Reasoning? Learn it or lose it......

Should reasoning be taught in schools? If so, what grades and how much of it? Well I'm pretty sure that you know people who could use a good reasoning class or two, mainly because it seems that they can't seem to make the right decisions. This might be true but haven't we all made a few mistakes in our life? You see I think we can all apply a little critical thinking to our daily lives, and I believe that they should start teaching these classes in middle school.

You see at a young age children can develop habits that will stick with them until they die. A good example is kids eating habits, parents should watch how and what they eat because their kids will reflect that their entire lives. As Revolution Health puts it, "Be a good role model. Practice the eating and exercise habits you'd like your children to have. Your example is your child's most powerful learning tool." This is just one example of how children are affected by what parents do. But what about the kids who don't have very good role models at home? This is where the critical thinking comes in.

Kids need to learn what critical thinking is and how to use it in applicable ways early on in childhood. Critical thinking is needed in life and very useful in juggling what life will throw at you. For most of us juggling a job and a marriage and kids is how we live and learn the critical thinking aspect of things but if your like me and every other person on this planet there are some decisions that you've made that you have realized probably weren't the best ones. But you realized this and you course corrected yourself, but some people don't seem to do this very well. Some kids seem to just keep putting their hand up on the stove and they continue to burn themselves even after they have experience the pain of their mistake.

Some people think these kids are just plain dumb and it's,"Their fault," that they continue to make the same wrong decisions. Well, maybe so, but if you can teach these kids to stop making the same mistakes at young age then why not? Why wouldn't we offer these classes to help these kids? Well the answer is simple, we SHOULD offer these classes and we should make some of them mandatory. We need to get children to realized that they need to think things through and they need to think about the consequences in both the long term and the short term.

Since kids are so impressionable it is very plausible, (and also very realistic seeing as we all know someone who thinks very poorly of themselves for the mistakes that they have made) that they think that they are the problem, not realizing that the CHOICES they make is the problem not them. This can lead into a downward spiral of depression and cause a human being to repeat the same mistakes thinking that's just who they are rather than realizing that you are who you choose to be.

This is a very real need in our society and it needs to be addressed. Students should be exposed to critical thinking at younger ages and realize how important these skill sets are. No one is born with knowledge, we all acquire it. So lets start getting some good education and real world skill sets into our schools. Show up at school meetings, talk to your school superintendent, let the school board know what you would like to be taught, call your state governor and let them know that schools need to start incorporating this into the curriculum. Alas, more importantly teach your kids at home and be an example, let them experience some pain, let them realize that they define who they are through their actions. Again, this is a very real need and we need to get critical thinking into our schools and children's minds.

Technology has made a huge impact in our daily lives and for the better. Technology has changed how we go about our daily lives, it has changed the face of war, business, entertainment and security to name a few of the big ones. The biggest one that I think affects everyone is the entertainment industry. Technology has provided us with cool gadgets like the Itouch, laptops, Bluetooth, OnStar, cellphones, Facebook, 4G networking, mobile uploading, GPS, wireless internet and Xbox Live. In our day and time you don't even have to leave your home to watch movies (NetFlix), pay bills (Internet), talk to people around the world (cell phones), buy food (Domino's.com), listen to music (Itunes) or interact with people around the world (Xbox Live). You can even work from home now. But at the same time it's not without it's short comings.

Referring to the current war on terror everyone has seen or heard of the horrible be headings that radical Muslims like to post on the world wide web. Kids in school are secluding themselves with the famous Ipod and not coming out of their shells. Everyone remembers the Columbine shootings, what a lot of people don't know is that some teenagers actually made an online video game out of it, using the real names of the people who were murdered, all this in the name of "entertainment." It's just sickening if you ask me.
You see this is the biggest problem in our society today, anything can be used for regrettable purposes now days. People will find ways to use technology for their own benefit now. Sadly there is nothing that anyone can do about it. But that doesn't mean that we should stop using technology or we should destroy it or get rid of it.

Technology is a wonderful thing, people are doing great things with it for the benefit of others. For instance in the health field they are using automated services to answer questions that are commonly asked. This allows for almost no wait time at all, rather than waiting twenty to thirty minutes to talk to an associate. It makes our lives easier and it allows for a more productive day. People just need to learn how to use it sparingly and for the right things. Posting be headings and crawling inside of your Ipod are not productive or entertaining. Technology is a great thing and is very entertaining, just use it with the right mind set.

Life in the Army...

I joined the Army on January 14, 2008. I was shipped off to Fort Leonardwood, Missouri for five months. When I was doing my paper work they asked me if I wanted to do an OSUT. It stands for, "One station unit training." They said that I would complete Basic Combat Training (BCT) and then I would also complete my Advanced Individual Training (AIT) also known as MOS (Military Occupational Specialty) school. In other words, every soldier has to go through BCT, but then you go to another school to get your actual job training. Little did I know that I would be stuck in the same place with the same people with the same Drill Sergeants for my AIT. So even though I got it all done in five months, I was stuck with Drill Sergeants for five months! Most soldiers only have to deal with them for about two months. But I had my ways at getting back at them!
One day we were out at the MOUT site (Military Operations Urban Terrain), and we happened to be using paintball guns. My squad was the first squad to go, there were nine of us and my squad was issued nine flash grenades. They were supposed to last us all day seeing as we were going through multiple shoot houses and we would be using them in different environments. But, since I was the squad leader I was allowed to use them at my discretion. So we stack up on this door (it was a big two story building and we started at the top floor) and we can hear our Drill Sergeants inside talking to us. "Come on in Privates! We got a little surprise for you!" Our Drill Sergeants were playing the Op4 (opposing force) so my best guess at that time was that they were hiding at the end of the hall with paintball guns with our names written all over them. So we kick in the door and move in, "PLAT PLAT PLAT PLATLPLAT PLAT PLAT!" I was the fourth guy in Alpha team, and when I looked down the hallway all I could see were four guns poking out of concealed positions. We quickly moved into the first room on our right and cleared it. That's when I looked at my point man, he was covered in paint! He must have been shot twenty times in the three seconds it took us to get into the first room. He was rubbing his arms and cussing under his breath, he had HUGE blisters on them. We could hear our Drill Sergeants laughing at us down the hallway. "Hey Private! How's your arm? HAHAHAHAHAH." "This isn't a training exercise at all," I said. My team nodded in agreement, "Drill Sergeant is out to just mess us up, well two can play at that game." I reached for one of the flash bangs hanging off my IBA (Interceptive Body Armor) and prepped it to throw. I looked across the hallway into the room that was parallel to ours and whispered to kill team Bravo what I was about to do. Norieaga (whom I put in charge of Bravo) got a big smile on his face. I turned the corner and tossed the grenade yelling, "FRAG OUT!!!" Now, we are not supposed to throw these grenades at people because they are really loud and if the grenade lands right next to you it's possible to get third degree burns. But, seeing as our Drill Sergeants were not playing nice and I've just been waiting for months to get these guys back I decided all was fair in the shoot house. There is a three to five second fuse on the grenades, and during that time there was an awkward silence, then I heard one of the DS's whisper, "Did they really just throw a..." "BOOOOOOM!!!!" "Move! Move! Move!" I yelled and we charged down the hallway shooting for covering fire. We made it into the next room and cleared it. I looked down at my chest and realized that I hadn't even been shot once and I was the point guy that last time. Then I stopped for a second and realized that we hadn't even been shot at. I started to smile when down the hallway I heard, "WHO THE F*&% THREW THAT?!?!?!" My squad INSTANTLY ratted me out,"It was Holmes Drill Sergeant!" There was a slight pause then I heard Drill Sergeant continue to cuss at me at the top of his lungs. By this time I knew that I was already going to be in trouble by the time the training exercise was over so I grabbed another grenade of my chest and prepped it. My squad looked at me with their eyes wide open. I just looked at them, smiled and said, "Well I'm already in trouble, might as well go all the way." So I tossed it, waited for the explosion and moved to the next room. Didn't get shot once. We could hear our Drill Sergeants stumbling around down the hallway trying to get down the stairs. We cleared the rest of the hallway and moved to the stairs. Stairs were clear so we moved down them. As I peaked my head around the corner of the next hallway I could see that our Drill Sergeants had the exact same set up as before, so I decided to keep doing the same thing. I turned around, grabbed a grenade from my battle buddies chest rig, prepped it and threw it. When it exploded we moved down the hallway into the next room and cleared it. We repeated this process two more times, all the while my Drill Sergeants were cussing me out and telling me how they were going to smoke me once we get outside. Well down to the last room with four grenade left. By this time we were no more than fifteen feet away from them. But we hadn't gotten a chance to SHOOT our Drill Sergeants back yet. I turned around and looked at Haslag, the first point man who got shot like twenty times. I asked him if he was ready to get some pay back, he smiled and moved up next to me. I looked across the hallway to Bravo and whispered,"Right after this thing goes off, light em' up." So, I turned the corner and threw it, and yelled "FIRE TEAMS GO!" All nine of us privates popped out from the doors and rooms we were hiding behind and watched in awe and laughter as our Drill Sergeants TURNED their back on us and tried running out the back door. We must have let loose close to two hundred rounds in six seconds flat. I'll never forget how it looked to see those paintballs whiz towards our Drill Sergeants and see them wincing and twitching in pain as each one of those rounds hit them in the back. You see the great thing about that was this, our Drill Sergeants didn't have to wear body armor for this training exercise, in fact they hardly ever wore it, but right about then I'm guessing they were wishing that they had them on.
But sure enough as soon as they got outside they yelled, "INDEX!" Meaning that the training exercise was over. As I walked outside trying to hide my gigantic smile, four Drill Sergeants surrounded me. We like to lovingly call it the "Shark Attack" when you have four different Drill Sergeants surrounding you and they are all less then half an inch from your face screaming at the top of their lungs. So that is exactly what happened. After they yelled at me for a little while they told me to drop and start doing push-ups. For those of you have done push-ups in full battle rattle (meaning you have ALL your body armor and equipment on) you know that it's not very fun. About five minutes of this routine goes on when our LT (lieutenant) walks up. She asks what's going on, because your not really supposed to be smoking a private (meaning your not supposed to be yelling at them and making them do physical exercise) out in a training environment like this. They tell her what I did and she looks at me and asks if it's true. I reply "Yes Ma'am, I needed some sort of distraction for our movement because my guys and I were getting lit up." "Did it work?" she asked. "Yes Ma'am it did. Not one of my guys got hit after we started employing our hand grenades." "Very good private, you can recover." Drill Sergeants just looked at her in awe, then they looked at me and I could tell that our little push-up game wasn't over yet. Drill Sergeants left me alone for the rest of the day, until we got back to the barracks. At which point I found out that I had fire guard duty ALL night.
You know looking back on it, IT WAS TOTALLY WORTH IT!!! I also found out later that my squad was the only squad that passed the shoot house that day, everyone else got trashed. So it was totally worth it, but not for the victory. It was worth it for the sheer enjoyment of being able to shoot our Drill Sergeants in the back :). And that is the moral of the story.

Hi my name is Carl Holmes. I'm a full time college student and I'm also in the Arizona Army National Guard. I'm a Military Police gunner stationed with the 856 MP unit in Flagstaff, Arizona. I'm currently trying to get as much college done as possible before our first deployment. I'm also an avid believer in my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. I play the drums, piano, guitar and bass for the Heights church in Prescott. I currently live with my parents in Chino Valley. I'm also lucky to be dating a beautiful girl, Ashley Nicole Carter. Well, that's about it for my life and where I'm going. Oh, I'm also pursuing a degree in English, I wouldn't mind teaching it someday.

Carl Holmes