School's Out

...and parents are already groaning.

But several overheard comments made me realize that the following article--which I, at first, dismissed--is indeed the way parents today feel about what their kids are learning in school.

Reprinted (from Turf & Recreation June 2016), "Duffer"...what's become of school?, by Ian Robinson

"Every year around this time, the people who get paid to make the rest of us feel bad publish the results of international educational studies showing that, compared to kids living in China and Hong Kong and places I can't even begin to spell, let alone find on a map (like Ulan Bator, for instance), our children are...well...dumb asses.

This is occasionally demonstrated by my lovely and intelligent daughter who, for reasons that escape me, sometimes experiments to see if it's possible to skate by on looks alone and brings home a report card that puts me in mind of the ones that I got when I was her age.  Which for the record, is not a good thing.  I'm a guy who spent the '70s dragging down the academic average of the entire Ontario secondary school system.  Also, for the record, I wasn't skating by on good looks.

Trust me.  I like the drawing that illustrates this column, because compared to the way I REALLY look, the drawing makes me look like Antonio Banderas.

Anyway, after my daughter brings home the kind of report card that somebody like Pam Anderson or a geranium would get, she usually manages to rectify her problem the following term after a conversation with her father that involves modern and compassionate child rearing methods.

You know these methods.  They're probably the ones you use, too--screaming, grounding and threats of terrible violence.

Anyway, the international study shows our kids are idiots.  Doofuses.  Or maybe that's 'doofi.'  Who knows?  Who cares?

So we spend our billions and pay big bucks to figure out how to spend our billions, and STILL our kids are getting aced out by foreign kids who are doing math by drawing in the dirt with a stick.  And not a fancy, $1,100, ergonomically-designed, politically-correct (pale green rather than sexist boy blue or girlie pink), school board-approved stick, either.  Just a freaking stick that someone reached up and broke off a tree.  Of course, in our educational system, there'd be some kind of kinghell mother of a fuss over that now, wouldn't there?  Because, aside from producing kids that can't do math like the stick children in the Third World, the eco-Nazis have gone and taken over school curriculums.

Which leads us to the reason our kids aren't kicking the butts of those kids from other countries in real subjects like math, science and English.  It's because they aren't spending much time doing THOSE subjects.  My girl just brought home a list of elective courses that she spends at least half her school day on.  Here's a sampling with actual quotes from the course curriculum:

• ENVOE:  Environmental and Outdoor Education.  Units include:  wilderness first aid, environmental ethics, trip planning, climbing, hiking, skiing, winter activities and kayaking.

Where I come from, this isn't a course of study, it's a freaking vacation, got it?  It's CAMPING!  Environmental ethics?  What the heck are those?  And the ethics of camping are pretty simply.  Clean up the camp site, don't start forest fires and don't poop on the trail.  Not a course of study.  Common sense.

• GERMAN.  The grade 9 German program is meant to be introductory.  The emphasis is on fun.

OK, at the risk of sounding like somebody who can't let go of the past...the emphasis is on fun?  The subject is GERMAN, isn't it?  When was the last time somebody back from a round-the-world trip made reference to Those Wacky, Fun-Loving Germans?

• LEADERSHIP/SERVICE:  Students will plan a major project for the school such as a Talent Show or Fitness Day.

Again, this is a course?  When I was in high school we had plenty of students willing to organize geeky events.  They were called, shockingly enough, geeks and getting to carry a clipboard and suck up to teachers was its own reward for these creatures.  You don't need to worry about them.  They grow up to (reluctantly, it is said) participate in the parliamentary pension plan as alliance MPs.

• DESIGN/COMMUNICATIONS.  Students will explore Internet graphics and use education as well as electronic presentation.

Memo to school board:  The dot.com revolution is over, babies.  The companies all tanked.  Aside from Amazon.com and eBay, the oly people making money on the web are the people who run porno sites.  So you're training my daughter to do WHAT exactly?  I'm waiting.

• DRAMA.  Students in this program will develop skills learned in Grade 7 and/or 8 drama.

You're teaching adolescent children about DRAMA?  You want drama?  Just listen to a 14-year-old girl on the phone.  'OH MY GOD!  AND THEN TOMMY, YOU KNOW, HE LIKE PUT HIS HAND ON CHERYL'S...WELL, YOU KNOW! AND THEN, I CAN'T BELIEVE HE DID THIS..."
Adolescent children don't need drama lessons.  They need anti-drama vaccines.

• LEGAL STUDIES.  Students will examine the law from the perspective of a junior high student.  Students will cover...Young Offenders Act/Youth Criminal Justice Act...

Lemme get this straight.  You're teaching something from the perspective of a junior high school student?  Do you morons know any ACTUAL junior high school students?  A junior high school student is, essentially, a self-involved psychopath.  Your role as an educator is to get junior high school students to STOP ACTING LIKE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS!  It's to get them to act like responsible, taxpaying adults without hopes or dreams.  Just like you or me.

And you're teaching them about the Young Offenders Act?  This is like giving every felon in the country who can't yet grow a decent mustache a Get-Out-of-Jail-Free Card.  We do not want to teach young criminals their rights!  We want to leave them in a state of ignorances so maybe, just maybe, the cops will have a fighting chance with the little beggars.

The list of crap my kid can take that will NOT add to a useful skill-set goes on and on.

Hint to educators:  Just 'cause you're bored teaching useful stuff, and the kids are bored learning useful stuff, doesn't mean you should quit teaching useful stuff.

Doesn't mean you ought to teach them how to camp.  I can teach my kid how to camp.  I have taught my kid how to camp.  And when we camp, we don't sweat it when somebody breaks a stick off a freaking tree, got it?

If there's anything my kid doesn't know about drama, she can watch me and her mom fight.

And when it comes to leadership, I don't want my kid to be a leader.  Leaders usually cause nothing but trouble.  Pierre Trudeau was a great leader.  He led us into national bankruptcy.  Chretien is a leader.  Don't get me started.  Teachers want to run a leadership course, run a course that teaches my kid to ignore leaders, OK?  Starting with you."

Note:  Ian Robinson's 'best of Duffer' column is reprinted from April/May 2002 (likely the reason for the Chretien reference!)

image from "Greater Fool" blog

Maybe it was just a silly story.

"Maybe the wish to have his child ignore leaders hit home... thinking of the local Master Water Plan?" suggests Kia.
 

Maybe more than parents identify with the sentiments therein.