As a high school teacher, I am constantly amazed by the things today's youth don't know. At the school I teach at, our lowest test scores are normally in the subject of history. While I do not claim to be an expert in history, there are certain things everyone should know such as when the Civil War occurred or who is buried in Grant's Tomb.

Yesterday, I had the misfortunate of reading an article from the Associated Press lamenting the general ignorance or apathy young people have concerning history. The following is a list of excerpts taken from the article.

"Despite the wall-to-wall coverage of the damage of Hurrican Katrina, nearly one-third of young Americans recently polled couldn't locate Louisana on a nap and nearly half were unable to identify Mississippi." I found this statistic staggering and frankly unacceptable. Anyone born in the United States who has at least an eight grade education should be able to identify every state and I would like to think most, if not all, of the state capitals.

The article also mentioned the following:
1)Six in 10 Americans between the ages of 18 and 24 could not find Iraq on a map.

2)Fewer than three in 10 think it is important to know the locations of countries in the news and just 14 percent believe speaking another language is a necessary skill.

3)Two-thirds did not know that the earthquake that killed 70,000 people in October of 2005 occurred in Pakistan.

4)47 percent could not find India on a map of Asia.

5)Nearly three-quarters of those polled incorrectly named English as the most widely spoken native language.

6)Six in 10 did not know the border between North and South Korea is the most heavily fortified in the world.

Of the facts I listed, the one that concerns me most are the young people who cannot find Louisana or Mississippi on the map.Therefore, this is the "way I see it." Perhaps the time has come for us to get back to basics. While knowing world history is important, is it not more important to know our own history? I was shocked to discover that the history teachers at my school only spend a couple of days on the Civil War or Vietnam due to time restraints. In a day and age where the emphasis is placed on state and national mandated testing, are our children learning anything about history and in particular the United States?

I would like to challenge each one of you to give my little test a try. Find a map/outline of the United States where the States and capitals are not labeled. Without cheating, see if you can identify all fifty states and the capitals. I also challenge you to list the Presidents in order starting with George Washington and working your way through President Bush. For any of you that struggle with this activity, you have made my point. Let's start reteaching history that all Americans should know.

One of the few academic regrets I have of my college days was the fact I never took a class in dream analysis. Twice during my years at the University of Memphis, the school offered a research course which studied brain patterns during sleep and studied the different types of dreams people have.

I have always been an active dreamer. From the time I was a small child to the present, I have several lasting memories of dreams I have encountered while sleeping. According to research, most people dream several times a night. However, we only remember the ones when we are in a light pattern of sleep. I always found this strange because I have never considered myself a light sleeper. In fact, if the world came to an end, it is highly likely I would be the last to know it or I would simply go back to bed.

For most of you reading this blog, I am sure you can recall several strange dreams that have occurred during your lifetime. Most of us have had the infamous underwear dream where we are in a public place wearing our unmentionables, but no one else seems to notice. In fact, one time I dreamed I was in public with toilet paper hanging from my rearend.

Probably the scariest dream I occassionally have is what I called the "paralyzation dream." This is the dream where I "wake up" and feel there is someone in the room with me. I seem to be conscious of my surroundings but when I try to move my arms and legs, I am a state of paralysis. My eyes can move, but my mouth cannot open. There is nothing scarier than realizing the boogie man is in your bedroom but you are helpless to even put up a good fight. Am I the only one who has had this type of dream?

Last week, I had one of the strangest memories in recent history. In my dream, I was a contestant on the long running game show, The Family Feud. However, I had never seen any of the people who were representing my family. They knew me, but I didn't know them. However, even in my dream my only concern was winning some cash, so I just pretended like I knew them too. The show opened and out came Richard Dawson, the original host of the show. He did his opening schtick and walked over and kissed the woman who was supposed to be my sister. He did the same with the other females on the show. Each one of the ladies was dressed elegantly. He then proceeded to shake the hands of all the males. However, this is where it got weird. Every male contestant with the exception of me had a beard and were roughly ten-twenty years older than I was.

We started the game, but then things changed. Instead of going down the row to ask each person on your team a question, I was the only allowed to answer.The only thing my family ever did was say "Good answer, Good answer!" If that isn't bizarre enough, Richard Dawson seemed to disappear. Each time a question was asked to me there was a different host asking the questions including Bret Somers from the old Match Game.

If anyone has a theory on this dream, I beg you to reply or get me a prescription for some lithium.

Since I was a small child, music has always been a big part of my life. To this day, I would still rather listen to a good album than watch television or surf the internet. Music affects us on a personal level in a way no other form of entertainment can ever touch.

My favorite genre of music has always been 80's hard rock. At the age of 34, I grew up listening to bands primarily from the 70's and 80's. The thing that attracted me most to this type of music was the fact that most of the 80's hair bands were actually closer related to pop music than true heavy metal. Think about it, bands like Bon Jovi and Poison contained a great sense of melody and pop choruses with a little heavy guitar rock thrown in for good measure.

The following is a list of bands and/or singers I grew up listening to and still enjoy to this day. Some of these bands many of you have probably never heard of or know little about.I welcome each one of you to list some of the bands you grew up listening to from all genres of music.

The following is in no particular order:

1)Alice Cooper-I have long considered Cooper one of the most underrated performers in the history of music. Alice essentially brought theatrics into music and he has often touched upon taboo topics. He still remains my favorite live performer to this day.
2)Ted Nugent-Nuge tends to stay in trouble because of his controversial political views, but the fact remains he is one of the greatest guitar players of all time.
3)Buddy Guy-I have always enjoyed the blues and everytime I have ever seen Guy perform, I have always had a blast.
4)Billy Idol
5)Scorpions
6)UFO
7)Motley Crue
8)Black and Blue
9)Mountain
10)Joan Jett
11)Doro Pesch-underrated German singer
12)John Prine-this guy is a tremendous songwriter. I recommend Sweet Revenge by this contemporary folk artist.
13)Ronnie James Dio-former singer of Elf, Rainbow, and early 80's Black Sabbath has countless quality albums that are overlooked by the masses.
14)Ratt
15)Weird Al Yankovic-I am sorry but I think this guy is hilarious.
16)Dokken
17)B.B.King
18)Heather Eatman-New York based singer-songwriter
19)Kenny Rogers-lay off the plastic surgery Kenny.
20)DC Talk
21)Rez Band-great 80's Christian Hard Rock Band
22)Overkill-a little bit heavier than most bands I listen to, but I have always enjoyed their music.
23)Twisted Sister
24)Judas Priest
25)Queensryche
26)Thin Lizzy-it is a shame most people only can name two or three songs by this band.
27)Ozzy Osbourne-his Sabbath work and early solo material are stellar. Unfortunately the Oz man has become sort of a running joke.
28)Van Halen
29)Petra
30)Johnny Lang
31)Screaming Cheetah Wheelies
32)Savatage
33)Kix
34)Faster Pussycat
35)Vanilla Fudge
36)Deep Purple
37)Molly Hatchet
38)Black Oak Arkansas
39)Heart
40)The Who
41)Badlands
42)Iron Maiden
43)Melissa Etheridge
44)Hardline-so underrated you have never heard of them
45)Eric Gales
46)Duran Duran
47)Arlo Guthrie
48)Neil Young
49)Blondie
50)The Gap Band

One of the things I have always enjoyed about living in a small city is the relatively low amount of crime when compared to larger cities. In recent years, however, the city of Covington has began to change. More and more people are moving out of the city of Memphis and crime is beginning to follow. In fact, recent data has indicated that Covington, Tennessee has the highest amount of meth labs in the country when based on population. In other words, despite the lack of murders and armed robberies in our fair city, Covington is still not the safest place to live.

A few years ago, the city of Covington made an effort to improve the police force. In some ways, that goal was accomplished. The City police hired a new police chief and trained additional officers. At first, that appeared to be a good thing. However, in recent months the police force has gone nuts. Every week it appears they want a new law passed. Some of their ideas are good ones, but many of their ideas reak of one thing-money.

A few weeks ago, the Covington Police Department reported the desire to write tickets to anyone driving a vehicle with an offensive bumper sticker. This opens up a can of worms. First of all, what do you define as offensive? Most bumper stickers I observe do not use profanity or say anything blatantly offensive so how to you regulate that? Let me give you an example. One of the bumper stickers I frequently see states "My Kid Beat Up Your Honor Student." Obviously that is a joke. However, parents of honor students may be offended because it is "mocking" those that do not do well in school. On the other hand, my mother told me this morning that she has always been distrubed by "My Kid is a Honor Roll Student." Our reasoning is not all kids are capable of making straight A's and B's (one would only have to look at my old high school report cards to confirm that). In other words, what is offensive and how do you define it?

The other problem many citizens have with the proposed law is the issue of freedom of speech. Their argument is citizens should have every right to put a bumper sticker of their choice on their own vehicle. I am inclined to agree with that statement. While I don't particularly want to read a bumper sticker that uses excessive profanity or promotes anything sexually explicit, it is still a subjective issue. One of the biggest problems I see in our country is that our individual rights are slowly being taken and this is an example of that.

It would be nice to think the Covington City Police are only looking out for the best interest of its citizens. However, let's get real. This is yet another way the police force can write tickets and make a profit off of its residents. It is common knowledge that the police force is underfunded and is desperately look for ways to raise revenue. One can only hope that they do not pass an ordinance where any person in Covington can be fined for writing an "offensive blog."

There are few things in life less enjoyable than having a job you dislike or even hate. For the last eight years I have dedicated my life to a career in education. I began my career conducting testing for the University of Memphis and I fell in love with the educational profession. A few years later, I was offered a position at Dyersburg State Community College where I ran a successful tutorial lab and taught writing courses. Quite frankly, it was the happiest time of my professional career. Unfortunately the pay lacked a lot to be desired.

Three years ago I received a phone call from a friend who taught at the high school level stating our local school system was in need of new teachers and he had recommended me to move down to the secondary level. Within a week, I received another phone call asking me if I would be interested in accepting a job.

I wasn't certain if I really wanted to leave my cushy job, but finally I relented after learning I would be making almost ten thousand dollars more than I was making at DSCC. In other words, it was more of a money decision than anything else. However, I convinced myself since I enjoyed teaching and love children so much that it would not be that big of a deal.

My first year of teaching was not that bad. While I was amazed at how much the public schools have changed, I didn't have a particularly bad year. Any problems I did encounter I chalked it up to the fact I had never taught public school before. My second year of teaching things took a turn for the worse. I found the attitude of many students (kids hate school these days)and the lack of parental involvement appalling. It was at that time I began to long for my old position.

This year I decided to change my attitude and embrace my job. I began the year with an enthusiasm I had not shown in a long time. However, it became apparent early on that this school year would be a frustrating one. The core of students I was asked to teach, according to other teachers and test results from previous years indicated that these were the lowest achieving students I had ever taught. The vast majority of kids after administering a pretest out of a 7th grade book (I teach 10th graders) indicated that over 75% of my students were unable to excel at work three grade levels below what was expected of them. Frustrated, I gave my kids a reading test and the results were shocking to say the least. Most of my students demonstrated an inability to read at a level higher than fifth or sixth grade. It amazed me that most of them could not tell you what the theme of a story meant.

As the year has progressed, I have noticed that this trend hasn't just occurred in my classes, but throughout the school. During the third nine weeks period, almost every teacher voiced concern at the behavior in their classroom and the declining test scores. While a few teachers blame the weather as a reason for lack of productivity, it has become all too evident that public education is in trouble. I don't know if it is because of the emphasis on teaching to the mandatory state tests or not, but the kids don't really want to be there and frankly neither do most teachers. I am beginning to realize that certainly applies to me.

I still love education. However, what I have learned is I don't love teaching in public education. Perhaps that is what happens when you accept a job based purely on money and not on desire. This summer I plan to begin looking for a job in the educational field that does not involve public education. I would love to move back to the college level or do something in testing. I still love teaching students who desire to learn and trying to make a difference. However, my days in public education are numbered.