Unless its a scaled wage job and then he is getting paid probably 17 bucks an hour.

 

This is just my outlook on life...

While you are right about there being no difference, the youths of today are nothing more than fakes who cheated their way through high school. It happens.

I know a handful of students in the National Honors Society of my school who cheated on alot of their tests and no one even knows how fraudulent they really are. And then they believe they earned that grade while giving each other answers and such when the teacher's out.

Here's an example. (The names are just a bunch of random names I thought of)

"What did you get for 65, Jack?"

"The anwer's B. How about 42, Run?"

While the success rate has increased in the years, so has the credit stealing, false resumes, and bullshit just to get into a good college has gone on. And I seriously doubt that my school is the only one that sucks fuck... (Pardon the language)

I'm 18 and I already have this type of outlook on generations.

 

If creative writing is as useless to middle schoolers as it sounds, then that's the problem. YOU think it's totally awesome, they think it's a total waste of time. The difference? They are never given the choice. That is the entire problem with mandatory public school. There is never a choice. Yet everyone complains about kids failing and being stupid and lazy and this and that.

I'm so tired of this notion that every child must be forced into a building for 7 hours a day without any incentive or reward. They go because "the law sez so". And people wonder why they don't care. Sheesh.

There's my rant.

This entire post is so full of truth and win that I had to quote the entire thing. Tonight's assignment for everyone else is to read it over and over until you get it through your heads that not everyone wants to be an honor student or whatever other worthless public school titles exist. Many just want to live their lives as they see fit. That's what freedom is supposed to be.

 

Just talking about teaching and pain in the ass kids reminded me of a fun story.

I have a bunch of Army uncles--people that served with my father that were like family--so Uncle Bob, Jim, etc. Back in 1993 or so, the Army was downsizing for a variety of reasons. People were being offered early outs, that is, full pensions with less than 20 years.

So my Uncle Frank was on of those people. He was pretty legitimate, all sorts of tabs and stuff. Spent a big chunk of the '80s in South America doing...well, stuff. But he wasn't in the big picture for the Army of the early '90s. And he wasn't feeling it anyways, so when they offered him early retirement, he leapt for it.

There was this program back then to help retired soldiers, many of whom were definitely young enough for a second career, transition into teaching. Troops to Teachers or Soldiers to Scholars or something like that. Anyways, he signs up, and he's gonna be a history teacher.

Time comes, and he's assigned to an inner-city school in Baltimore (placement was part of the 'deal'). This place was apparently pretty rough--think "The Wire," if you've seen that. But Uncle Frank is pretty rough, so he's down for it.

Anyways, the year he started teaching, he's having Thanksgiving with my family. And my Dad's like, "So Frank, how's the teaching thing going?"

And Frank says, "No, that didn't work out."

Everbody's curious and asking him what happened, so he tells us the story. Apparently, he went in one day, and was getting his teach on, and this one kid kept interrupting. So finally Uncle Frank had enough, and told him to be quiet. Not sure exactly what he said, but it was probably in no uncertain terms.

So this kid, junior thug that he is, tells Frank, "Hey, fuck you!"

And Frank apparently says it right back. At which point the kid pulls a gun out of his jacket, points it at Frank, and pulls the trigger from maybe ten feet away.

*Click*

*Clickclickclick*

Kid forgot to chamber a round. Weapon was useless. And Frank was probably already moving when the gun was being pulled, so he covers the distance and takes the gun away from the kid. I've seen Frank's decorations--trust me, this kid never had a chance even if the weapon had been charged.

I'm maybe ten when I'm hearing this story, so I'm absolutely loving it. So I ask, "What'd you do then, Uncle Frank?"

And he says, and I'll never forget this, "Then I fed the gun to him."

Didn't shoot him, of course, but apparently did a few thousand dollars worth of damage to his teeth.

Long story short, no criminal charges were filed on either part, school paid the dental bills, and Frank was early outed again.

So I asked him, "What do you do now, Uncle Frank?"

And he says, "Now I fish."

"No, I mean for a job?"

"Nope, fuck a job, Bryan. I'm making due with my pension."

And then my mom yelled at him for dropping the F-bomb.

 

Edited Previous post. I honestly think many kids aren't trying anymore. It's nothing new, just as teachers we see more of it. It also depends on where you are. I teach for 3 colleges, I don't have problems with 2 of them, but the students at one are driving me nuts. I'm going to teach one more quarter there and then decide if I want to keep teaching there.

 

pay or no,its still a shitty job.

 

Interesting Story.

 

thats the coolest story ever!

 

Soldiers deserve to retire wealthy, especially combat veterans. We should dismantle the Department of Education and give every cent of that to veterans.

 

It's many things. It's the cult of self that our society has fostered on people. It's the continual weakening of our self-independence and allowing others (teachers, jobs, government) to safeguard/protect our lives. It's this nonsense of not allowing people to fail, especially in school. It's the continual stream of crap that movies, T.V., etc. throw at us -- not the stories themselves, but the self-centered, amoral* world where if it feels good, screw who it hurts.

*By amoral, I do not mean like sex, violence, etc. I mean the kinda junk FX has, where there's no right or wrong, just what makes you feel good.

Add those things up, and you got a generation who expects everything, and will work for nothing.

 

This is nonsense. Public education is there to make them useful to society with the basic skills they'll need. Do they need Algebra? No, probably not, but it will teach them how to think in a particular way, and THAT can be useful. Then again... If a kid honestly wants to "opt out" at Middle School, and their parents do not care, then perhaps they should be allowed, but they must sign a waiver saying that they will never be eligable for government aid of any kind. I'd be fine with that.

 

It does not take 7 hours a day, plus whatever garbage teachers require at home, to teach basic skills.

 

By basic skills, I include math, science, history, the arts, and social/political info.  

 

Math, science, history, social = 4 hours a day. The rest is a waste of time and only serves to burn kids out. If they WANT to stay longer for PE, art, whatever, that's fine. But that's never a choice. It disgusts me.

 

I say we instill child discipline back...

Shaolin Monks headbutting children for the win!

 

Can't REALLY get into what I want to say without it getting into politics, so I'll just say that I love learning-- heck, I read political books for fun, I'm so weird (and no, not Stephen Colbert's book or anything like that-- real, in-depth political books). And I hate hate HATE college. Nothing dampens your enthusiasm for a career faster-- if I had the tiniest inkling of what it takes to get into my field of choice, I'd have dropped out of college long ago. I'm in my second-to-last quarter as an undergraduate-- so I'm well into my major-- and STILL, every day, as soon as I start class all I want to do is go home. I care in terms of getting good grades so it'll look great on my resume, but in terms of the actual material being presented, I couldn't care less. It probably doesn't help that I don't trust half of what they tell me in college to begin with...

I especially hate discussion classes. Classmates, I don't want to hear your STUPID, IDIOTIC opinions. Go smoke pot or whatever you do when you're not in class. (I hate sounding a little elitist there, but when your competition is the general student population at Ohio University, it's hard not to sound that way.) What's even worse than stupid people are stupid people who think they're smart, and colleges are chock full of 'em.

 

Yeah I hate that shit too. You may laugh/scoff, but a good philosophy class will set those idiots straight.

 

Whoever referenced Idiocracy has my favor.

Overpopulation, bad parenting, selfishness, wrong priorities, hedonism. I could go on.

But the better question of course is what do we do about it?