Does Homer Simpson live in Federal Way?
 
I think he maybe living here along with his family and many of his relatives!  If we look at the values that we see in him and his family portray, there seems to be a great deal of coincidence between these behaviors and those that are quite commonly exhibited in our community.
 
Bad behavior, poor scholarship, violence, gun shots, murder, you name it, are constantly reported in the local papers. 
 
Where does this start?  I would like to suggest that it starts with very young children who are not "guided" either by the adults in their lives, or by the schools that they begin to attend starting somewhere after the age of three.  Before long some are judged to be "behaviorally disabled." 

In the past 50 years we have decided that it would be judgmental to criticize the way adults bring up children.  In this same period we have experienced the rise in almost any kind of bad behavior you would care to remember.
 
In the daily and local papers Mark Miloscia writes about the need for another "Greatest Generation" such as the generation that was born in the Depression and fought in the Second World War.  This was a group that honestly believed that consequences of allowing the values of Hitler's Germany and Tojo's Japan to prevail would destroy the world as they knew it. 

Since the end of the Second World War there seems to have been a constant erosion of the basic values that allowed the United States to prevail.  This slow erosion is now evident in the behavior of many and in the levels of education that seems to now be commonplace in America. 

On "Are you smarter than a 5th grader" recently I watched an elementary teacher, who was an English Literature major, define "Tri-centennial" as "Three thousand years!"  Other such similar errors are what make this program so popular.

Mark states: “The reality is this: Many in our society have embraced a brand of Wall Street and Hollywood self-interest that is unsustainable. What we are experiencing is not simply a recession in the economic sense, but the result of a morally bankrupt pursuit of individualism and entitlement at home and at work at the expense of any long-term greater good.”

If we are not well educated how are we to compete with parts of the world where they are now taking education seriously? One of the comments responding to Mark's article in the papers sums it up very well.
 
"To expect a "a values shift" at this stage I find laughable considering every role model in society has the moral standing of a career burglar, pimp or worse. Every pillar of our society has been cracked and taken advantage of in ways that would have given your great-grandmother heart failure "seventy-five" years ago (and that's when her heart was chipper)."

Why does this have to be true in our schools? Why can’t this behavior and culture end at the school house door? If the adults, taxpayers, in our society believe that this is not a desirable trend, why do we have to embrace the behavior of the Simpsons who exemplify many of most undesirable attributes of the current situation?

I tutor in the homes of many who can easily be classified as “needy.” However I find that flat screens are usually present and they are not tuned to educational programs. Yet their kids are either very talented and in need of some positive stimulation, or they have been stunted in their academic growth perhaps by lack of exposure to any positive academic stimulation.

Roman emperors were quoted as saying “Give them bread and circuses.” This now seems to be the case for a very significant portion of our youth. The circuses in our local coliseums and on television coupled with junk food can sum up the lives of a large number of our younger generation. Isn’t this the life of the Simpsons?

Are there any of this new generation willing to be part of a “Great Generation” as suggested by Mark Miloscia? I hope so!