Saturday, May 11, 2013

Kids today!

You know what's the problem with kids today?

Adults today.

Seriously.  Especially adults involved in the government school system.  Put simply, they are treating these kids like total idiots.

A trio of stories, to illustrate:

Story the First: Remember wearing your Halloween costume to school in elementary? Yeah, that's not so much a thing anymore. The girls' current school forbids it altogether. Why? Not, as you might first assume, because some kids don't celebrate it. (Don't get me started on Jesusween...) No, because some kids might be scared by the costumes. F'r real, y'all, that was the explanation given on the note sent home the week before.  Even the last school they went to that did allow costumes to be worn expressly prohibited anything that might be scary--not ghosts, ghouls, zombies, vampires, etc. (Nothing "promoting violence" either, 'cause guns are bad, mmkay.)

Story the Second: A couple of weeks ago, Bobbie came home and said she'd been disappointed that day in PE because she didn't get to participate. Why not? Seems she'd been one of the kids selected to help monitor the other kids. Where were the coaches, whose job it presumably actually is to monitor the kids? At one certain part of this game, standing there watching constantly to ensure none of the kids cheated. To recap: half the PE class couldn't play the game because they were monitoring the other half of the PE class, except for one certain station where the coaches were monitoring them, because the operating belief was that the kids would cheat.

Story the Third: Mark is working at one of the local playhouses here in SA. He was at work yesterday when a teenage couple came in to watch the show. Seems it was his prom night. So why weren't they at the prom? They had been turned away. Because prom dates who were from different schools had to pre-register and presumably be approved by the school beforehand, and although she actually had registered, no one from the school had ever contacted her to finish the approval process.

Ooh, I just thought of one more thing, so you get a Bonus Story: My oldest two girls are above grade-level in reading. Like, no longer elementary school level (Bobbie hit 6th grade reading level in 3rd grade, and Linda's a better reader).  Their school library has very few books at their level, and most of these they have read already. Not all, though. See, they're only allowed to check out one "difficult" book at a time--for their other book, they have to check out a grade-level book  Also, there is a computerized reading program they use which is actively trying to force them to read more slowly.  See, they read the passage at their normal speed, and the program responds with something along the lines of "There's no way you read that that quickly, try again."

Common Thread? The beautifully-put soft bigotry of low expectations.

I find it incredibly hard to believe that kids today really are that dumb. Mine certainly are not, and although I have the typical parental pride in my offspring, I doubt they're truly that rare. I bet most kids are pretty smart.

But they are being treated, actively, as though they are stupid.  I am reminded again of Neal Boortz's claim that Education majors are basically the dumbest people to make it to college. It's beginning to seem as though not only is this true, but they're actively trying to pull everyone else down
to their level.

Expect excellence from kids, and you're not going to be rewarded with stupid little lumps.

Expect kids to be stupid little lumps, and, well...Self-fulfilling prophecy time.

6 comments:

John A said...

"... responds with something along the lines of 'There's no way you read that that quickly, try again.'"

Heh. Not really a new problem. In 1951 I was in 1st grade, and my teacher flunked me for my assigned paragraph of writing. My mom read it and saw nothing wrong, so confronted the teacher - who said I could not have done the writing, as even the colon was used properly but had never been taught.

Fireworks. Mom pointed out that I was not only reading our two daily newspapers but also several magazines, and my older siblings mystery novels, and learning was not limited to what some bureaucrat thought "age appropriate."

Riebee said...

Kids today aren't that dumb. However, it seems to be that we as a society need to not hurt the feefees of those who aren't either on par or advanced at their age. Because, yanno, everyone needs to get a trophy just for participating. Don't have to do anything to actually earn it- except participate. bah.

Anonymous said...

Sabra,

Story The Second -- actively teaching children to be agents of the state.

All the others combined; actively teaching children to be passive in the face of government tyranny and control.

I thought it was bad when my kids where in school (youngest is now 20) but this is incredible. I'll really be pushing for my grandchildren to be home schooled.

Ruth said...

Unfortunetly your bonus story isn't new, at least to me.

I was in 4th grade (1989) when I had a teacher call me a liar infront of the entire class because she didn't believe I'd read a specific book as quickly as I had. And that was a private school (religious) not public.

Unfortunetly for me she refused to be swayed by my arguements, and infact proceeded to "prove" that I obviously hadn't read it by asking me what the first word was on a specific page......

Also unfortunetly for me I didn't tell my parents about it. I'm not sure why I didn't. I should have. I highly suspect that that particular teacher would have no longer been teaching at that school by the time my mother got done with her.

Sabra said...

Story The Second -- actively teaching children to be agents of the state.

There is a nonsubtle move to make the school the family, rather than the family.

I mentioned before on this blog that my two oldest girls got in trouble for going to breakfast together,and for Bobbie walking Linda to her class afterwards, although it didn't make her late to her own class.

Last year, the girls were chided by a teacher for sticking together over other students. I no longer remember the exact words used, but the upshot was "at school, they're all your siblings." Yeah, no.

peter said...

Lord, they have enough siblings already. LOL
I'm all for homeschooling. Our government sure isnt though, proven by their not giving the German family asylum so that they can homeschool their children. I guess they aren't reliable democrat voters.