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The Soapbox: Rants and Commentary:
Education - Why?Composed by David Anderson, Jr.(oommp@webspan.net)A lot has been said of late on Dano's trusty 'Rant's Webpage' about the aberrant conditions of our educational system, so Lordy be if I don't get my two cents in. Anyone who has breezed through any of my other commentaries knows I have a great deal of disdain for the intelligence and intuitiveness of the average American. (Face it, if we were Cavemen, most of us wouldn't know to pull ourselves out of a sleeping bear's jaws.) One of my esteemed colleges and contributors to the Rant's Page cites a declining educational system on our current condition. Of course, the educational system also failed him in English because he does this amidst a whole host of sentence fragments, incorrect punctuation, and the consistent treatment of 'a lot' as one word. (I don't want to hear about common usage. There is no such thing as 'ALOT.') If this was done in an attempt to illustrate the poor educational system we do have, I applaud the other contributor. If it wasn't, I applaud him for proving what will be my next point. People don't care. They just don't care how really stupid they are. In the commentary, Scary Scenes From The Working Front, we were given several excellent illustrations of just how lazy the average American mind actually is. Someone, anyone, complaining about doing 3-times math in their head should be beaten by their manager and ridiculed by their fellow employees. Really, 3 times math should not be a difficult thing. And, in actuality, it is not. It's simply an example of a lazy mind. You see, a brain is like any other muscle in the body. Yes, I said muscle for those of you keeping score. It is a muscle in that it needs exercise like any other muscle. The more you think, the better you are at it. Nifty concept, eh? The only problem is thinking can be more strenuous than leg curling Delta Burke at times. This is one of the reasons escapism movies are so popular. Do you really think people would flock to a film about a boat they know is going to sink if they felt like thinking? Hell no. The average movie-goer wants to enter the theater, pay their $7.50, and drop their brains in the conveniently placed bucket of sugar-water at the side of the door. It is a simple matter of sit down and shut off. If the brains were actually on everyone would have walked out of Kevin Costner's Robin Hood after ten minutes yelling, "Robin Hood sounds like he's from Indiana!" We don't want to learn. Parents don't want to teach their children anything. They don't even want them to be challenged in school. How many parents are constantly harassing these overworked, underpaid teachers with complaints that they are not being fair to their children? Are they not being fair or are they simply challenging a lazy mind? Face it folks, if we wanted to think, Jenny MacCarthy would have been stoned to death the minute she started speaking instead of posing. Those parents that took the time to teach their children it's fun to think get rewarded with kids who don't want to use a 3 times table. Those who really try with their kids might even enjoy a child smart enough to want to mock those other kids who do use the 3 times table. Unfortunately, the majority of American parents would be the ones to say, "Yeah, they should have that multiplication table there for my child. He's only making minimum wage." I guess if you can do 4-times math without a table you should make $10.00 an hour. One last thing about the comments that were made about censorship in a previous rant. I have to tell you, I agree completely. The freedom of choice and capitalism is the perfect tool for censorship. If you don't like, don't buy it, and it will go away. It is quite simply that simple. I just heard a Los Angeles area school wants to ban Huck Finn because it uses that dreaded 'N' word when referring to black people. (They're black people, by the way. They call me white when I'm actually a light beige, they can desensitize and accept the term 'black.') I would like to remind these folks moving for the ban two things: 1) Huck Finn was one of the first American novels to treat a black person as a person, and thereby was and is a cornerstone of equality, and 2) The KKK wanted to ban the book at the turn of century because it did treat black folks as regular people. Interesting how things turn out, eh? Those are my views when I want to take a moment to think about it. |
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