Okay, so clearly I lied when I said "by the end of the weekend." What I really meant was, "by the end of the month, assuming a multitude of external factors don't get in my way." But, you know, I assumed you could read between the lines. I swear I'm trying to be more diligent about this blog, but with my current schedule, that's far easier said than done.
So, without further adieu, let's go on to the topic at hand: North American education (or lack thereof)! Here are the top ten, academically-related reasons (in no particular order of significance) that are contributing to the demise of our society (intellectually and otherwise), presented in a list of what high school-related terms really mean (primary education is just a watered-down version of this).
10. School: A large building that provides an opportune location for consistent, daily social gatherings of the under-age variety. Not only can it be fun, but attendance has been made mandatory by the government, who didn't realize that they were enabling continuous debauchery. Activities include any and all forms of socializing specifically designed to infuriate the administration and authorities. It should be noted that, just because there is no computer in sight, that does not mean that Facebook and Twitter cannot be checked and updated. All. The. Time.
9. School Board: A group of people who writes up documents for schools, including their curricula and regulations. And by writing up documents, I mean that they edit them each and every year, taking out the parts that have made learning and getting a passing grade too difficult that year, even though a decade earlier that same curriculum would have been viewed as a practical joke. Incidentally, the most dramatic changes always take place after a series of parental complaints, so we can see that the school board really cares about its students, and continue to simplify the education system for its students' sakes. It's got nothing to do with the fact that they want to avoid confrontation as best as possible, because dealing with complaints always results in having to work overtime. Of course not.
8. Teacher: A fancy name for the babysitter that looks after a group of young people between the ages of 13 and 20 for an average of 75 minutes every day.
7. Principal: The person in charge of the babysitting business. It is his or her responsibility to hire the babysitters that they think will best suit the students' array of needs, and for whom the students will have the least number of complaints. He or she is also to whom a teacher turns when they can no longer control their roomful of raucous people.
6. Student: A person who belongs to an institution of education, and as a result gets discounts on public transportation fare. Also the person who has made it his or her mission to cause teachers and principals as much grief and trouble as humanly possible.
5. Class: A place where the teacher tries to keep his or her students quiet and complacent by pretending to feed them information that will supposedly help them later on in life. It is also where the students love to ask questions along the lines of, "Why do we need to learn this?" or "When are we ever going to use this information?" If a teacher dares to say that it is so that they can go on to university or college, get a job, and lead a successful life in the future, he or she will be laughed at and ridiculed for the remainder of the semester - possibly even year. After all, what kind of stupid response is that?
4. Homework: Optional activities assigned to the students to maintain the pretense of learning. It is a teacher's way of trying to keep his or her students out of trouble once they leave school property, when it is no longer his or her responsibility to look after the charges. Even though they are secretly relieved that the students have gone, the school board mandates that homework and assignments be given out on a regular basis. This is clearly evidence of the board's stupidity and naiveté, as it is only on rare occasion that any of what is assigned gets done.
3. Honour Roll: A long list of students that was able to maintain above-average grades in each of his or her courses. This means that they attended classes almost regularly, didn't give their teachers enough trouble that the latter felt the need to punish them with low grades, and actually did some of the homework they received. In other words, they did the bare minimum and got away with it.
2. Graduation: A necessity to be able to get one's driver's license. Also a reason for parents to praise their kids and give them gifts and money. Most importantly, an excuse to go to a huge party, get completely smashed, and do a variety of unmentionable things with a variety of unmentionable people.
1. Education: A euphemism for the system that allows parents to go to work every day without having to worry about taking care of their kids. Also what, a decade ago, helped the progression of civilization. Now: nonexistent.
A word to the wise: home-schooling with a private teacher who actually has a good, well-rounded education is soon going to be back in style.
Pragmatically yours,
Aya
5.08.2010
First Post in over a Month
You know you haven't been doing a very good job of keeping up your blog when you realize that there will be no link to the Archives for the month of April...simply because there were a total of zero posts put up during the month of April. That's not to say that I haven't had anything to say, or things to criticize. Quite the opposite, in fact. But the truth is, my motivation to write anything of late has been at bedrock level. (For those who aren't familiar with geography, that's quite a bit below ground level...)
But today I vow to change everything! Today (or rather, later today) I will work on a new post, and hope to have it up by the end of the weekend. The topic will be North American (primarily Canadian, obviously, but I'll touch on our neighbour's, too) education. Or, you know, lack thereof. Coming soon!
Apologetically yours,
Aya
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