The Smartest You Will Ever Be

This is a Case Study Presentation I gave during semester 3. Just a thought about the state of teaching and students in grade 9 during that point. Enjoy...

Does anyone else find it funny that human beings, while at the top of the food chain, are responsible for pumping out the most idiotic offspring in the world? Baby calves don't need much more than a few months of mummy dearest coddling before they're free to roam the open plain. That's saying quite a lot considering the sum total knowledge of all cows on this planet couldn't figure out how to bypass a barbed wire fence without leaving a fresh steak behind. Human beings, on the other hand, need at least 18 years (21 if you're American) before they can be cut loose to face the real world. Does anyone have any idea why? Some would blame the education system, the parents, television, class distinctions, gender bias/confusion, blah blah blah blah. These ideas, being so tired and washed out, are easy targets that fail to look at a far simpler approach. I would argue that it comes from the system we made that makes every child feel special. The way I see it, you make everyone mediocre when you make everyone special.

It started out with giving them toys to play with when they weren't in school. From there kids started getting their own food at restaurants, special prices on public transit and an entire amusement park targeted at their infantile brains. If that wasn't bad enough, kids were awarded trophies for participation and for improving a grade level. The final insults are graduation ceremonies for finishing preschool, elementary school, junior high school, and high school. Every single one of these accomplishments awards kids for doing what everyone already intended for them to do. We see no evidence of that last example anywhere in the adult world because no one would allow that kind of crap. It'd be like handing out awards for all members of society who didn't serve a prison term in the last 12 months. At any rate, all of these things work to produce a group that is satisfied even excited, with their own mediocrity. You might think those are small, if not irrelevant, issues but small things lead to big problems; like a piece of glass embedded in the urinary tract.

I say this because the students of today have been fooled (by us) into thinking that their every action is deserving of a celebration bordering on the fanatical. I have students who feel as though I should be impressed when they put their names on their assignments. In turn, I feel as if I've wasted the last six and a half years of education only to be surrounded by people so dim that a teachable moment is more like lighting a match than turning on a light bulb. Still, there's little use in embarrassing the students for their crippling ignorance because (according to them) they're the smartest they'll ever be at this age. It's as if students hit the age of 14 and immediately recognize their birthday as the first anniversary of born prodigal omnipotence. These scenarios are a painful reminder of why I am tired and why my parents always said, "the next generation is trouble".

Some of you might be wondering why I'm upset by this. I mean, this isn't exactly a big surprise. All generations loathe the next one coming along and there's no sense in getting upset at history repeating itself. Wayne Gretzky once said "You miss 100% of the shots you don't take". To me, letting this history repeat itself would not only mean missing a shot; but also trading your stick in for a cigarette and a lighter. The kids of today can't be thrown aside to fend for themselves because we made them who they are. We're the ones who drive them to school and forget to keep up with their performance. We're the ones who put them into sporting programs that reward them for merely being there. We're also the ones who put them in a system that is designed for failure.

Probably the most deviant way in which Albertans try to make their children feel special is the "no fail" policy that haunts the hallways of every primary and junior high school in this province. Instead of letting kids fail based on poor performance, students are pushed through each grade like beef through the meat grinder to promote their self esteem. Kids are told they all have special abilities and are good-natured without actually demanding any exceptional work from them; making students daydreamers by trade, masters of none. That is, of course, right up until grade 10 when the performance hammer comes down harder than a meat cleaver on a chopping block. Once the kids are able to fail a grade, everything changes. While it does force them to study a little bit to receive passing grades, teaching someone who is 15 that they now have to study to pass is like telling a pro athlete they have to pass a linguistics exam to play on the starting line. Suddenly the kids don't feel so special when they have to atone for 10 years of poor study habits and no repercussions for meager achievement. Add in the pressures to consume drugs and alcohol and you've got a wavering group of imbeciles with every reason to mess up, and why shouldn't they? This is the system the educated populace bought into and pushed for.

Since I've just finished sending out interim report cards to my students and calculated the marks from their first Social Studies Unit Exam, I've come to the conclusion that today's youth raises a red flag big enough to cover the hole in the ozone layer. Simple questions on the exam could not be answered because of outright disdain for having to read the question properly. It’s as if our technological age (where you can google an answer to any question and pretend to be an expert on it) endows young people the ability to will informed opinions into existence from the land of dreams. On that note I'd like to say that I worded the questions poorly and that I didn't deliver the material well. I'd like to say that. However, when all information is presented in chart form and I ask for details in numbers (ie: give me two examples of...) figuring out where I went wrong is about as pointless as a pillow after a trip through a wood chipper. That said I still have trouble blaming the kids; knowing what they are a product of. What am I going to do about it? Well, when I crawl out from my mountain of papers, posters and assignments I'll let you know. Until then, someone should check for a barbed wire fence to see if they can find a free steak.