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Let me preface by: I don't mean to offend, but I think your perception is fundamentally wrong. Rural folk don't want help from your "our" because their situati

Let me preface by: I don't mean to offend, but I think your perception is fundamentally wrong. Rural folk don't want help from your "our" because their situation is different than yours. What works for major metropolitan areas doesn't work for small or rural schools. In an area where likely career paths involve working on or inheriting the family farm or ranch, more urban-centric curricula don't make sense. It's not that rural people in the US are more insular, it's that they need to be more independent. For instance, when the nearest ambulance may be an hour away, you learn to deal with emergency medical issues yourself, or you or your loved one die. When that ambulance cannot get to your house when the husband is having a heart attack, the wife somehow manages to get her husband into a vehicle to meet the ambulance somewhere the ambulance can reach. When the nearest sheriff is likewise an hour away when you call for help, if you even have 911, the sheriff is likely going to assume you have a shotgun, tell you to get it out, load it, and use it, if necessary. It's not that rural people in the US are insular or unaware of the rest of the US, it's that their situations are entirely different from what city dwellers encounter. Ambulances, police and fire response aren't just a few minutes away. It can be hours before emergency services arrive. And likewise, getting to even your local school that graduates at a HS level can take an hour or more. Getting to a college or university likely will take even longer. edit: grammar, spelling, minor bit of clarity.

tbihl 9y ago
Thank you, this is more in keeping with what I meant (though I might have done a clearer job saying it.) The place I have in mind is admittedly denser than what you describe, and is in many ways the worst of both worlds, but I think the lessons are similar. My home town is one of two 20,000 person towns in a 1000mi^2 county of 120k. Any time you have the combination of major repairs needed at schools and budget shortfalls at either the town schools or the county schools, the idea of consolidation gets floated around. My hometown is a town of 20k with about 950 in high school: enough for some variety, but not enough for all the really fancy stuff that the huge new schools have. On the other hand, the fastest speed limit along the school is 25mph, and it borders the walkable part of town (the rest of the town having been built after WW2.) It seems like someone is always talking about bonds and matching funds from the state to build some monstrosity at the edge of town so it's only reachable by bus. The problems of the school are many, but facility is not very high up on the list. The lack of smartboards, likewise. All the best teachers/professors I ever had used whiteboards or blackboards, and plenty of them held classes in buildings 3 times as old as my high school, with trashcans in the hallway to catch the rainwater. That's not to say there's not a place for new things in education, but thoughtful use of it doesn't require brand new everything.
- Something1234 9y ago
  I honestly believe that smartboards reduce the quality of education. The majority of my teachers who have used them didn't teach with rigor. I believe that the use of a board one has to write on forces them to know their material better.
jonathankoren 9y ago
Where are you talking about? Because as a rural Illinoisan, none of this rings true. Response times aren't anywhere like a major metropolitan city, but they are not nearly as abysmal as you're saying. Also, assuming kids are going to be working on "the family farm or ranch" is ignoring the past 50 years agricultural consolidation in America. The economic landscape of the rural midwest has changed a lot in just my lifetime.
jjeaff 9y ago
Since you mentioned having a gun, this is one of the huge differences between your average liberal elite and the average rural dweller. People on the left simply don't understand the difference of living on your own. The independence is completely at a different level. You may very well need a gun to fend off some crazy banging at your door that won't go away. In the city, you have the assumption that the cops will swoop in when you call 911 (albeit a very mistaken assumption). There is a lot of pundit handwaving going on right now saying that it's all just money that keeps gun laws from being passed, but people forget where the NRA gets its money. It's from individuals (and for the PAC, they don't even allow corporate donations). There are lots of people that truly see any gun laws as government overreach from a bunch of politicians who are usually flanked on both sides with gun toting body guards. Well, sorry for that tangent.
- 1k2ka 9y ago
  Does the possibility of needing to fend off some lunatic outweigh all the negatives of loose gun control? Rural residents will still be able to own a gun but maybe they should pass a psych test first and maybe that gun shouldn't be military grade.
  - ddaygold 9y ago
    The laws banning military grade weapons already exist -- the civilian AR-15 is not an military grade M-16, it is difficult to obtain an automatic weapon, destructive devices are banned-ish. Fundamentally the problem is that gun ownership is a core American ideal (to enough electorally well placed people), so outright bans are infeasible and other restrictions cause a race by manufacturers to innovate around the restrictions.
- lxmorj 9y ago
  The gun you want for reasonable home defense / deterrence in a rural setting is a shotgun, no? Very different to the assault rifle proxies typical used in mass shootings.
  - moduspol 9y ago
fhood 9y ago
As a former rural resident, I want to add that laws designed for cities often don't make any damn sense for rural areas. I basically always carry a small pocket knife, and a while back I got hit with a hundred dollar fine (and they took the knife) for having it on the NY subway, and I was furious for days afterwords. In a small town that sort of thing just doesn't happen.
- tbihl 9y ago
  Yeah, that'd be quite a shock. The thing that strikes me first is how much less appealing it'd be to bring lunch to work if I couldn't cut anything for it at lunch time. And then there's the inconvenience of not having my knife at work, which would come up at least several times on even the slowest days.

tbihl 9y ago

Thank you, this is more in keeping with what I meant (though I might have done a clearer job saying it.) The place I have in mind is admittedly denser than what you describe, and is in many ways the worst of both worlds, but I think the lessons are similar. My home town is one of two 20,000 person towns in a 1000mi^2 county of 120k. Any time you have the combination of major repairs needed at schools and budget shortfalls at either the town schools or the county schools, the idea of consolidation gets floated around. My hometown is a town of 20k with about 950 in high school: enough for some variety, but not enough for all the really fancy stuff that the huge new schools have. On the other hand, the fastest speed limit along the school is 25mph, and it borders the walkable part of town (the rest of the town having been built after WW2.) It seems like someone is always talking about bonds and matching funds from the state to build some monstrosity at the edge of town so it's only reachable by bus. The problems of the school are many, but facility is not very high up on the list. The lack of smartboards, likewise. All the best teachers/professors I ever had used whiteboards or blackboards, and plenty of them held classes in buildings 3 times as old as my high school, with trashcans in the hallway to catch the rainwater. That's not to say there's not a place for new things in education, but thoughtful use of it doesn't require brand new everything.

Something1234 9y ago
I honestly believe that smartboards reduce the quality of education. The majority of my teachers who have used them didn't teach with rigor. I believe that the use of a board one has to write on forces them to know their material better.

jonathankoren 9y ago

Where are you talking about? Because as a rural Illinoisan, none of this rings true. Response times aren't anywhere like a major metropolitan city, but they are not nearly as abysmal as you're saying. Also, assuming kids are going to be working on "the family farm or ranch" is ignoring the past 50 years agricultural consolidation in America. The economic landscape of the rural midwest has changed a lot in just my lifetime.

jjeaff 9y ago

Since you mentioned having a gun, this is one of the huge differences between your average liberal elite and the average rural dweller. People on the left simply don't understand the difference of living on your own. The independence is completely at a different level. You may very well need a gun to fend off some crazy banging at your door that won't go away. In the city, you have the assumption that the cops will swoop in when you call 911 (albeit a very mistaken assumption). There is a lot of pundit handwaving going on right now saying that it's all just money that keeps gun laws from being passed, but people forget where the NRA gets its money. It's from individuals (and for the PAC, they don't even allow corporate donations). There are lots of people that truly see any gun laws as government overreach from a bunch of politicians who are usually flanked on both sides with gun toting body guards. Well, sorry for that tangent.

1k2ka 9y ago
Does the possibility of needing to fend off some lunatic outweigh all the negatives of loose gun control? Rural residents will still be able to own a gun but maybe they should pass a psych test first and maybe that gun shouldn't be military grade.
- ddaygold 9y ago
  The laws banning military grade weapons already exist -- the civilian AR-15 is not an military grade M-16, it is difficult to obtain an automatic weapon, destructive devices are banned-ish. Fundamentally the problem is that gun ownership is a core American ideal (to enough electorally well placed people), so outright bans are infeasible and other restrictions cause a race by manufacturers to innovate around the restrictions.
lxmorj 9y ago
The gun you want for reasonable home defense / deterrence in a rural setting is a shotgun, no? Very different to the assault rifle proxies typical used in mass shootings.
- moduspol 9y ago

fhood 9y ago

As a former rural resident, I want to add that laws designed for cities often don't make any damn sense for rural areas. I basically always carry a small pocket knife, and a while back I got hit with a hundred dollar fine (and they took the knife) for having it on the NY subway, and I was furious for days afterwords. In a small town that sort of thing just doesn't happen.

tbihl 9y ago
Yeah, that'd be quite a shock. The thing that strikes me first is how much less appealing it'd be to bring lunch to work if I couldn't cut anything for it at lunch time. And then there's the inconvenience of not having my knife at work, which would come up at least several times on even the slowest days.