Violent movies and vidos gmaes contitbute to violent youth

                                  Violent movies and vidos gmaes contitbute to violent youth

        Within the pasy two weeks, I have seen three movies. On very good family oriented movie ("Mary Poppins Returns), One comedy that was so bad that people actually began to walk out, *"Holmes and Watson"), and as of today, a rellay good suspense/action movie. ("Escape Room"). However, my commentary here is not about the qaulity of these movies. Rather, it concerns the quality and qauntity of violent movies that our youth are being exposed to nowadays. I am not so prudish that I do not understand horroe movies. When I was ten years old, I begged my mother to allow me to watch "Jaws,' and "Pirannah.' My friends and I in high school watched Freddie Kruger, and Jason main hordes of people in "Nightmare on Elm Street,' and in "Halloween." So, I understand the attraction.

           However, times have chnaged and the movies have gotten worse, and ar ebeing advertised to younger audiences with rating of "PG' and "PG-13." Virtually everyone of these movies  has as protafanist an adolescent or teenager, brandsining a gun, sword, knife, bomb, etc., while killing others, incuding family members, in the process. The perfect examples of this are pet Semetary, base don the Stephen King novel, and "Prodigy," which is advertised as being bought to by the creators of "The omen." Based on the trailer for this particular movie, it uses basically the same plot. Those of us of certian age know how this movie ends. \The child murders his family.

         As a writer journalsit, community adovcate, someone who works with thin the school system, and concerned uncle, this not only bothers, but scares me. How are we to prevent chidlren form murdering their parents, and shooting up classrooms, when we have movies showing protagonists who the same age sof our teenagers, doing the same thing. Not only that, but portraying them as heroes. There is one movie, in which a kid being bullied at school, pulls out the sword excalibur, and saves the world, nd of course there is violencein it. However this is not what I am referring to here. Rather, i ma referring to a movie such a "Prodigy' that takes a six year old genuis child, whose family is running form him, because he is a psychopathic kid, and end the railer by the kids sneaking up on his mother in in bed, and says to her: "Mommy, will you love me no matter, what I do,"as a look of fear overtakes her.

       Unfortunately, we no longer live in a time in which parents are there for their kids. Even in well-off suburban families, teenegaers are given all the material things in life, but no affection or bounidries. (examples: The Menendez Brothers, and Keibold and Harris shooting up columbine in the 1990s. Excpet twent years later it has escalated to something that is no longer the occasiona anomally, but something on the nightly news so much that no one sees it as unusual anymore. On top of that, we have violent vido games that encourage young people to shoot human looking characters in a matter of seodns to get to the nex level.

        Yes, guns are a problem, and we need  backgorund checks. However, every teenager has gotten his gun from his parent;s gun rack. We have more resource offficer than guidcne counselor in schools, and one of the aspects of every shooter drill is tomake sure cell phones are not in use, because it could set off a homemade explosive. Question: Where are students getting these ideas? The movies? At the very least susch movies are leading our youth to look this stuff up on the internet.

     As a writer, I am against government censorship. As concerned citizen I am for repsonsible parenting, and that includes not allowing your kids to see these vioelnt movies, and purchaisng these violent video games. It also means picketing these movies studioes putting out this stuff,as much as we pciket any gun show or "NRA" gathering.

New South Carolina Secretary of Education needs to also hold parents accountable

ZAIS NEEDS TO HOLD PARENTS JUST AS ACCOUNTBLE FOR STUDENT SUCCESS

BY: Keith H. Seymour-Contributing Editor

SCHotline.com

First, I should preface my remarks by objectively pointing out that while Secretary Zais' success in raising the academic standing of Newberry College, may go unchallenged, it is only fair to also point out that South Carolina's new Secretary of Education has no experience in dealing with pre-college students or their parents and teachers, except from personal experience in his own role as a parent. These points are not raised to discredit Secretary Zais or his plans to improve education in South Carolina, but to merely allow the reader to make an educated and objective judgment in regards to them, and any related comments made in this editorial.

Recently, South Carolina's new State Superintendent of Education, Mick Zais, a former Army General, who as a college president rescued that same college from being a poor performing college to what many have referred to as a college revered for academic excellence, released a statement on how he plans to raise public education standard in South Carolina.

Specifically, Secretary Zais, would like to pay teachers based on merit rather than their credentials. For example, a teacher will not merely get paid because that teacher has a degree and several years of experience in teaching the subject matter, but on how well that teacher;s students do in the areas of grades and graduation rates. While Secretary Zais' reasoning of of weeding out the bad teachers is certainly justifiable, he need to put the success of South Carolina's public school system into proper perspective by holding parents equally accountable for their children's success. Otherwise he will end up hurting South Carolina's Education system more that it helps.

Since Mr. Zais has no experience working within the public school system, or even with teachers, students, and teachers outside of a collegiate environment, he would be best advised to remember that

any educator, social worker or parent worth his or her salt will admit that good education not only begins, but is reinforced at home. As a matter of fact, this is why many parents and experts feel that home schooling. Magnet schools, and virtual schools have becoming increasing popular over the years.

The fact is a teacher can do everything that he or she needs to to make sure that students are academically successful, but if parents are not reinforcing those efforts through active involvement with the school system teacher, and child, those efforts are going to have a limited an even non-existent positive effect on the student's educational success.

Many parents will even use the excuse that it is inconvenient for them to attend a quarterly parent teacher-conference and are unable to find a combined three or four hours a months to attend a school board meeting, or PTO/PTA meeting, because they already spending an extra 20 or more hours a week taking their kids to extra-curricular activities, in the name of making sure that child is well-rounded, and academically competitive.

If Secretary Zais plans to hold parents accountable for being involved in their children;s educations, how does he plan to do so? He can't make their involvement mandatory. He can't fire them, or affect their paychecks. These are issues Secretary Zais needs to also address in order to improve our state's public school rankings.