I must admit, these are frightening times in which we live.  No, not because of the terrorist threat or hunger or AIDS or nuclear weapons, but because people are there are starting to agree with me.  The thought of this sends chills up my spine.  Not really because what I say is so out there (it is, in fact, scientifically proven to almost always be "mostly not complete bullshit"), but because most people are all too willing to tell me I'm wrong at every turn.  However, when I did a piece on flabby kids and the faltering school system, it struck a chord with our readers.  And unlike the "what in the holy horsepiss is that supposed to mean?" comments I normally get, these people had excellent points which I thought merited being put on this site.  Also, it makes for a pretty easy "copy and paste" article that I can finish in ten minutes, meaning more liver-deadening beer time for me!  Everyone wins!

The first email came once again from my sister.  She is, as previously mentioned, a grade school teacher.  There isn't enough money in the world to get me to walk into a classroom unarmed so you've got to give her some credit.  I published some of her comments last time and literally within hours she wrote back with her usual words of family love.

For Christ's sake.  You know, you should have warned me that you were going to put my e-mail on the website.  First, I was on a rampage when I wrote it, and I made many grammatical (or mechanical, as the new-wave teachers like to call it) errors.  That looks really good coming from a teacher.  Second, I swore about 2.3 million times.  That also made me look very intelligent.  You could have let me edited it.  I noticed you only changed it to suit your needs.  BASTARD!!!

I just thought of one other thing.  We are not allowed to list the positives and negatives about anything.  You know why?  Because the word negative is too negative.  Isn't that the damn point?  We now call it "plusses and deltas".  I asked, "Do you really think if we call it a delta, it will no longer be negative?"  I was shot several dirty looks for asking.  I call it negative, by the way.  Sooner or later, someone will use that word, and I don't want my kids to have emotional problems because they don't know how to deal with a word!

Our good friend Jason had this to say:

I have to agree with your take about how apathetic our school system has gotten these days.  I'm sure you've read about that teacher from Kansas(?) who couldn't even fail students for plagiarizing their Biology papers.  The parents complained that their kids are under soooo much pressure (sports, jobs, whatever) that they couldn't be blamed for taking material directly off of the internet and turning it in as their own.  What the Fuck!?  I remember doing all of my own homework in H.S. while working almost full time.  I got my shit done, and if I didn't it was my fault, not sports, hookers, etc.

That teacher ended up resigning because she had to give these little pukes a passing grade for work they didn't do. What have they learned?  Whine loud enough and you'll be forgiven for whatever your sorry ass did.  Welcome to the world of higher education (if they even make it past "You want fries with that?").  College will eat these slacker fucks up and shit them out.  Plagiarism is expulsion material at the next level.

I hope high school has served them well and yes, I'd like fries with that.

Our own Jeff had some thoughts to share.

A few things that have have contributed to America's kids being so weak:

1) Pussy little names - Dayton, Shamus, Colton are a few of the names I've heard of...Jesus Christ you're just asking for your kids to get beaten up by Jasons, Brents, and Chucks.  These kids get beaten up and then the parents call their lawyers and threaten the school.  Then Dayton is in prison, Shamus is doing coke, and Colton is picking up little kids from the bus stop all because their parents taught them that "nothing is their fault."

2) Entertainment - Armada (Space Invader rip-off for the intellivision) could not be played for any longer than 1 hour without causing physical and emotional damage.  When my hour was up I went outside and played with my dog.  When my dog died from exhaustion I watched some TV...unfortunatley I lived in a little shithole town in Oklahoma, so I had only a few channels to choose from.  After Transformers and GI Joe, I would watch the news...and my parents didn't care, they were glad I was trying to figure out what was going on in the world instead of trying to shield me from it.

3) Sports - Parents want to plan their retirement around their children in some hopes that they will treat them better than the parents treated their own Mom and Dad, locking them up in a nursing home because they are too selfish to help them.  It's because of this that they push their kids too hard in hopes that they have the next Tiger Woods on their hands.

Parents should be supportive and happy for their kids no matter what they are (or will be) and stop pushing their plans ideas and beliefs on them.

\
"Hello, my name is Colton, please pummel me unmercifully"

Another idea is simply for parents to beat their children regularly until they either shape up or die.  Just a thought.

Zachary, a genuine high school student, had some things to add.

my name is zachary and i go to school at lowndes high in lowndes county, georgia.  as soon as school starts back, i'll be a junior.  seeing how the south is a little slower to catch onto the trends of california.  im am blessed to see games of tag, dodgeball (with a plastic ball), and my personal favorite, warball still being played at recess and p.e.  we still stand and say the pledge everyday before school starts.  plus, three good whacks to the ass is still common punishment for those who brake major rules.  i like my school, but i do have one big problem.  its a problem that is taking effect all over the country.  it is censorship.

my school has at least two computers in every classroom, 50 in the library, and another 25 in the tech lab, all of which are connected to a t1 server.  all these computers were bought for the purpose of student research and general enjoyment.  first, no student may use the internet without the teacher that gave the research project being there with them, this includes after school.  i am one of the blessed that have the internet at home, but what about those that don't?  why shouldn't they be able to come in after school to do research?  their only option is to go to the public library, but even there they require you to be 21 or have a parent with you at the computer.  plus, the public library is only open until 5 pm monday through saturday.

second, the school board decided to start this nasty little habit of putting a proxy on nonschool related websites.  they went around the net and picked "safe sites" (things like cnn.com, the un's website, bigchalk.com, and such) that students could use freely.  next, they set the server to proxy all web sites that were visited more than twice a day.  finally, they have a program which looks at a sites url and proxys it if it contains keywords, such as porn, bombs and gun.  they had most of the internet blocked within a week of starting the policy.  it sucks.  myself being an ap/gifted student, i actually have to use the internet at school.  i couldn't begin to tell you how many times i have attempted research on topics such as gun control just to have my information displayed with the saying "site is under proxy.  use of this site has been logged at the school boards office."

by the way, congratulations, nothing sacred has been put under the proxy terror.

Finally, Bobby had this rather lengthy bit of ranting:

Ok, I wouldn't say that all the schools suck.  As most probably do, in a small town they actually care about what's going on.  Hell, I'm still trying to figure out how or why any of the teachers even teach here for only around $35,000-$40,000 a year (I am in a small town in Northern California).  I just recently graduated (June 15, 2002) and had a crap thing called a senior project.  Basically it was to make you sweat in front of some local community members.  It's a 8-15 minute speech that takes way too long to try and explain here.  Well, they actually do try to teach you some sort of morals or some of that crap.  To tell you the truth I never really paid much attention to all that.  I mean, I got the gist of what was going on.  Most of the teachers knew who you were and if you were in some sort of trouble in the educational field, tried to help you out.

But on to my point, most of the people here think that they are going to college and getting some sort of degree and are going to make lots of money.  Out of something like 130 graduating Seniors, I think around 80% are claiming to go onto college.  Now I'm all for this, but I know most of these slackers and I'd be surprised if out of that 80% that 40% actually got a degree of some sort.  Ha!  Well, as you can see I have plenty of faith in my fellow students.  As for me, I went an alternate route.  I know I couldn't afford college and "threw my life away" (as so many people have told me) and joined the Army.  I'm gonna take advantage of the G.I. Bill and all that stuff to go to college.  I'll figure out what I want to major in when my six years are up.  Most of these students that I'm talking about probably have at or around a 2.0 GPA.  There are the people who have 3.5.  I know what your saying "Well so-and-so had a 2.0 GPA in high school and didn't go to college and is a millionaire now".  Well yes, there's plenty of those assholes out there not wanting to give me money.  I'm a greedy bastard and I know it.  I'd like to kick the jerk in the face that said "money isn't everything".  "Money can't buy you love."  Oh yes it can, just go down to Las Vegas and look on any street corner.

Back to the subject at hand, as I'm sure you know, there are the flukes of nature that have 2.0's and work hard at their life because they slacked off so bad in school.  However, they worked hard to get where they are now.  What I mean is that they worked hard AFTER school.  There's hardly any one that I know of that said, "I wish I didn't screw around so much in High School and paid more attention to what Ms. so-and-so said"  If I can't remember it the next day, it wasn't meant to be there.  So I guess what I'm trying to say is that teachers try.  It's the students that screw everything up.  I remember in my Governmet class, every time the teacher left (he was the altheletic director, so left quite often) there'd always be a, "whats the answer to number 15?"  and of course out came the answer "Kennedy!  Robert, not John!"  I didn't exactly help out the situation by giving the answers, but that's the way the goats blood flows... or something like that.  So if your trying to figure out why the hell the school systems are going to hell, look at the students graduating and the teachers who are there to see if they even want the students to have a edu-ma-cation or if they earned their High School Diploma.  But those are just my ramblings for the day.

Anything else you'd like to add?  By all means send any comments to me.  The first ten even receive a brand new set of steak knives!*

- Danimal

*steak knife offer will not be honored