Scientists have proved beyond doubt that a mother’s love is fundamental to the way and manner in which a child’s intellect and character develops. The mothers of Chinonso and Chika have been in the news recently. Both loved their offspring in different ways with completely different outcomes. Chinonso’s mother is in mourning. He was a 21 year old boy who took his life in Kubwa a satellite town of the Federal Capital City Abuja.
After drinking a substance suspected to be rat poison, he left a suicide letter in which he begged his mother to forgive him for his inability to measure up to her expectations. He ended the disconcerting letter by saying he wanted to go and “rest”. The World Health Organization (WHO) reports that one million people worldwide commit suicide annually. This in effect means that someone dies of suicide approximately every 40 seconds.
The WHO also reports that suicide is second leading cause of death amongst 15 – 24 year olds. As bad as these figures are, they don’t include suicide attempts which are about 20 times more frequent than actual suicides. The majority of young people who commit suicide aren’t mentally ill, most of them take their lives as a result of depression, reactions to failure, response to accumulated domestic violence, unemployment, alcohol dependence or drug abuse.
Available records reveal that young Nigerians tragically ended their own lives for reasons as varied as lack of funds to pay school fees; being jilted and their wedding called off, not being able get pregnant, being declared HIV positive, being caught cheating in examinations, having their pregnancy rejected by the alleged father, or as a result of arguments with their parents. Quite absurdly Andrew Uba a 26 year old from Okigwe Imo State committed suicide because Manchester United lost the Champions League football final! In Chinonso’s case reports have it that he had complained to his friends about his mother’s habitual scolding.
She admonished him for not doing well in school, rebuked him whenever he wanted to sleep asking if he intended to sleep his life away, and chided him for having such a large appetite when food cost money! There is no doubt that she loved her son and only wanted the best for him, but what he really needed was someone to help him develop a resilience to the ups and downs of life, a sense of self-worth and self-confidence.
Experts claim that suicide has three identifiable stages. Firstly the “ideation” stage when the idea of suicide occurs, secondly the suicide attempt in which the plan is not successfully carried out for whatever reason, then lastly the actual suicide. If help comes in either of the first two stages death can be prevented. African tradition would not allow Chinonso to report his overbearing mother to his family. It’s just not done, if he had tried he would have been labelled a disrespectful child.
What both the mother and child needed was counselling. The increasing number of suicides in the nation makes it imperative that our Social Counselling Services become functional and effective. There must be places where people can go to receive advice and support outside of family members. Chinonso’s mother obviously meant well, unfortunately for her she will have to live with her loss. Chika’s mother on the other hand is a different kettle of fish. She never regarded her son as a failure. Far from it, he was the apple of her eye.
Her beloved son Chika had rented an apartment in the Lagos suburb of Ejigbo, where he accommodated her and his siblings. His wife and children are based in Canada and he drove a flashy new model Range Rover Jeep. As far as she was concerned he was “successful and responsible” and ensured his family lived a life of comfort and luxury. He was the breadwinner but she never cared to ask where all the bread came from! Chika’s only job was as a Cabin Crew with Arik Airline.
The mystery of his unexplained wealth was solved when he was arrested recently at London’s Heathrow Airport by the UK border Force Officials. He was in possession of 20 kilograms of cocaine with a street value of N100 million. It wasn’t the first time he had done it. His accomplice Oliver Chibuzor a catering loader at the airline confessed to officials of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) that he helps smuggle the drugs onto the aircraft concealed in catering supplies.
Chibuzor claimed he was usually paid N400,000 per bag and was expecting N1.2 million from the three bags he loaded for this particular transaction. Even though she was surrounded by luxuries which her son’s salary could not afford, Chika’s mother incredulously claims she had no idea anything was amiss! Standing firmly by her son she says he is a “good boy” who must have been misled. She has very little to regret. The sleeping and feeding arrangements inside British prisons are superior to most medium sized hotels in Nigeria, and Chika will not suffer unduly from his incarceration. The unanswered question in the reactions of the two mothers to their children’s behaviour is this – If Chinonso had been a successful criminal like Chika would he have earned his mother’s praise, respect and unwavering support and still be alive today?

Title – A Talee of Two Mothers

Summary- Two diffrent types of suicide, feeling not good enough and feeling like you are being treated to hard

Impact- This impacts me because I have known people who do not feel important enough to live. So this artical affects me trumendously. As of it’s effect on the world, according to this artical 2 people are no longer alive because they didn’t feel like they where good enough or could take it anymore. This should make an impact on the world, to let us know what we can do for others to stop this from happening, there should be something done.

(KYTX) – An East Texas family says they will sleep a little easier after what happened at their home Friday morning.

Robert Reynolds tells CBS19 he was shocked when he woke up Friday morning to find his truck gone from his driveway. But he says that wasn’t the only thing that was stolen. Reynolds says his family’s sense of security was also stolen.

It was a night Reynolds says his family will never forget.

“Nothing is going to be good at 3:15 in the morning. You get a knock in the door. And so there was a fear right off,” said Reynolds remembering when authorities first came to his home.

That’s when he found out a wanted fugitive, Jeffrey Brooks, had been on the loose in his area on Country Road 431 near Lindale.

But it wasn’t until the break of dawn when Reynolds discovered something of his was missing.

“He stole my truck and I went out to go to work at 7 o’clock the next morning and told my principal I was going to be a little late,” said Reynolds.

Since then, Reynolds and his family have been on edge and shaken up over what happened.

“It doesn’t sound macho but I really did. I felt violated,” explained Reynolds. “We did change how we act. We went through our day to day activities.”

But Reynolds says that all changed Sunday morning when he found out Brooks’ crime spree had finally come to an end.

“There was a sense of thank goodness they got him. And then the other part comes in and you go there’s a man that just, that died because of this,” said Reynolds. “Am I happy about it? No not at all. But I do feel safe now. ”

Yet oddly, Reynolds says he’s thankful it happened to him.

“I’m just glad it happened to us and it wasn’t somewhere else and someone else had to go through that grief and it all turned out good for us,” said Reynolds. “Unfortunately this man lost his life, but I think his life was gone long before he was shot.”

Police were able to recover Reynolds’ stolen truck. He says he will pick up his truck Monday and assess the damage.

Topic – Crime Spree Victim Reacts

Title – Crime Spree Victim Reacts

Source – Google News

Summary- Crime spree criminal steals East Texas victim’s car. The victim tells his story and comments that , “I feel violated.” The fugitive was shot, the car was retuned, and the damage is being repaired on the truck.

Reaction- Well considering since this is my teacher’s Dad (who is also a teacher) this is pretty sad, I am thankful everything worked out and he got his possessions back , and he can sleep now knowing that the criminal is done, but at the same time I think that this could have been much worse had things not worked the way they did. I feel bad for both the victim and the fugitive, because he didn’t need to have anything stolen from him, nobody does, but also the criminal was shot so I have mixed feelings about that. I’m just glad this issue is resolved.

World impact- This does not affect the world , most people in East Texas don’t even know this happened, but to the people it did impact it has made a difference in their lives, I’m sure they are doing some things different, like paying attention to security and protection now. As for the criminal he lost his life so he’s definitely changed. But I don’t think this affects the world.

If we want kids to understand their world, they need to know the basics about different faith traditions.Resize TextPrint ArticleComments 45By Linda K. Wertheimer September 8 at 12:00 PM Follow Lindakwert Linda K. Wertheimer, a journalism lecturer at Boston University and a former education editor for the Boston Globe, is the author of “Faith Ed.: Teaching About Religion in an Age of Intolerance.”
First-grade teacher Deborah Fagg giving a lesson on world religions at the Minneha Core Knowledge Magnet Elementary School in Wichita, Kansas during fall semester 2013. (Linda K. Wertheimer/Courtesy of Linda K. Wertheimer)
The day Jesus entered my fourth-grade classroom, my childhood forever changed.
It was 1974, and my family had just moved from western New York state to rural Ohio. I was the new kid, and all I wanted was to fit in. But one afternoon that first week, a woman hired by local churches walked into my public-school classroom and my regular teacher left. She stuck figures of Jesus Christ and his disciples on a flannel board, told us how Jesus could solve people’s problems and, a little while later, asked us all to sing the hymn, “Jesus Loves Me.”
Here’s the thing: I’m Jewish.
I didn’t know the song and I didn’t believe in Jesus. I told my parents and they complained to the school, but the agreed-upon resolution was excusing me from this weekly religious instruction. My brothers and I were the only Jewish kids in the school system, and every week when it came time for religion class, my 11-year-old brother and I were, effectively, banished by our classroom teachers.
That was roughly 40 years ago, and if this sort of proselytizing were the norm today, I’d certainly understand why many parents remain skittish about outsourcing the teaching of basics about different religions to the public schools. But if anything, when disputes arise over teaching about religion as part of public school curriculum, educators wind up getting the message that they might be better off playing it safe and shying away from the subject, even at a moment when it’s critical that children are equipped with an understanding of various religions and the role they play in today’s world — particularly the religion that’s so often misunderstood: Islam.
Take the example of Wellesley Middle School in suburban Boston. In the fall of 2010, a parent chaperone, concerned about a sixth-grade field trip to a local mosque, videotaped a handful of students who appeared to kneel and pray in a line of male worshippers. The kids were only copying what they saw, but critics said the kids were effectively learning to “pray to Allah.”
The idea of children praying in a mosque on a school-sponsored trip raised fears that the program was forcing religion on unsuspecting children. And the school system rightly acknowledged that the boys shouldn’t have wound up participating in the prayer — they should have only observed. But for more than a decade, Wellesley has been getting it right when it comes to teaching about religion, and the school’s detractors have come primarily from outside of the district. Most Wellesley parents I interviewed around the time of the incident appreciated that their 11- and 12-year-olds spent a semester learning about Judaism, Christianity, Islam and Hinduism.
Every year at Minneha Core Knowledge Magnet Elementary School in Wichita, Kansas, first graders learn about Judaism, Christianity and Islam over the course of several weeks — a curriculum the school has stood by, in spite of a misunderstanding two years ago about a bulletin board that illustrated the Five Pillars of Islam.
On occasion, yes, schools get into public messes over where the line is drawn between church and state — like recent reports of a “mass baptism” taking place on campus prior to a Georgia high school’s football practice.
But in my travels around the country reporting for my book, “Faith Ed.: Teaching About Religion in An Age of Intolerance,” I didn’t see teachers trying to preach Christianity — or any — faith. I saw educators trying to provide kids with facts about the histories and practices of world religions, including faiths about which few students knew anything.
And the takeaway isn’t that there’s a danger our schools will veer toward religious indoctrination. It’s that schools should do more to give religion a firm place in the curriculum, beginning as early as the elementary grades. That way, kids will be prepared, as they grow, to evaluate what they see every night on cable TV based on real information, rather than a set of stereotypes.
They should know the difference between Shi’a and Sunni Islam — not as a perfunctory nod to diversity, but because they’ll be able to better form opinions about the Middle East conflicts that dominate the news. They should know the difference between Sikhism and Hinduism, considering that those are the respective religions of the last two prime ministers of India — the world’s largest democracy. They should have a historical perspective on the differences between Catholicism and Protestant denominations when the pope visits their country, as he’s doing this month. It’s problematic, as Texas State University’s Joseph Laycock notes, to wait for college to teach religion as a subject, because “many Americans never have the opportunity to go to college.”
There are parents and educators who consider first grade too early to teach about religion in school, but as the parent of a 7-year-old, I believe it’s the ideal time to start increasing children’s awareness about our pluralistic society. Consider that in a Pew survey a few years ago, just 45 percent of Americans could identify Friday as the start of the Jewish Sabbath. That’s the sort of rudimentary knowledge that can, and should, be explained in elementary school.
No, we can’t expect kids to grasp all the nuances of the major world religions and the controversies surrounding them, but if we’re preparing kids to be thoughtful citizens of the world, they should know something about people in their community who may be different from themselves. My son has been attending religious school since kindergarten. He knows the major figures in Judaism as well as the holidays. But ask him what Easter is about — other than bunnies and colorful eggs — and he really has no idea. I’m happy that he knows his own religious heritage, but I also want him to know more about his peers’ different traditions.
In my conversations with students about world religion courses, young people told me about their experiences being bullied because of their faiths. A 24-year-old Sikh man recalled the humiliation he felt at age 5 when fellow kindergartners made fun of his patka, his traditional religious head covering. A Muslim sixth-grader remembered a classmate’s taunt from a few years before: “Do you have a bomb in your locker?” Muslims talk about being stigmatized every time a news story breaks about a terrorist who has a connection to Islam.
Unfortunately, there’s no consensus about developing best practices for teaching about religion in public schools. At best, America’s schools, which have long had a tumultuous relationship with religion, largely because of prayer-in-school battles, are in flux. The country has only one school system, Modesto, Calif., that requires a world religions course for graduation. Minneha, in Wichita, goes in a different direction, among roughly 1,200 private and public schools that utilize Core Knowledge, a well-known, but not widely adopted curriculum.
The First Amendment proscribes “establishment” of religion, but clearly leaves room for schools to teach about religion. And while 70 percent of Americans still identify as Christian and we still debate whether we’re “a Christian nation,” those who argue for the installation of religious values in public schools are on Constitutionally shaky ground — as are those who say instruction that explains religion has to be banned.Educators and religion scholars of today generally agree that Supreme Court Justice Tom Clark did the most to elevate religion’s place as an academic subject in the 1963 Abington v. Schempp case, banning teacher-led prayer, in which he wrote: “It might well be said that one’s education is not complete without a study of comparative religion or the history of religion and its relationship to the advancement of civilization.” Yet many middle and high school teachers spend only a few days discussing religion as the topic comes up in social studies. It’s unusual to do much of anything at the elementary level.
Despite efforts over the last several decades, moves to develop courses and training for teaching religion have begun and often fizzled, even though most states now have standards that call for a religion component in social studies and geography.
We need to resurrect those efforts, because the time to become a more religiously literate people is overdue.
After 9/11, wrote John Seigenthaler, founder of the First Amendment Center, “It is no longer a question of whether schools should teach children about Islam. They must teach them — about other religions as well. It is a responsibility, a duty.” Nationally, we need to renew dialogue about the best way to teach about religion, how to better train teachers and how early the lessons should begin. We need an understanding that it’s not only okay to teach about religion in schools, but vital. Too often, knee-jerk reactions to lessons on religion come from adults who harbor misconceptions they otherwise might not have if they, themselves, had a broader base of knowledge about different religions.
Education can’t eliminate ignorance, but it can reduce it. The same Muslim boy who was teased in elementary school described how peers stood up for him in a later incident and chided a substitute teacher for claiming that all Muslims were terrorists. The students had remembered the lesson from sixth grade that it was wrong to stereotype based on religion.
Education is essential if we hope to facilitate a broader conversation. We can’t effectively debate whether Islam is a religion of peace — as its defenders say — or if it is inherently bellicose — as its critics suggest — until we first have a body politic that knows the basics.
Education might have prevented what happened to me as a kid. I returned to my alma mater in 2013 to find my school system teaching about religion as part of social studies and teens respectful of other faiths even though few personally knew a non-Christian. The difference? In the ’70s and ’80s, my peers and I lacked what all schools should have today: teachers who can guide students through a healthier discussion about religious differences and similarities.

Hailey H
Topic- Separation between church and state
Title- Public Schools Shouldn’t Preach. But They Should Teach Kids About Religion.
Source- Google News
Summary- Should kids learn about religion in school? This is a problem because the whole thing about church and state, but in the same breath they should know more about different religions then just their little box full of stereotypes and misconceptions.
Reaction- It is good for kids to have knowledge about different religious practices but kids are also easily influenced and will believe almost anything you tell them, that’s why the state or parents probably don’t have the schools back on this. I feel that religion is not something to take lightly and it should not be forced upon anyone. There should be an optional class that students can take about religions so that nobody feels forced or obligated to take it, I know there are classes in collage but it would be better to break the stereotypes as early as possible. This event affects me because a while back a school got in trouble for saying a bible verse after announcements and now they don’t do it anymore, I’m not sure if I agree or disagree with that but religion is something that shouldn’t be thrown out of curriculum.

The U.S. Supreme Court had said it wouldn’t stop the scheduled execution and Gov. Jay Nixon denied his clemency petition. Both Nunley and his co-defendant in the case, Michael Taylor, were sentenced to death in 1991. Taylor was executed last year.

Nunley’s attorney has three appeals before the U.S. Supreme Court, including one that says the death penalty amounts to cruel and unusual punishment — an argument rebuffed by a detective with a 42-year career who helped break the case.

Retired Kansas City detective Pete Edlund said the only thing cruel and unusual is how long Nunley and Taylor remained on death row.

“A travesty,” he said. “I’m frustrated by the fact it’s taken so long and over ridiculous excuses to extend their time on death row.”

He said Nunley should have been put to death long ago.

“They just take forever to do the deed,” Edlund told The Associated Press. “The delay in executing these two is just nuts because it didn’t have anything to do with their guilt. It was legal mumbo jumbo nonsense.”

Hailey H

Topic- Sould man get the death penalty for a girls murder in 1989
Title-Man Facing Execution for Girl’s 1989 Kidnapping, Rape, Death
Source- Google News
Summary- A man killed a girl in 1989, raped her and stabed her to death and has been on death row for more then two decades. The case was a slow case and the only problem is the court is not sure if it is to late for his sentence. The judge decided that his last breath would be on September 2nd at 6:00.
Reaction- The judge took far to long with this mans sentence, I think that the judge should have taken care of this in 1989 when he was found guilty. It is not fair for him to get 20 more years of life after what he did, and it isn’t right for the girl or her family, how do you think the girls parents felt for 20 years knowing that their daughter is dead and the killer is still alive? This event dose not directly affect me but it makes me question the judical branch, why would they not have sentenced him right away, why dose he deserve life after he kidnaped, raped, and killed a innocent girl without reason?
World Impact- Some peope don’t see affecting them, and they are probably right, its not something that affects the world, but it is something that has changed lives. It has ended the girls future, ended the killers life, and broken the girls family and her friends. If a tragity like this dose not make your heart hurt then the world is just as heartless as the killer.

To this day neighbor Deborah Bowen carries a picture of Ann and her sisters in her car. It’s there to remind her of the innocent girl down the street from her.

“I will never forget the girl, she was just a beautiful thing,” Bowen said. “My dad went to his grave knowing those two were still alive.”

The former detective is hoping, with Nunley’s execution, it will offer some sort of peace for Ann’s family.

“It has been a long time, justice delayed,” Edlund said.

The other two pending appeals take issue with Missouri’s process of secretly acquiring its execution drug and argue that Nunley should have been sentenced by a jury, not a judge.

The clemency petition to Nixon, filed by death penalty opponents, alleges that racial bias played a role in the case because a prosecutor refused a plea deal that would have given Nunley life in prison without parole. Nunley is black, as was Taylor, while the victim was white.

According to prosecutors, Nunley and Taylor binged on cocaine and stole a car in the pre-dawn hours of March 22, 1989. At one point, a police officer from neighboring Lee’s Summit chased the car but was called off by a supervisor when the stolen car crossed into Kansas City.

Later that morning, the men were driving around Kansas City when they saw Ann standing at the end of her driveway, waiting for a school bus. The girl’s mother had stepped inside to get a younger daughter ready for school. When she heard the bus, she looked outside. The books and flute were still there, but Ann was gone.

Taylor and Nunley had quickly grabbed the 15-year-old girl and took her to Nunley’s mother’s home. She was raped and sodomized, then stabbed repeatedly in the stomach and neck.

Taylor and Nunley put the girl’s body in the trunk of the stolen car, then abandoned it in a residential area. The body was found three days later.

Edlund said the case was cracked months later when a man in jail for robbery — and seeking a $10,000 reward in the case — turned in Taylor and Nunley. Both men confessed, and some of Ann’s hair was found in carpeting at the home where the crime occurred.

Read more: http://www.kctv5.com/story/29935601/missouri-executes-roderick-nunley-for-ann-harrisons-1989-killing#ixzz3kmLvTSX6

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