June 4, 2025 • 46 mins
Mama Bear musings this hour over Men in Girls Sports (yes, that's still a thing, don't think for a minute that the mentally ill sheep are giving this up) and Grading for Equity in SF. Sigh. The pressure cooker still steams here on this planet. We are two steps forward and several steps back it seems. And enrollment seems to be down at CSU campuses (I wonder why?) so we look at a new bill that aims to streamline pushing everyone into the sticky arms of COLLEGE. Sigh, again.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:09):
The California Mama Bears have been forced out of hibernation.
Fierce guardians of our future. Mama Bear's fight for parents' rights,
defense of the family, and God given freedoms everywhere you're
listening to Mama Bear's Radio with your host, The New Normal,
(00:31):
Kristin Hurley.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
All right, everyone, our number two of Mama Bear's Radio,
Kristin Hurley here, safe and effective radio. No jabs in
your arms, that is just jabs to your ears, jabs
to your sensibilities. I guess, well, welcome back. So our
number one was fantastic, fast and fantastic, fast and furious.
(01:02):
My guest, Brenda Waybright again Pregnancy Resource Center. As a whole,
we didn't really even talk much about the organization here
in town, support for families for women before, during, and
after pregnancy. I encourage everyone to reach out if that's
you and some part of journey of your life. The
PRC an amazing group of people, and again Brenda is
(01:26):
sort of their outward bound education coordinator Lady whatever her
title is, she didn't really have one, but she again
lifts up our community in really cool ways and she
goes into the classrooms around the county educates kids, says
the tough things. I mean, I was looking at her
(01:46):
sort of slide deck that she brings in the classrooms.
It's a couple hours worth of information and it's tough topics,
and it's stuff that like teachers don't necessarily want to
talk about, parents don't necessarily want to talk about myself included,
But somebody's got to say it and support kids in
their rough and tumble journey. Here is teens, and she
(02:08):
was saying, you know, we have to face facts that
nine year olds are looking at porn online. It's easy,
it's accessible, it's pervasive, it's everywhere. What do we do
about it. It's a little bit of picking up the
pieces at this point and learning the burnt hand is
the teaching hand, we say in the early household, and
(02:31):
our burnt society ideally is the teaching society. So we
all need to pitch in. I really appreciate the work
that she does and et cetera. So as I said
first hour, at the very beginning, it's end. You know,
school's out, end of season, graduation season for some and
just another year for some others. It is definitely the
(02:56):
something's in the air springtime you can feel it changes
in the air, and so in my family, in particular,
my last little one graduated high school. I know, I've
been talking about it for weeks. It's really hitting yours, truly,
Mama Bear's radio. I'm not kidding, guys. I just have
been rather just head down to the wind in front
(03:19):
of the freight train for all these years. And I
know everybody relates to that. It's just like, get through
the day and get your you know, get her done,
and accomplish accomplished. We're work horses, we're raising our kids
and then poof, poof, poof, it's done. Of course, parenting's
never over with, as I know from my older ones,
(03:40):
but still it is a sort of a poignant moment.
I know I'm not alone out there this year. And
what compounded things for me over this weekend crazily enough,
if I'm a digress, my husband unearthed a number of
pictures and videos, a bunch of old files from some
(04:00):
I don't know, some hard drive he was going through
for something and handed me a USB stick of picture,
Like I said, pictures and a ton of video from
when the kids were much younger and like babies. And
then my older ones as little toddlers, and another baby
in my arms, and some early years really that you know,
(04:23):
maybe I have a picture of two or two of
that framed around the house or in a book or
something like that, largely tucked away in the recesses of
my busy brain, but I cannot tell you. Last night,
watching with in fact, my kids all sitting around, we
put it up on the big screen and we were
(04:43):
watching and like my five year old, my son is five,
and my other one is three, and then my newborn,
my third one, and the cute little home life scenario.
My house in the background is a total disaster, toys everywhere,
(05:04):
laundry on the couch, me and my nursing chair nursing
the squalling baby while the other two are running around,
shrieking and making noise. And it really was just quite
a moment for me. And I intend to go back
and watch those videos and really really reawaken those memories,
(05:25):
because I think my point being Kristen gets to the
point is the years are precious, and the family life
and the young babies are just so stinkin' precious in life.
And you know, if you think about what's my life
work like life's work. What am I even doing here?
You know, your deeper, deeper, pensive questions that you get
(05:47):
when you hit fifty. Those memories are in there. It's
tucked away those years happened. It begs remembering, it begs cherishing,
and it begs helping to I suppose pass along to
the new parents and new moms and young things that
how precious family life and children having children are. I
(06:12):
suppose the next step down that line is like we'll shoot,
you know. And Brenda and I were even talking about this,
like maybe kids are hooking up, but relationships are suffering
these days for young young people. Actual sexual relations are suffering,
sperm counseler down, you know, you name it. And I'd
(06:37):
hate to see us fall away from what really boils
down to just being the most cherishable moments that we
get to have here on earth. All right, Well, there's
your Mama Bear's musings here. I don't want to get
too pensive and Tierry and Dewey eyed over this, but
interesting times. And I just suppose I'm, you know, feel
(07:01):
like I'm not the only one out there. Of course,
our nation's been going through just a heck of a
couple of years here more than a couple At this point.
We really are in brave new world times. We've all
shared that together, and I don't know if time moves on.
So my blessings to everybody out there is school is
(07:23):
ending for this year, in whatever form or shape that
takes for you and your family, and let's pull off
a really cool summer. An. I have a piece here
advice for the class of twenty twenty five I was
going to get into maybe in a little bit. I
actually it made me think, like, well, okay, well you know,
if I had Mama Bear's radio advice for the class
of twenty twenty five, what would it be. I have
(07:45):
a couple of gems Mama Bear's style. Maybe nothing I
can say over the airwaves, but at any rate, we'll
get to that in a little bit. As usual, everyone,
my little cup runneth over here for stuff to talk about.
Where do I even start? I might get the yucky
(08:08):
out of the way first, and then run myself into
my first break and then try and ta get back
up hill after that. I think in the news, as
we've noticed, it's the end of the school year, and
of course that means end of the year. Sporting events,
contests wrapping up finals and state championships and all that,
and in the news there's been a ton of discussion
(08:33):
about the fact that there are still boys winning girls
sporting contests throughout the state. The people who think this
is a great idea are continuing to pursue this aim,
and I think over the weekend there were one or
two events statewide where there was a guy up on
(08:57):
the podium take the place of a girl and her
right to be there for something she'd worked so hard for.
And in our current bizarro world here and again, this
is something that resonates with absolutely everyone, except for a
(09:18):
minor few people that I want to be polite are
just mentally ill in a certain way and are either
denying reality or just are living in a bizarro world
reality to where this is okay, and the rest of us,
meaning the darn well majority of us, are no longer
(09:43):
going to just sit back and accept someone else's bizarre
view of the world. Over this trans women athletes quote
unquote competing in women's sports and dominating, even physically harming
female athletes, men claiming to be women in women's bathrooms
and locker rooms in college dormitories and adults working in
(10:07):
California's education system. This is an article from the California
Globe from Katie Grimes are forcing compliance on the young
females impacted the most so trans High school athlete Aby Hernandez,
a biological male, just won two major events at the
California girls Track and Field state meet this weekend, robbing
(10:28):
female athletes of these wins. The San Francisco Chronicle wrote
an egregious, shameless headline on this topic. Quote trans athlete
embraced as California track and field champion by peers, while
adult activists duel. I love how it's so twisted around.
(10:54):
The trans athlete is embraced while the activists fight in
the background, is what they're saying, And the real story
should be that female athletes had their victories stolen from
them by males wearing makeup and dresses. I don't know
if you all saw the video of it. Was the
(11:16):
mom of this so called trans athlete, this boy competing
in girls' sports rabidly, rabidly barking and being aggressive towards
the other moms in the crowd who were speaking up
about it and trying to say to her like, what
are you thinking? What is going on? And this mom
(11:38):
was darn well just furious and angry at these other
moms for even trying to call her out. I do
want to mention two bills to disallow trans athletes from
competing in girls and women's sports. This is AB eighty
nine and eight forty four were heard in April and
the California Assembly Arts, Entertainment, Sports and Tourism Committee, and
(12:02):
they were killed by Democrats, but only after blaming President
Donald Trump DOJE and those calling those supporting the bill nazis.
So if you support an uphold Title nine, according to
California Democrats, you're a Nazi. And there's high school and
university officials looking the other way on this. At some
(12:27):
point we're going to have to reconcile and come to
terms with this. I know the federal government is I
don't want to say on the war path, but working
to right these wrongs in states that are persisting with
this in California is among those so to be continued.
It breaks my heart that we are even having to
(12:49):
fight over this, that this is a big content contentious
problem in society today where we have to sit and
pretend like the elephant in the room that that's not
a boy, that's a girl. Oh really, I just can't
believe the depths to which we've sunk that this is
(13:11):
a big defining issue. It breaks my heart for the
girls on the field in these competitions that have worked
super hard to be this competitive and have these wonderful
achievements under their belt and being robbed of the rightful
place on the podium. Come on, people, I'd like, I
(13:36):
almost don't even know what to say about this anymore.
But it's still happening. I suppose my point for bringing
this up is it's still happening. The state is looking
the other way. School officials are looking the other way,
these sports organizations are looking the other way. And it's
about darnwell time that this ends in California. We've got
to get our heads on straight. I do want I
(13:59):
did want to mention act this is interesting in this
article from the California Globe, and then I will go
to break I promise. But at UC Davis, eighteen hundred
students identify as transgender. Now I don't know what the
(14:19):
total student population is of UC Davis. This is a
tweet from Beth Born This is mentioned in the Californy
Globe article. She says, here's my expose and how we
got to over eighteen hundred students at UC Davis identifying
as transgender. The entire institution is set up so vulnerable
kids fall into the trans pipeline from social transition to
(14:41):
medical transition. You see Davis free gender affirming breastbinders for
women and braws for men courtesy of the UC Davis
LGBTQ Resource Center. Free free legal quote, gender marker and
name changes. You see Davis School of Law, free wrong
(15:04):
sex hormones administered by first and second year students at
You see Davis School of Medicine. What yes, that's a thing.
Free free sex change surgeries at the UC Davis Medical Center.
You see Davis awarded a perfect score for transitioning students
(15:25):
by the Human Rights Campaign. And if you voice concerns,
your labeled transphobic, hateful, bigoted by the UC Davis Diversity Office.
And I'll close this segment just by saying, Matt Walsh
of what is a woman fame? It sums it all up.
(15:48):
We can't say it better. And he told California lawmakers
who promote all this stuff still in April. Quote. If
you would use the force of law to compel young
girls to is a changing room with a boy, you
are yourselves predators. Transgenderism is a lie. It is such
a deranged lie that man ever invented in a free country.
(16:12):
Nobody should ever be forced to participate in a lie.
As lawmakers, you have an obligation to the truth. It
is a truth you will all recognize because every human
who has ever lived on earth recognizes it that men
are men and women are women. And it is that simple.
And I just want to reiterate this. Transgenderism is a lie.
(16:34):
It is such a deranged lie that man ever invented
in a free country. Nobody should ever be forced to
participate in this lie. And as law as lawmakers, you
have an obligation to the truth. So by extension, can
we all please just put our little feet down and
knock this off for our young women, our young our
(16:56):
young adults are that have to live in the face
of this bizarre world lie that our esteemed leaders are
still forcing down everyone's throats. And it's times like these
weekends the state championships, when they're allowing a boy to
(17:17):
get up on the podium and be heralded for winning
the competition, and everyone else has to go along with
it and pretend it's just fine. This is not the
Twilight Zone, people, This is Earth, all right. Here we go.
I should chatted my way through my first break. We
will get that done when I come back. Oh, San Francisco,
(17:41):
San Francisco Education. We're gonna talk San Francisco's schools. They
tried to pull a fast one last week and they
actually got so much grief over it that they have
walked it back. All right, so we'll break that down.
This is Mama Bear's Radio. Kristin Hurley here. I will
take my break and be right back Mama Bear's Radio.
(18:02):
We'll be right back. Sign of the Times. I was
(18:25):
such a Prince fan when I was younger, and it's
just such great music. All right, everybody, safe and effective radio.
Here we are Mama Bear's Radio. Careeming through my second
hour for today. Stay tuned as I will be running
downstairs with the bomb shelter for our school's at drivetime
show from four to six, and then at six o'clock
(18:47):
we have the Surfsgate City Talk Show with Henry Michelle.
Here at kom Y all sorts of good stuff. We're
adding new shows, if I may say, we have a
Beachside Tech Talk show now at eleven o'clock Monday through Friday,
in between the Dave Ramsey Show and our American Stories
and today they Ian Utilly is the host of that
(19:11):
Beachside Tech Talks and he was here with a whole
host of UH people in the studio and beyond, and
I look forward to that show really kind of covering
some of the tough topics. Again, it's just like everywhere
you look is just tough subjects and multi variable problems,
(19:32):
Like it's not just superficial put a band aid on
it right now in society everywhere you look, and so
on the you know, sort of tech front AI and
some really challenging times in how do we leap forward
in with technology that is just at insane record pace
(19:55):
moving forward? How do we how do we rectifile all
of that we you know, we've made it, we built it,
and now what do we do how do we integrate
it into our lives or how do we say no,
thank you and put some lids on ourselves. So interesting
topics and we are really hoping Beachside Tech Talks really
(20:20):
is able to break some of that down for you.
So anyways, so that's eleven o'clock in the morning Monday
through Friday now and we will just be adding new
shows as we go here. So this is also from
the California Globe. I saw this, I think it was
the very end of last week and by today it
so much parental outrage happened over the last several days
(20:42):
over this, the excuse me grading for equity Initiative out
of San Francisco Unified School District that they have pushed pause. Well,
we're going to have to pause and wait till the
fervor dies down so we can pass this through, is
my translation on that. But all right, from the California
Globe here. Last week, California parents discovered the San Francisco
(21:05):
Unified School District had proposed a grading grading for Equity Initiative,
dumbing down all students to the lowest common denominator. The
Voice of San Francisco reported, okay, so parental outrage hit
peak levels after learning the plan had been deliberately willed
withheld from them. So it got out that this was
(21:27):
the San Francisco USD plan, and of course right behind
closed doors. They know what's best for everyone, all right
back to the article. When they learned that the district
proposal included listening to listen to this, allowing students to
retake tests multiple times excluding lateness, effort and participation from
(21:50):
final grades, discarding homework and class work from grading and
basing one hundred percent of the grade on summative testing
was quote grading for equity, according to an SFUSD staff report.
Now Superintendent Maria Sue announced a quote delay in the
(22:12):
implementation of the communistic plan, which you know, I think
just seeks to lower the bar for everybody. So rather
than lifting struggling students, San Francisco District comrades prefer to
drag everyone down because uneducated, ignorant youth are so much
(22:33):
easier to control. Apparently, again this is from Katie Grimes
in the California Globe, so insult to injury. The district
paid one hundred and seventy two thousand dollars for a
consulting group translation Grifters to develop this useless plan. I
(22:56):
want to go back over this. They were what they
were planning on implement minting letting students retake tests multiple
times excluding lateness, effort and participation from final grades, discarding
homework and class work from grading what and you're one
(23:20):
hundred percent of your grade in a class is on
as summative test, meaning you take a test, Oh, but
you could take it again if you wanted to, you
didn't like your grade, and then argue your way through.
Is that the standards that we want to hold for ourselves.
(23:42):
If it's you know, San Francisco, okay, fine, but coming
soon to a district near you, we know how these
things catch fire because everybody's a monkeysy monkey do around
here and we want to be Oh well, Gavin Newsom's
first in the nation, but everybody else falls right in line.
So don't think this isn't coming Whispers of this excuse me,
(24:05):
don't already exist in your schools, or isn't coming down
the pike. The article goes a little bit more into
the Ethnic Studies requirement right that is now part of
California law that students are and have to enroll in
for graduation requirements. But I did want to point out
in California, nearly six out of ten third graders, this
(24:27):
is more than fifty seven percent, failed to meet grade
level standards. On the twenty twenty four State English test.
This is from lance A Zumi. He's the director of
the Center for Education at the Pacific Research Institute. We
have the worst testing percentages in this state in the nation,
(24:51):
And he says, yet, with relatively few exceptions, most of
these students with weak greading skills are promoted to the
next grade despite their demonstrated deficiencies. And this practice of
social promotion has devastating impacts on children. Okay, at any rate,
that's where the state of education is at. They're still
(25:15):
pursuing these programs and to the detriment of all the students.
Grading for equity doesn't help anyone. It punishes everyone, and
lowering standards just lowers lowers the lowers the dignity levels
(25:40):
for everyone. We want to turn out uneducated kids. All right, everybody, Well,
I need to take my break. Enough of these people.
I can't stress enough that it really this type of
thing really does start at home. Pay attention to what's
(26:02):
going on at the school board, at your local school
board now in San Francisco. A couple of years ago,
I want to say it was twenty twenty two. Three
do you guys remember this? Three of the school board
members were ousted, they were recalled because of shenanigans like this,
and I'm not sure that anybody on the rest of
(26:25):
the board learned their lesson because they're still pursuing grading
for equity programs like this. They're wasting taxpayer dollars, burning
through how much money to degrade our kids and to
not serve us and serve the taxpayer and benefit anyone anyways.
So I can't emphasize enough. School is out, but it
(26:48):
doesn't mean we still can't pay attention and know exactly
what's going on in the classrooms for coming up next fall. Okay, well,
we need to take a break, and when I come back.
There's a bill out there that will automatically grant C
s U admission to high school students that just passed
(27:08):
the sentence. So we're gonna break that down a little bit,
pass them on through, and then just took them right
in college. It's all one big foul swoop, all right, everybody,
Mama Bears Radio. Kristen Hurley here, I'll be right back.
Speaker 1 (27:26):
Mama Bear's Radio.
Speaker 2 (27:27):
Be Radio. We'll be right back. I make it all right, everybody,
(28:27):
Welcome back, Mama Bear's Radio. I'm Kristin Hurley, safe and
effective radio. Unlike certain legislators in Sacramento, they are neither
safe nor effective. And here comes another. Okay, in any
(28:48):
given here in Sacramento, there are thousands of bills proposed.
They sort of toddle their way through committee, maybe make
it to the floor for a vote, and the governor
signs a goodly, goodly percentage of them. Here's a bill
to automatically grant CSU admission to high school graduates. This
(29:10):
past the Senate. So this is in its little way
that the bills make their way through all of the legislators.
This one passed a vote in the Senate this week,
so it's moving over to the Assembly for committee hearings
in the Assembly. So this is Senate Bill six forty,
authored by Senator Christopher Cabalden, whoops, crossed my eyes on
(29:36):
that one would specifically establish the CSU Direct Adminission Program,
under which a pupil graduating from a high school of
participating local Educational Agency is deemed eligible for enrollment into
a designated California State University campus. And so they would
automatically go into this California Colleges dot edu platform that
(30:00):
would report their grades used to provide the data required
to determine eligibility the dot to do to do DUTE,
the bill would require participating local educational agency to identify
each pupil who is eligible another program honor before September
first of each year, and then you just get your
(30:21):
admissions letter on behalf of the California State University and
then students are able to say yes or no to
the offer. Interestingly enough, for all students, there will be
no single CSU campus to which they are assigned. Instead,
their acceptance letter would have a list of campuses with
enrollment capacity that the student can choose from. So this
(30:47):
uh esteemed. State Senator Cabalden wrote SB six forty to
create an ease of transition from twelfth grade to being
a freshman in college, specifically stating that a jump like
that should be easy to do as going from eleventh
grade to twelfth grade, so dutes. This was built on
(31:12):
a pilot program that happened in Riverside County. Qualified seniors
were sent a list of ten campuses in the CSU
system that they were automatically admitted to. So this would
make it statewide. Now, my first thought is hearkening back
to five minutes ago talking about the San Francisco District
(31:36):
Grading for Equity program and building off of kind of
just a statewide system of passing kids along through even
though with horrific grades. Horrific for you know, are they
at grade level testing scores? The kids are super struggling
(31:59):
in California. Yeah, they get passed along from grade to grade.
And to me, this is a continuation of that of
like everyone gets to go to college, You're gonna get
passed right on in, whether you like it or not.
Let's move you on through. When you dig a little
bit deeper into this though, the article goes on to say,
(32:24):
and again, I'm three for three. This is California Globe. Again,
it is hoped that the bill can help some struggling
CSU campuses regain students. Ah, this is the meat of
the whole thing. In the past decade, enrollment at CSU
East Bay has gone down by thirty percent cal State
Poly Humboldt right because now it's cal Poly Humboldt, so
(32:48):
all losses of thirty one percent, while Sonoma State saw
a loss of thousands of students, winding up at a
thirty nine percent loss woof, While some campuses now gains
CSU and enrollment overall in the past decade has gone
down about four percent altogether, with automatic emission in place,
campuses could see a noticeable rise and admissions. So to me,
(33:13):
that says it all. Why are these campuses losing students?
Could it be that people are not liking the bang
for their buck either there a not prepared for college
life in the first place. Oh why is that? Oh
because maybe they were just pass graded for equity and
passed along through the hoops. They weren't prepared for college.
(33:37):
Or the college product is not what people thought it
was and it's not worth the cost and the effort anymore.
All of these things are in play. So I just
think it's funny. They're like, how do we how do
we get enrollment up? Oh, well, let's just automatically enroll students,
make it seamless from high school in to college, and
(33:59):
we'll get the dollars by hook or by crook shoot people. Anyways,
So that's the latest update from Sacramento. I just don't
know now. I laugh as I say this, as my
daughter's about to go to a CESU caan'tas so is
this the pot calling the kettle something? Or am I
(34:21):
speaking out of both sides of my mouth? Or what's
what's the analogy for this? Am I a hypocrite? Maybe?
I don't know. I'm just trying to ask some questions.
Are we dissatisfied in general with the trajectory of the state,
especially especially with respect to education. Yeah, we can definitely
do better. There's no reason that California needs to be
(34:43):
like the last last in the nation on all of this,
and I think that applies to colleges as well. Anyways,
just FYI, that's what's going on in Sacramento. That's latest bill.
It is likely to pass the Assembly. At the very
end of the article kind of talks about there's just
very little opposition to this, so it's likely we'll get
(35:04):
through so towards a better end for ourselves. Though, I
wanted to recommend a book. We all used to have
to memorize things in school, not only like history, dates
and people and that sort of thing, but maybe passages
of a poem or passages of a play, reciting the
(35:29):
preamble to the Constitution. I think at it in seventh grade,
that kind of a thing. It's good to memorize. It's
good just in general exercise your brain. People memorize scripture
all the time, right. It just helps you absorb the
message and the words and the beauty of if it's
poetry or the beauty of scripture, or just the meaning
(35:56):
of the words. Is it's going around and around in
your head. You know, you do that like with song
lyrics or whatever. And there's a book out there, Finding
Our Words, and the editor on this is Alis and Ellis.
I'm going to talk about it when we get back
from the break. Maybe we need to get back to
and this kind of harkens back to a more classical education.
(36:18):
I had friends on a couple of weeks ago talking
about what is a classical education where we memorize and
absorb the lessons and the lyrics of that. And this book,
in this particular case, is finding the words from the
founding of our country and certain political figures speeches that
(36:44):
were really foundational for building the country and building sort
of the amazing progress we've had American exceptionalism and why
is that? And so this book goes into that. So
I want to talk a little bit about it. I
do have to take my last break and then We
will be back in just a bit. Kristin Hurley here,
(37:04):
this is Mama Bear's Radio, and I will be back
in just a minute.
Speaker 1 (37:11):
Mama Bear's Radio.
Speaker 2 (37:14):
We'll be right back. Welcome back to Mama Bear's Radio.
(37:46):
My last little segment of the afternoon here on a
beautiful Monday around the Monterey Bay. Stay tuned for School's
out drivetime show after this and again then after that
at six o'clock is Sirs City with Henry Michelle. What
a really cool, cool show. Henry has the most amazing guests,
like the coolest cats in Santa Cruz, surfers and skaters.
(38:11):
So that's a super fun show coming up this evening.
I really want to talk about this. Let's end on
a high note here, people, What can we do? I
complained and moaned for the last forty five minutes about
the state of affairs in our state? But what are
we going to do about it? Okay, So let's read
(38:32):
books and encourage our air kids in this is Do
you have a graduate that needs a gift? Finding our words?
And the editor is Allison Ellis. I looked it up.
It's readily available on Amazon. I think I'm going to
buy it, but here, here's an article about talking about this.
This is actually out of The Federalist by DT Shuffler.
(38:54):
He says, trap by mass media, a culture that valorizes banality,
and the consequences of a collapsing school system. People of
my generation, author's generation struggled to imagine a country in
which politicians regularly composed fine, noble paragraphs according to the
best canons of classical rhetoric, much less a populus that
(39:15):
could be relied upon to understand their politicians Latin vocabulary
or follow the thread of their complex, yet elegant syntax.
What did I even just say? Stick with me? He says,
decrying the shift that occurred in our nation's collective ability
to think and speak. Neil Postman contrasts the contemporary American
(39:36):
scene with that of the Lincoln Douglas debates, in which
ordinary farmers stood for hours following intricately argued and articulately
expressed sequences of reasoning between two opponents who spoke to
each other civilly as fellow citizens and gentlemen. Amusing ourselves
to death was published in nineteen eighty five, and Postman's
(39:58):
focus was on the great decoration of discourse occasioned by
television and radio. That was forty years ago. I wonder
what he would say about TikTok. My foregoing comments might
seem to strike a note of hopelessness, but nothing could
be further from the truth. I am full of optimism.
I see signs of intellectual renewal popping up all around me,
(40:20):
like saplings from the ashes of some great forest fire.
In time, I hope, though I dare not trust, that
we will again become a people who demand of our
representatives both eloquence and truth, both classical erudition and Christian virtue.
One such sapling is the book, the inaugural volume in
(40:41):
a series called Finding Our Words under the editorship of
Alson Ellis. This series collects under various themes, foundational texts
in the Western canon. These editions are aimed at the
middle or high school student looking to gain a classical education.
The selections are accompanied by remarkably goodness introductions, and students
(41:02):
are given memorization assignments following each reading, consisting of the
most critical extracts. Finding our Words is right only by
immersing ourselves in the best words of our forebears, savoring
them on our tongues, reciting them over and over until
they rest permanently in our hearts, feeling the string of
the sting of tears, even after the thousandth recitation. Only then,
(41:26):
while we recover something of the culture that made these
words possible in the first place. Only by making their
words our own will we be able to speak our
own words. And they're with their command of the language again.
I'm reading from an article in The Federalists by D. T. Shuffler.
(41:47):
The first volume in this series is titled Words That
Made America, and it focuses on pivotal speeches made in
the course of American history, valuable not just for their
historical effects but also as models of classical rhetoric. The
selections include several presidents Washington, Adams, Lincoln, Teddy and Franklin, Roosevelt, Coolidge, Kennedy,
(42:08):
and Reagan, but also several other notable American figures Patrick Kenry,
Frederick Douglas, Roberty, Lee, Oliver, Wendell Holmes, etc. Despite these
speeches taking place in very different circumstances across more than
two centuries, each one of them draws its pathos from
the deep well of the American founding. Myth. In reading them,
(42:29):
I was struck by just how confidently the speakers all
the way from Washington to Reagan could appeal to the
sacred symbols of this myth, republican government of the people,
by the people, for the people, the natural quality of
all men endowed with inalienable rights, an appeal to nature
(42:50):
and Nature's God, and a sense of duty that every
man must be willing to defend these sacred symbols, if
need be, at the cost of his very life. I
sent these speakers could make such appeals so confidently because
they took for granted in their audience a shared sense
of American identity and a commitment regardless of whatever partisan
(43:15):
interests might divide men in the various crises of the moment.
Many Americans, of course, still believe, but it's no longer
the kind of thing that can be taken for granted.
What happened. For one thing, Americans used to memorize whole
speeches such as the Gettysburg Address in grade school. But
then memory work became unfashionable, along with anything else to
(43:37):
which the self proclaimed education experts could attach the label,
wrote with a sneer, And so it's hard for people
to understand just how much an educated mind depends on
the memorization of facts, names, places, date's poems, and yes,
whole speeches. But if we want an educated country back,
(43:59):
we'll need to make memorization great again. So again, this
is a piece by D. T. Scheffler and the Federalist.
I couldn't agree more again with memorization. A you're exercising
your brain. The white matter my guest last hour spoke
of that's disappearing from our brains. We need It's a
(44:21):
tool we have to exercise and use it. Memorize and
you absorb the beauty the poetry again of these words
spoken from these people hundreds of years ago, written in
all language that no one speaks today. We're so dumbed down.
I'm sorry even myself. We've lost that eloquence in sort
(44:46):
of the grandeur and the value of words that carry.
It's just significant meaning that part of education is lost.
And I agree with mister Shaw here that it's something
we can regain. We put our heads to it and
stop talking about your feelings in school and turn our
(45:11):
attentions to the poetry and the teachings of people that
came before us. It's a good exercise. Nonetheless, my daughters
each you know, didn't memorize much, but managed a passages
of Shakespeare that they can still recall years years later.
They can bust it out at any time and it's
(45:33):
fun anyways, Game on challenge for everyone. We want to
self educate myself included. It just sounds like a fantabulous book.
I will probably order this for I have a couple
of graduates besides my own this year to give to
all Right, everybody, This has been Mama Bear's Radio. I'm
Kristin Hurley. You can always email me at m Ama
(45:53):
Bears Radio at gmail dot com. I will be back
next week against day. Tuned to KOMY Schoolhouse Radio for
all sorts of cool programs throughout the weekend. I will
see you soon. Keep your claws out wonder. This is
a long let's call the way the camera fus. This
(46:13):
is snow away k O M y La Selda Beach
Home the Schoolhouse Radio
The California Mama Bears have been forced out of hibernation.
Fierce guardians of our future. Mama Bear's fight for parents' rights,
defense of the family, and God given freedoms everywhere you're
listening to Mama Bear's Radio with your host, The New Normal,
(00:31):
Kristin Hurley.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
All right, everyone, our number two of Mama Bear's Radio,
Kristin Hurley here, safe and effective radio. No jabs in
your arms, that is just jabs to your ears, jabs
to your sensibilities. I guess, well, welcome back. So our
number one was fantastic, fast and fantastic, fast and furious.
(01:02):
My guest, Brenda Waybright again Pregnancy Resource Center. As a whole,
we didn't really even talk much about the organization here
in town, support for families for women before, during, and
after pregnancy. I encourage everyone to reach out if that's
you and some part of journey of your life. The
PRC an amazing group of people, and again Brenda is
(01:26):
sort of their outward bound education coordinator Lady whatever her
title is, she didn't really have one, but she again
lifts up our community in really cool ways and she
goes into the classrooms around the county educates kids, says
the tough things. I mean, I was looking at her
(01:46):
sort of slide deck that she brings in the classrooms.
It's a couple hours worth of information and it's tough topics,
and it's stuff that like teachers don't necessarily want to
talk about, parents don't necessarily want to talk about myself included,
But somebody's got to say it and support kids in
their rough and tumble journey. Here is teens, and she
(02:08):
was saying, you know, we have to face facts that
nine year olds are looking at porn online. It's easy,
it's accessible, it's pervasive, it's everywhere. What do we do
about it. It's a little bit of picking up the
pieces at this point and learning the burnt hand is
the teaching hand, we say in the early household, and
(02:31):
our burnt society ideally is the teaching society. So we
all need to pitch in. I really appreciate the work
that she does and et cetera. So as I said
first hour, at the very beginning, it's end. You know,
school's out, end of season, graduation season for some and
just another year for some others. It is definitely the
(02:56):
something's in the air springtime you can feel it changes
in the air, and so in my family, in particular,
my last little one graduated high school. I know, I've
been talking about it for weeks. It's really hitting yours, truly,
Mama Bear's radio. I'm not kidding, guys. I just have
been rather just head down to the wind in front
(03:19):
of the freight train for all these years. And I
know everybody relates to that. It's just like, get through
the day and get your you know, get her done,
and accomplish accomplished. We're work horses, we're raising our kids
and then poof, poof, poof, it's done. Of course, parenting's
never over with, as I know from my older ones,
(03:40):
but still it is a sort of a poignant moment.
I know I'm not alone out there this year. And
what compounded things for me over this weekend crazily enough,
if I'm a digress, my husband unearthed a number of
pictures and videos, a bunch of old files from some
(04:00):
I don't know, some hard drive he was going through
for something and handed me a USB stick of picture,
Like I said, pictures and a ton of video from
when the kids were much younger and like babies. And
then my older ones as little toddlers, and another baby
in my arms, and some early years really that you know,
(04:23):
maybe I have a picture of two or two of
that framed around the house or in a book or
something like that, largely tucked away in the recesses of
my busy brain, but I cannot tell you. Last night,
watching with in fact, my kids all sitting around, we
put it up on the big screen and we were
(04:43):
watching and like my five year old, my son is five,
and my other one is three, and then my newborn,
my third one, and the cute little home life scenario.
My house in the background is a total disaster, toys everywhere,
(05:04):
laundry on the couch, me and my nursing chair nursing
the squalling baby while the other two are running around,
shrieking and making noise. And it really was just quite
a moment for me. And I intend to go back
and watch those videos and really really reawaken those memories,
(05:25):
because I think my point being Kristen gets to the
point is the years are precious, and the family life
and the young babies are just so stinkin' precious in life.
And you know, if you think about what's my life
work like life's work. What am I even doing here?
You know, your deeper, deeper, pensive questions that you get
(05:47):
when you hit fifty. Those memories are in there. It's
tucked away those years happened. It begs remembering, it begs cherishing,
and it begs helping to I suppose pass along to
the new parents and new moms and young things that
how precious family life and children having children are. I
(06:12):
suppose the next step down that line is like we'll shoot,
you know. And Brenda and I were even talking about this,
like maybe kids are hooking up, but relationships are suffering
these days for young young people. Actual sexual relations are suffering,
sperm counseler down, you know, you name it. And I'd
(06:37):
hate to see us fall away from what really boils
down to just being the most cherishable moments that we
get to have here on earth. All right, Well, there's
your Mama Bear's musings here. I don't want to get
too pensive and Tierry and Dewey eyed over this, but
interesting times. And I just suppose I'm, you know, feel
(07:01):
like I'm not the only one out there. Of course,
our nation's been going through just a heck of a
couple of years here more than a couple At this point.
We really are in brave new world times. We've all
shared that together, and I don't know if time moves on.
So my blessings to everybody out there is school is
(07:23):
ending for this year, in whatever form or shape that
takes for you and your family, and let's pull off
a really cool summer. An. I have a piece here
advice for the class of twenty twenty five I was
going to get into maybe in a little bit. I
actually it made me think, like, well, okay, well you know,
if I had Mama Bear's radio advice for the class
of twenty twenty five, what would it be. I have
(07:45):
a couple of gems Mama Bear's style. Maybe nothing I
can say over the airwaves, but at any rate, we'll
get to that in a little bit. As usual, everyone,
my little cup runneth over here for stuff to talk about.
Where do I even start? I might get the yucky
(08:08):
out of the way first, and then run myself into
my first break and then try and ta get back
up hill after that. I think in the news, as
we've noticed, it's the end of the school year, and
of course that means end of the year. Sporting events,
contests wrapping up finals and state championships and all that,
and in the news there's been a ton of discussion
(08:33):
about the fact that there are still boys winning girls
sporting contests throughout the state. The people who think this
is a great idea are continuing to pursue this aim,
and I think over the weekend there were one or
two events statewide where there was a guy up on
(08:57):
the podium take the place of a girl and her
right to be there for something she'd worked so hard for.
And in our current bizarro world here and again, this
is something that resonates with absolutely everyone, except for a
(09:18):
minor few people that I want to be polite are
just mentally ill in a certain way and are either
denying reality or just are living in a bizarro world
reality to where this is okay, and the rest of us,
meaning the darn well majority of us, are no longer
(09:43):
going to just sit back and accept someone else's bizarre
view of the world. Over this trans women athletes quote
unquote competing in women's sports and dominating, even physically harming
female athletes, men claiming to be women in women's bathrooms
and locker rooms in college dormitories and adults working in
(10:07):
California's education system. This is an article from the California
Globe from Katie Grimes are forcing compliance on the young
females impacted the most so trans High school athlete Aby Hernandez,
a biological male, just won two major events at the
California girls Track and Field state meet this weekend, robbing
(10:28):
female athletes of these wins. The San Francisco Chronicle wrote
an egregious, shameless headline on this topic. Quote trans athlete
embraced as California track and field champion by peers, while
adult activists duel. I love how it's so twisted around.
(10:54):
The trans athlete is embraced while the activists fight in
the background, is what they're saying, And the real story
should be that female athletes had their victories stolen from
them by males wearing makeup and dresses. I don't know
if you all saw the video of it. Was the
(11:16):
mom of this so called trans athlete, this boy competing
in girls' sports rabidly, rabidly barking and being aggressive towards
the other moms in the crowd who were speaking up
about it and trying to say to her like, what
are you thinking? What is going on? And this mom
(11:38):
was darn well just furious and angry at these other
moms for even trying to call her out. I do
want to mention two bills to disallow trans athletes from
competing in girls and women's sports. This is AB eighty
nine and eight forty four were heard in April and
the California Assembly Arts, Entertainment, Sports and Tourism Committee, and
(12:02):
they were killed by Democrats, but only after blaming President
Donald Trump DOJE and those calling those supporting the bill nazis.
So if you support an uphold Title nine, according to
California Democrats, you're a Nazi. And there's high school and
university officials looking the other way on this. At some
(12:27):
point we're going to have to reconcile and come to
terms with this. I know the federal government is I
don't want to say on the war path, but working
to right these wrongs in states that are persisting with
this in California is among those so to be continued.
It breaks my heart that we are even having to
(12:49):
fight over this, that this is a big content contentious
problem in society today where we have to sit and
pretend like the elephant in the room that that's not
a boy, that's a girl. Oh really, I just can't
believe the depths to which we've sunk that this is
(13:11):
a big defining issue. It breaks my heart for the
girls on the field in these competitions that have worked
super hard to be this competitive and have these wonderful
achievements under their belt and being robbed of the rightful
place on the podium. Come on, people, I'd like, I
(13:36):
almost don't even know what to say about this anymore.
But it's still happening. I suppose my point for bringing
this up is it's still happening. The state is looking
the other way. School officials are looking the other way,
these sports organizations are looking the other way. And it's
about darnwell time that this ends in California. We've got
to get our heads on straight. I do want I
(13:59):
did want to mention act this is interesting in this
article from the California Globe, and then I will go
to break I promise. But at UC Davis, eighteen hundred
students identify as transgender. Now I don't know what the
(14:19):
total student population is of UC Davis. This is a
tweet from Beth Born This is mentioned in the Californy
Globe article. She says, here's my expose and how we
got to over eighteen hundred students at UC Davis identifying
as transgender. The entire institution is set up so vulnerable
kids fall into the trans pipeline from social transition to
(14:41):
medical transition. You see Davis free gender affirming breastbinders for
women and braws for men courtesy of the UC Davis
LGBTQ Resource Center. Free free legal quote, gender marker and
name changes. You see Davis School of Law, free wrong
(15:04):
sex hormones administered by first and second year students at
You see Davis School of Medicine. What yes, that's a thing.
Free free sex change surgeries at the UC Davis Medical Center.
You see Davis awarded a perfect score for transitioning students
(15:25):
by the Human Rights Campaign. And if you voice concerns,
your labeled transphobic, hateful, bigoted by the UC Davis Diversity Office.
And I'll close this segment just by saying, Matt Walsh
of what is a woman fame? It sums it all up.
(15:48):
We can't say it better. And he told California lawmakers
who promote all this stuff still in April. Quote. If
you would use the force of law to compel young
girls to is a changing room with a boy, you
are yourselves predators. Transgenderism is a lie. It is such
a deranged lie that man ever invented in a free country.
(16:12):
Nobody should ever be forced to participate in a lie.
As lawmakers, you have an obligation to the truth. It
is a truth you will all recognize because every human
who has ever lived on earth recognizes it that men
are men and women are women. And it is that simple.
And I just want to reiterate this. Transgenderism is a lie.
(16:34):
It is such a deranged lie that man ever invented
in a free country. Nobody should ever be forced to
participate in this lie. And as law as lawmakers, you
have an obligation to the truth. So by extension, can
we all please just put our little feet down and
knock this off for our young women, our young our
(16:56):
young adults are that have to live in the face
of this bizarre world lie that our esteemed leaders are
still forcing down everyone's throats. And it's times like these
weekends the state championships, when they're allowing a boy to
(17:17):
get up on the podium and be heralded for winning
the competition, and everyone else has to go along with
it and pretend it's just fine. This is not the
Twilight Zone, people, This is Earth, all right. Here we go.
I should chatted my way through my first break. We
will get that done when I come back. Oh, San Francisco,
(17:41):
San Francisco Education. We're gonna talk San Francisco's schools. They
tried to pull a fast one last week and they
actually got so much grief over it that they have
walked it back. All right, so we'll break that down.
This is Mama Bear's Radio. Kristin Hurley here. I will
take my break and be right back Mama Bear's Radio.
(18:02):
We'll be right back. Sign of the Times. I was
(18:25):
such a Prince fan when I was younger, and it's
just such great music. All right, everybody, safe and effective radio.
Here we are Mama Bear's Radio. Careeming through my second
hour for today. Stay tuned as I will be running
downstairs with the bomb shelter for our school's at drivetime
show from four to six, and then at six o'clock
(18:47):
we have the Surfsgate City Talk Show with Henry Michelle.
Here at kom Y all sorts of good stuff. We're
adding new shows, if I may say, we have a
Beachside Tech Talk show now at eleven o'clock Monday through Friday,
in between the Dave Ramsey Show and our American Stories
and today they Ian Utilly is the host of that
(19:11):
Beachside Tech Talks and he was here with a whole
host of UH people in the studio and beyond, and
I look forward to that show really kind of covering
some of the tough topics. Again, it's just like everywhere
you look is just tough subjects and multi variable problems,
(19:32):
Like it's not just superficial put a band aid on
it right now in society everywhere you look, and so
on the you know, sort of tech front AI and
some really challenging times in how do we leap forward
in with technology that is just at insane record pace
(19:55):
moving forward? How do we how do we rectifile all
of that we you know, we've made it, we built it,
and now what do we do how do we integrate
it into our lives or how do we say no,
thank you and put some lids on ourselves. So interesting
topics and we are really hoping Beachside Tech Talks really
(20:20):
is able to break some of that down for you.
So anyways, so that's eleven o'clock in the morning Monday
through Friday now and we will just be adding new
shows as we go here. So this is also from
the California Globe. I saw this, I think it was
the very end of last week and by today it
so much parental outrage happened over the last several days
(20:42):
over this, the excuse me grading for equity Initiative out
of San Francisco Unified School District that they have pushed pause. Well,
we're going to have to pause and wait till the
fervor dies down so we can pass this through, is
my translation on that. But all right, from the California
Globe here. Last week, California parents discovered the San Francisco
(21:05):
Unified School District had proposed a grading grading for Equity Initiative,
dumbing down all students to the lowest common denominator. The
Voice of San Francisco reported, okay, so parental outrage hit
peak levels after learning the plan had been deliberately willed
withheld from them. So it got out that this was
(21:27):
the San Francisco USD plan, and of course right behind
closed doors. They know what's best for everyone, all right
back to the article. When they learned that the district
proposal included listening to listen to this, allowing students to
retake tests multiple times excluding lateness, effort and participation from
(21:50):
final grades, discarding homework and class work from grading and
basing one hundred percent of the grade on summative testing
was quote grading for equity, according to an SFUSD staff report.
Now Superintendent Maria Sue announced a quote delay in the
(22:12):
implementation of the communistic plan, which you know, I think
just seeks to lower the bar for everybody. So rather
than lifting struggling students, San Francisco District comrades prefer to
drag everyone down because uneducated, ignorant youth are so much
(22:33):
easier to control. Apparently, again this is from Katie Grimes
in the California Globe, so insult to injury. The district
paid one hundred and seventy two thousand dollars for a
consulting group translation Grifters to develop this useless plan. I
(22:56):
want to go back over this. They were what they
were planning on implement minting letting students retake tests multiple
times excluding lateness, effort and participation from final grades, discarding
homework and class work from grading what and you're one
(23:20):
hundred percent of your grade in a class is on
as summative test, meaning you take a test, Oh, but
you could take it again if you wanted to, you
didn't like your grade, and then argue your way through.
Is that the standards that we want to hold for ourselves.
(23:42):
If it's you know, San Francisco, okay, fine, but coming
soon to a district near you, we know how these
things catch fire because everybody's a monkeysy monkey do around
here and we want to be Oh well, Gavin Newsom's
first in the nation, but everybody else falls right in line.
So don't think this isn't coming Whispers of this excuse me,
(24:05):
don't already exist in your schools, or isn't coming down
the pike. The article goes a little bit more into
the Ethnic Studies requirement right that is now part of
California law that students are and have to enroll in
for graduation requirements. But I did want to point out
in California, nearly six out of ten third graders, this
(24:27):
is more than fifty seven percent, failed to meet grade
level standards. On the twenty twenty four State English test.
This is from lance A Zumi. He's the director of
the Center for Education at the Pacific Research Institute. We
have the worst testing percentages in this state in the nation,
(24:51):
And he says, yet, with relatively few exceptions, most of
these students with weak greading skills are promoted to the
next grade despite their demonstrated deficiencies. And this practice of
social promotion has devastating impacts on children. Okay, at any rate,
that's where the state of education is at. They're still
(25:15):
pursuing these programs and to the detriment of all the students.
Grading for equity doesn't help anyone. It punishes everyone, and
lowering standards just lowers lowers the lowers the dignity levels
(25:40):
for everyone. We want to turn out uneducated kids. All right, everybody, Well,
I need to take my break. Enough of these people.
I can't stress enough that it really this type of
thing really does start at home. Pay attention to what's
(26:02):
going on at the school board, at your local school
board now in San Francisco. A couple of years ago,
I want to say it was twenty twenty two. Three
do you guys remember this? Three of the school board
members were ousted, they were recalled because of shenanigans like this,
and I'm not sure that anybody on the rest of
(26:25):
the board learned their lesson because they're still pursuing grading
for equity programs like this. They're wasting taxpayer dollars, burning
through how much money to degrade our kids and to
not serve us and serve the taxpayer and benefit anyone anyways.
So I can't emphasize enough. School is out, but it
(26:48):
doesn't mean we still can't pay attention and know exactly
what's going on in the classrooms for coming up next fall. Okay, well,
we need to take a break, and when I come back.
There's a bill out there that will automatically grant C
s U admission to high school students that just passed
(27:08):
the sentence. So we're gonna break that down a little bit,
pass them on through, and then just took them right
in college. It's all one big foul swoop, all right, everybody,
Mama Bears Radio. Kristen Hurley here, I'll be right back.
Speaker 1 (27:26):
Mama Bear's Radio.
Speaker 2 (27:27):
Be Radio. We'll be right back. I make it all right, everybody,
(28:27):
Welcome back, Mama Bear's Radio. I'm Kristin Hurley, safe and
effective radio. Unlike certain legislators in Sacramento, they are neither
safe nor effective. And here comes another. Okay, in any
(28:48):
given here in Sacramento, there are thousands of bills proposed.
They sort of toddle their way through committee, maybe make
it to the floor for a vote, and the governor
signs a goodly, goodly percentage of them. Here's a bill
to automatically grant CSU admission to high school graduates. This
(29:10):
past the Senate. So this is in its little way
that the bills make their way through all of the legislators.
This one passed a vote in the Senate this week,
so it's moving over to the Assembly for committee hearings
in the Assembly. So this is Senate Bill six forty,
authored by Senator Christopher Cabalden, whoops, crossed my eyes on
(29:36):
that one would specifically establish the CSU Direct Adminission Program,
under which a pupil graduating from a high school of
participating local Educational Agency is deemed eligible for enrollment into
a designated California State University campus. And so they would
automatically go into this California Colleges dot edu platform that
(30:00):
would report their grades used to provide the data required
to determine eligibility the dot to do to do DUTE,
the bill would require participating local educational agency to identify
each pupil who is eligible another program honor before September
first of each year, and then you just get your
(30:21):
admissions letter on behalf of the California State University and
then students are able to say yes or no to
the offer. Interestingly enough, for all students, there will be
no single CSU campus to which they are assigned. Instead,
their acceptance letter would have a list of campuses with
enrollment capacity that the student can choose from. So this
(30:47):
uh esteemed. State Senator Cabalden wrote SB six forty to
create an ease of transition from twelfth grade to being
a freshman in college, specifically stating that a jump like
that should be easy to do as going from eleventh
grade to twelfth grade, so dutes. This was built on
(31:12):
a pilot program that happened in Riverside County. Qualified seniors
were sent a list of ten campuses in the CSU
system that they were automatically admitted to. So this would
make it statewide. Now, my first thought is hearkening back
to five minutes ago talking about the San Francisco District
(31:36):
Grading for Equity program and building off of kind of
just a statewide system of passing kids along through even
though with horrific grades. Horrific for you know, are they
at grade level testing scores? The kids are super struggling
(31:59):
in California. Yeah, they get passed along from grade to grade.
And to me, this is a continuation of that of
like everyone gets to go to college, You're gonna get
passed right on in, whether you like it or not.
Let's move you on through. When you dig a little
bit deeper into this though, the article goes on to say,
(32:24):
and again, I'm three for three. This is California Globe. Again,
it is hoped that the bill can help some struggling
CSU campuses regain students. Ah, this is the meat of
the whole thing. In the past decade, enrollment at CSU
East Bay has gone down by thirty percent cal State
Poly Humboldt right because now it's cal Poly Humboldt, so
(32:48):
all losses of thirty one percent, while Sonoma State saw
a loss of thousands of students, winding up at a
thirty nine percent loss woof, While some campuses now gains
CSU and enrollment overall in the past decade has gone
down about four percent altogether, with automatic emission in place,
campuses could see a noticeable rise and admissions. So to me,
(33:13):
that says it all. Why are these campuses losing students?
Could it be that people are not liking the bang
for their buck either there a not prepared for college
life in the first place. Oh why is that? Oh
because maybe they were just pass graded for equity and
passed along through the hoops. They weren't prepared for college.
(33:37):
Or the college product is not what people thought it
was and it's not worth the cost and the effort anymore.
All of these things are in play. So I just
think it's funny. They're like, how do we how do
we get enrollment up? Oh, well, let's just automatically enroll students,
make it seamless from high school in to college, and
(33:59):
we'll get the dollars by hook or by crook shoot people. Anyways,
So that's the latest update from Sacramento. I just don't
know now. I laugh as I say this, as my
daughter's about to go to a CESU caan'tas so is
this the pot calling the kettle something? Or am I
(34:21):
speaking out of both sides of my mouth? Or what's
what's the analogy for this? Am I a hypocrite? Maybe?
I don't know. I'm just trying to ask some questions.
Are we dissatisfied in general with the trajectory of the state,
especially especially with respect to education. Yeah, we can definitely
do better. There's no reason that California needs to be
(34:43):
like the last last in the nation on all of this,
and I think that applies to colleges as well. Anyways,
just FYI, that's what's going on in Sacramento. That's latest bill.
It is likely to pass the Assembly. At the very
end of the article kind of talks about there's just
very little opposition to this, so it's likely we'll get
(35:04):
through so towards a better end for ourselves. Though, I
wanted to recommend a book. We all used to have
to memorize things in school, not only like history, dates
and people and that sort of thing, but maybe passages
of a poem or passages of a play, reciting the
(35:29):
preamble to the Constitution. I think at it in seventh grade,
that kind of a thing. It's good to memorize. It's
good just in general exercise your brain. People memorize scripture
all the time, right. It just helps you absorb the
message and the words and the beauty of if it's
poetry or the beauty of scripture, or just the meaning
(35:56):
of the words. Is it's going around and around in
your head. You know, you do that like with song
lyrics or whatever. And there's a book out there, Finding
Our Words, and the editor on this is Alis and Ellis.
I'm going to talk about it when we get back
from the break. Maybe we need to get back to
and this kind of harkens back to a more classical education.
(36:18):
I had friends on a couple of weeks ago talking
about what is a classical education where we memorize and
absorb the lessons and the lyrics of that. And this book,
in this particular case, is finding the words from the
founding of our country and certain political figures speeches that
(36:44):
were really foundational for building the country and building sort
of the amazing progress we've had American exceptionalism and why
is that? And so this book goes into that. So
I want to talk a little bit about it. I
do have to take my last break and then We
will be back in just a bit. Kristin Hurley here,
(37:04):
this is Mama Bear's Radio, and I will be back
in just a minute.
Speaker 1 (37:11):
Mama Bear's Radio.
Speaker 2 (37:14):
We'll be right back. Welcome back to Mama Bear's Radio.
(37:46):
My last little segment of the afternoon here on a
beautiful Monday around the Monterey Bay. Stay tuned for School's
out drivetime show after this and again then after that
at six o'clock is Sirs City with Henry Michelle. What
a really cool, cool show. Henry has the most amazing guests,
like the coolest cats in Santa Cruz, surfers and skaters.
(38:11):
So that's a super fun show coming up this evening.
I really want to talk about this. Let's end on
a high note here, people, What can we do? I
complained and moaned for the last forty five minutes about
the state of affairs in our state? But what are
we going to do about it? Okay, So let's read
(38:32):
books and encourage our air kids in this is Do
you have a graduate that needs a gift? Finding our words?
And the editor is Allison Ellis. I looked it up.
It's readily available on Amazon. I think I'm going to
buy it, but here, here's an article about talking about this.
This is actually out of The Federalist by DT Shuffler.
(38:54):
He says, trap by mass media, a culture that valorizes banality,
and the consequences of a collapsing school system. People of
my generation, author's generation struggled to imagine a country in
which politicians regularly composed fine, noble paragraphs according to the
best canons of classical rhetoric, much less a populus that
(39:15):
could be relied upon to understand their politicians Latin vocabulary
or follow the thread of their complex, yet elegant syntax.
What did I even just say? Stick with me? He says,
decrying the shift that occurred in our nation's collective ability
to think and speak. Neil Postman contrasts the contemporary American
(39:36):
scene with that of the Lincoln Douglas debates, in which
ordinary farmers stood for hours following intricately argued and articulately
expressed sequences of reasoning between two opponents who spoke to
each other civilly as fellow citizens and gentlemen. Amusing ourselves
to death was published in nineteen eighty five, and Postman's
(39:58):
focus was on the great decoration of discourse occasioned by
television and radio. That was forty years ago. I wonder
what he would say about TikTok. My foregoing comments might
seem to strike a note of hopelessness, but nothing could
be further from the truth. I am full of optimism.
I see signs of intellectual renewal popping up all around me,
(40:20):
like saplings from the ashes of some great forest fire.
In time, I hope, though I dare not trust, that
we will again become a people who demand of our
representatives both eloquence and truth, both classical erudition and Christian virtue.
One such sapling is the book, the inaugural volume in
(40:41):
a series called Finding Our Words under the editorship of
Alson Ellis. This series collects under various themes, foundational texts
in the Western canon. These editions are aimed at the
middle or high school student looking to gain a classical education.
The selections are accompanied by remarkably goodness introductions, and students
(41:02):
are given memorization assignments following each reading, consisting of the
most critical extracts. Finding our Words is right only by
immersing ourselves in the best words of our forebears, savoring
them on our tongues, reciting them over and over until
they rest permanently in our hearts, feeling the string of
the sting of tears, even after the thousandth recitation. Only then,
(41:26):
while we recover something of the culture that made these
words possible in the first place. Only by making their
words our own will we be able to speak our
own words. And they're with their command of the language again.
I'm reading from an article in The Federalists by D. T. Shuffler.
(41:47):
The first volume in this series is titled Words That
Made America, and it focuses on pivotal speeches made in
the course of American history, valuable not just for their
historical effects but also as models of classical rhetoric. The
selections include several presidents Washington, Adams, Lincoln, Teddy and Franklin, Roosevelt, Coolidge, Kennedy,
(42:08):
and Reagan, but also several other notable American figures Patrick Kenry,
Frederick Douglas, Roberty, Lee, Oliver, Wendell Holmes, etc. Despite these
speeches taking place in very different circumstances across more than
two centuries, each one of them draws its pathos from
the deep well of the American founding. Myth. In reading them,
(42:29):
I was struck by just how confidently the speakers all
the way from Washington to Reagan could appeal to the
sacred symbols of this myth, republican government of the people,
by the people, for the people, the natural quality of
all men endowed with inalienable rights, an appeal to nature
(42:50):
and Nature's God, and a sense of duty that every
man must be willing to defend these sacred symbols, if
need be, at the cost of his very life. I
sent these speakers could make such appeals so confidently because
they took for granted in their audience a shared sense
of American identity and a commitment regardless of whatever partisan
(43:15):
interests might divide men in the various crises of the moment.
Many Americans, of course, still believe, but it's no longer
the kind of thing that can be taken for granted.
What happened. For one thing, Americans used to memorize whole
speeches such as the Gettysburg Address in grade school. But
then memory work became unfashionable, along with anything else to
(43:37):
which the self proclaimed education experts could attach the label,
wrote with a sneer, And so it's hard for people
to understand just how much an educated mind depends on
the memorization of facts, names, places, date's poems, and yes,
whole speeches. But if we want an educated country back,
(43:59):
we'll need to make memorization great again. So again, this
is a piece by D. T. Scheffler and the Federalist.
I couldn't agree more again with memorization. A you're exercising
your brain. The white matter my guest last hour spoke
of that's disappearing from our brains. We need It's a
(44:21):
tool we have to exercise and use it. Memorize and
you absorb the beauty the poetry again of these words
spoken from these people hundreds of years ago, written in
all language that no one speaks today. We're so dumbed down.
I'm sorry even myself. We've lost that eloquence in sort
(44:46):
of the grandeur and the value of words that carry.
It's just significant meaning that part of education is lost.
And I agree with mister Shaw here that it's something
we can regain. We put our heads to it and
stop talking about your feelings in school and turn our
(45:11):
attentions to the poetry and the teachings of people that
came before us. It's a good exercise. Nonetheless, my daughters
each you know, didn't memorize much, but managed a passages
of Shakespeare that they can still recall years years later.
They can bust it out at any time and it's
(45:33):
fun anyways, Game on challenge for everyone. We want to
self educate myself included. It just sounds like a fantabulous book.
I will probably order this for I have a couple
of graduates besides my own this year to give to
all Right, everybody, This has been Mama Bear's Radio. I'm
Kristin Hurley. You can always email me at m Ama
(45:53):
Bears Radio at gmail dot com. I will be back
next week against day. Tuned to KOMY Schoolhouse Radio for
all sorts of cool programs throughout the weekend. I will
see you soon. Keep your claws out wonder. This is
a long let's call the way the camera fus. This
(46:13):
is snow away k O M y La Selda Beach
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