely,
Adam Hopkins

April 2, 2009

Bring Forth the American Renaissance! was originally featured on Whiskey and Gunpowder. Visit Laissez Faire Books for the best selection of libertarian book titles.