Brad Koehn
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Comments
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On the article Open Enrollment Isn’t Making Hopkins Schools More Segregated
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On the article Gov. Dayton Proposes a Tax Overhaul: What Do You Think?
Brad Koehn
6:45 pm on Wednesday, January 23, 2013
ReplyI'll be curious to see if Minnesotans spend enough on clothing worth more than $100 to bring in $2B in revenue. I'm a bit skeptical of that part. The rest looks good.
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On the article Parents Talk: Vote for Best of Mom's 18 Smartphone Rules
Brad Koehn
10:31 am on Thursday, January 10, 2013
ReplyRule 1 is the only one I'd tell the kid. Most of the above rules are a parent telling their kid what to do, which I avoid doing (I'd rather let my kid figure that out). As long as the phone isn't a problem (for me) the kid is free to use the phone and free to figure out what's going to be a problem (for him) and what isn't.
Many parents don't want their kids to screw up. They make long lists of rules telling the kid what to do so they won't screw up. I differ. I want my kid to screw up. That way he learns to live with his mistakes and learns how to deal with them. I want a kid who thinks about the consequences of his actions without being warned up front, because that's how the real world works.
If my kid takes the phone to school and a teacher takes it away, I'll be sad for the kid. I'll probably say something like, "Oh, how sad! You lost your phone. Now you can't text your friends, even when you're not at school. Bummer! Now what are you going to do?"
I'd let the kid pay for the service whenever I can't use it to get in touch with him.
If I call the kid and he doesn't answer, he doesn't get to use the phone. No warning. The kid will get the phone back when I don't need to worry about not being able to get in touch with me. But why tell the kid that upfront? Let him figure it out, and before you know it the kid will always be thinking to himself, "I wonder what's going to happen to me if I do x?" Isn't that what you want your kids to be doing?
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On the article POLL: Arm Teachers?
Brad Koehn
2:10 pm on Thursday, December 20, 2012
ReplyIt occurs to me that what parents seem to want is not to keep their kids safe. If that were the case they wouldn't have a swimming pool, drive a car, have kitchens full of processed food, etc., all of which present a substantial risk to their kids' health.
What they want is to be free from worry themselves, about the things they can't control. Funny that so many care so little about the things they can control.
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On the article Southwest LRT: Is It a Good Thing for Hopkins Business?
Brad Koehn
11:37 am on Tuesday, December 11, 2012
ReplyRoads allow ALL of us to get around? Even those of us who don't have/can't afford cars? Those of us who'd rather bike at least part of the way to work? Hopkins is one of the most public-transit dependent second-ring suburbs in the metro. Even the buses except the expresses are terribly slow, and you may have notice that the express buses mostly stop at parking lots because they presume you have a car.
Transit (roads, rails, buses, trains) is complex because it needs to work for such a variety of people who have a variety of needs, abilities, and resources.
As a general rule, when cities get to a certain size trains become more viable because they can haul so many more people and those people don't need to make a large upfront investment (ie. buy a car). The city size threshold has changed over time with the advent of more affordable cars, but the overall pattern remains the same.
We used to have a large network of streetcars and trains that moved the bulk of our population. Cars became affordable and changed the equation: the trains went away and we built a lot of large, expensive roads. The Twin Cities have reached a point where due to increases in population and area of the metro, LRT is once again becoming a preferable alternative to roads.
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On the article OPINION: Southwest LRT Process is ‘Anti-democratic and Unaccountable’
Brad Koehn
8:24 am on Thursday, November 8, 2012
Reply"Ramrodding... up the backside?" Still upset about the election, Mr. Scofield? Or maybe you're more upset about the marriage amendment?
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On the article Parents Talk: What Do You Do About Kid Attitude?
Brad Koehn
11:32 am on Thursday, October 11, 2012
ReplyI no longer do the warning thing. It just leaves me with a kid who's a brat until he thinks he'll be punished. Instead, I model the behavior I want my child to use in his own relationships: when he is bothering me to the point where I don't want him around me anymore, I tell him so and ask him to leave.
If I ask him to do something and he does it, but in the rudest way possible (e.g. the kid says in a snide voice, "There! I took out the trash! Happy now?"), I completely mis-perceive the snotty comment and reply with a sincere, "Thanks! Really appreciate it."
When he realizes that he's not pushing my buttons with his behavior, he gives it up pretty quickly. That's good for him and for me.
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On the article Parents Talk: Should Girls Wear Yoga Pants to School?
Brad Koehn
12:32 pm on Thursday, September 13, 2012
Exactly right. The problem here isn't the girls. The author is chasing symptoms because they're easier than trying to address the root cause.
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On the article Parents Talk Poll: Should Parents Be Held Accountable for Their Children’s Delinquent Behavior?
Brad Koehn
10:59 am on Thursday, September 6, 2012
ReplyI don't understand the premise: parents are already accountable for their (minor) children's delinquent behavior. If your child receives a fine for underage drinking, guess who's on the hook for actually paying it? The parent(s)/guardian(s)! Likewise if a minor damages property.
What form of accountability were you thinking of?
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On the article Trivia: Test Your Olympic Knowledge
Brad Koehn
6:15 am on Thursday, July 26, 2012
ReplyCurious. I "voted" (do you really vote in a trivia challenge, or answer?) each question but only my response to the first one was recorded. Nice software.
Brad Koehn
7:33 am on Saturday, February 2, 2013
Is it better to spend all that money (to say nothing of kids' time) on bussing rather than on high-performing, talented teachers? So Hopkins has increased diversity, so what? That's one measure of success, but what parents are (correctly) concerned about is the impact of open enrollment on the goals the parents have for their kids. If a parent doesn't value diversity as highly as other criteria that have suffered under open enrollment (e.g., juvenile crime), then they're right to voice their concerns.
The problem with these programs is that there doesn't seem to be a way to determine whether or not they're successful, but it's easy to determine how much they cost.