Good Job

You can file this under "reasons to despair of public education". I may have mentioned before that I do not understand why so much of the elementary school curriculum is given over to things that have absolutely nothing to do with education. The way I see it, the school should teach my kid to read, write and do math. Then they can move on to science, foreign languages, history and all that other stuff. Oh, and do some sport too, since that's good for health and fitness, as well as teamwork. Meanwhile I can take care of all the other stuff - I don't need the school to teach character or bollocks like that.

Instead, on the few days when the kids are actually in school for a whole day, they get parties. Endless fucking parties with junk food, for no good reason whatsoever. This week Bison Daughter has a gift-wrapping party, where they wrap gifts for "poorer families", an end of term party and a reading reward party. Do they ever bother to do any actual teaching? It's not enough that the fucking teachers only work six months of the year anyway, but now they spend half of that presiding over fucking parties.

And don't get me started on the gift wrapping bullshit. The profiles of the people who will receive the gifts include sizes (so people can buy clothes for them). They're almost without exception grossly obese. They can't afford to buy their own clothes but they can eat crap to excess on a daily basis. Perhaps instead of attempting to instill "character" by collecting gifts (which actually just demonstrates the very different attributes of "peer pressure" and "competitive parenting") the school could teach how important it is to get an education and take responsibility for yourself. And not spend all your time in class parties so you end up obese.

Today, however, the school plumbed new depths in educational time-wasting. My ten year-old daughter was given a test to determine what kind of career choices would be good for her. Are you shitting me? On how many separate dimensions is this absurd? For a start, no healthy, well-adjusted pre-teen should have the tiniest concern about what their career choice will be. Do well in school and you have options; screw around and you don't, but you're still a kid, so relax and enjoy it while you still can. What's more, no-one at that age is in any position to know what they want to be. They probably don't have any clue what jobs exist in the real world, what it's like to actually do one, how much they pay, or how desperately you'll want to end your life if you get trapped in a crap one. In fact the only thing they know is that teachers work a third of a year and eat a lot of cake. I didn't know what job I wanted to do when I was twenty, let alone ten. In fact I had to do a couple of crap ones along the way in order to figure it out, so what possible benefit can accrue from making kids think about it at that age?

OK, so leaving that minor point aside, what did this fabulous exercise teach Bison Daughter about her future career? Bear in mind that she's a very smart kid, in a supposedly good school district. A possible scientist? An engineer, manager, investment analyst, sales professional or supply chain expert? No. According to the school she's ideally suited to be a cosmetologist, a hairdresser or a dancer.

Fuck me sideways! Why don't you just list "pole dancer" as well, so we don't miss anything? Apparently she's a creative thinker, and that just screams "cosmetologist" doesn't it? The school district tested her, identified her as an exceptionally bright child and sent her to special classes one day a week just so she could learn to do make-up. I'm so proud. It's not that the world doesn't need hairdressers (although it's hard to imagine that it really needs a lot of cosmetologists) but the process is obviously utter bullshit.

When I was ten I wanted to be a goalkeeper for West Ham United and save a penalty in the FA Cup final. If you'd asked what I wanted in a job I'd have made "working outdoors" a must, but today I have to say I was sodding delighted not to have to work outside in the 15F temperature. In other words I had no bastard clue what I really wanted to be back then. When asked, I always said I wanted to work at the place my Dad worked, because it had a revolving door and an elevator. Plus he got chocolate biscuits with his tea. That was the sum total of my insight. And instead of spending half a day testing me to see if I wanted to be a cosmetologist, my school taught me to spell, write coherent sentences and add up numbers so I didn't have to be one.

The degree to which I despair of the education profession is hard to put into words. The best advice I could give to a class of ten year-olds today would be "eat as much as you can at all the class parties, don't bother about learning anything, and then someone else will send you food and clothes when you're older". Or, failing that, there's always cosmetology...


Copyright © 2008 Edward Bison