Welcome
September, 2008
Dear Parents & Students,
As my parents have aged into their mid 80’s, it has become increasingly important for me to try to understand them and the forces which shaped their lives. I have read a host of books including The 
Greatest Generation, Citizen Soldier, and The Good War. My Dad has written extensively about his childhood, his parents, chronicling our family story and his reflections about life. We visited the towns and homesteads of their youth and had conversations about the forces that impacted them as they grew up.
Raised during the depression, my parents didn’t often give us much because they didn’t have much to give us, but they never failed to give us what we NEEDED. My Dad said “no” to our requests so often that we stopped asking him and went to Mom instead, and she, of course, would say, “Well, better ask your father.” Ugh! Now, I think they were a brilliant, tight-knit partnership. They knew that what we NEEDED didn’t require a purchase. We needed what all children need – love, attention, discipline, order, commitment, praise, role models, consequences, hard work, and value for hard work and honesty.
Today, we live in a society that is characterized by an overload of information, a convenience orientation, overwhelming materialism, complicated schedules, and demand for perfection and immediacy. Consider email; it facilitates communication, but places demands of immediacy on us which complicates and intrudes on our work.
America’s “Greatest Generation” faced pressures we cannot imagine, but there seemed to be an ebb and flow to their challenges. Today’s parents face pressures that seems to be constant, unceasing, and I wonder if we have bought into the convenience notion that we can take care of our children’s NEEDS, by giving them what they WANT.
America’s “Greatest Generation” faced pressures we cannot imagine, but there seemed to be an ebb and flow to their challenges. Today’s parents face pressures that seems to be constant, unceasing, and I wonder if we have bought into the convenience notion that we can take care of our children’s NEEDS, by giving them what they WANT.
In many ways our culture is hostile to children and hostile to parenting children. When our children were 9 and 11, we took them to see the movie “October Sky,” a wonderful movie with a PG rating (and a terrific story based on Homer Hickum’s book.) Unfortunately, we had to sit through the previews, which contained scenes from an R rated movie entitled “Seduction”. We expressed our concern to the manager afterward.
Messages of customer orientation, convenience, and immediacy are popular but carry hidden messages and costs. I’m not surprised by road rage when we have instances of grocery store rage! We want what we want when we want it. We think “me and mine” before “you and yours”. Are patience, sacrifice, kindness and helpfulness virtues because they are so important or because they seem to be so rare?
There is a message of hope here. I see Good Samaritan acts of kindness and sacrifice to sustain my belief and hope for “our generation” and the younger one. I see teachers, staff, parents, and students, demonstrating honesty, integrity, courtesy, kindness, sacrifice, hard work, diligence, civic mindedness, and responsibility everyday at Jones. I think remembering the things that children NEED, and being able to distinguish it from what they WANT, will help bring about the changes we all want to see in the world! We remain committed to make sure that what is NEEDED, will be provided at Jones Middle School, regardless of any changes in the future.
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Boys Basketball
