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Kids seem much more stupid today than when I was in junior high school. I wonder
what the hell they teach them these days, besides how to hold a gun in
the most threatening pose, or how to put a condom on correctly. I think
there's some serious regression in teaching methods going on. I tutor my cousin 2 days a week after I get off of work. He's 13, in the 8th grade. He attends a small, very posh school whose name shall remain nameless to protect the guilty. The tuition for one year would buy a decent mid-size economy car. This is the type of school whose students, in addition to their two weeks of Christmas vacation, receive one week off for a questionable holiday break entitled "ski week." This, mind you, in Southern California. With the money his parents are shelling out, you'd think he'd be getting the best education around. Who knows, maybe he is. Or maybe he's just borderline retarded. I suspect more and more that it is the latter. He uses a calculator for everything. It's an appendage to him, like an extra thumb or something. It's like he has to consult the calculator before he thinks, instead of the opposite. I take it away from him as much as possible, but how can you argue with the shocking and yet hideous truth of "My teacher lets us use one" accompanied by a vigorous nod of the head, followed by a self-righteous "even on tests"? I can understand using a calculator for Calculus, Trig, or hard Algebra. But I'm not even sure how you'd use a calculator to figure out the greatest common factor or ratios or why you'd even need one to calculate 20x = 1200. I don't understand why they let them use calculators at this level. It just gives them licence to turn their brains off. I once caught him calculating some number times 10. I stared at him incredulously and then asked what he was thinking, though what an ironic choice of words... He sort of gave a chuckle and shrugged it off. They don't teach grammar anymore, either. That, coupled with Yo! MTV Raps may explain why my 100% Chinese cousin, brought up in a well-educated family attending the most white bread school in town occasionally lapses into phrases of Ebonics. I know, I hated grammar when I was in 7th grade. I hated drawing sentence diagrams and tearing down ridiculously long sentences that no one besides the most gung-ho ESL student would ever really utter. But dammit, I know what prepositions, adverbs, conjunctions and interjections are. Is it that difficult to write in complete sentences? Trying to get him to answer a question with more than 3 words is like trying to get him to take out the trash. There's a lot of bickering involved and ultimately it doesn't happen. And I really think he should master the English language before they try and teach him Spanish. It would make my task that much easier. I used to entertain the idea of becoming a teacher. Through my first two years of college I thought about teaching. I had always tutored students, but they all had something in common: they were actually interested in learning. What do you do with a student that has no aspirations beyond owning and mastering every game currently available on Nintendo? Somewhere along the line I became thoroughly disillusioned with the school system and decided that teaching was not the direction in which I wanted to travel. I remember going to an interview shortly after graduating and telling the head of the company about my change of heart. He asked me if I had done well in school, and I replied, with just the right hint of modesty, that I was a Phi Beta Kappa. He said, quite matter-of-factly, that I was too smart to teach. Now there's an interesting concept. Too smart to teach... What he meant, of course, was ‘too smart to go into teaching'. Teaching has become a second-rate occupation. Smart people don't want to teach, because the pay is lousy, it's hard work, and there's little respect or recognition either from students or parents. So the ones that usually end up becoming teachers are the ones that couldn't quite make it in other fields; didn't quite have the grades to go into bigger and better fields. What a sad comment on our society, but his words had the ring of truth to them. I think about an aunt (strictly through marriage) who is, and I think there is no better word to describe her, a complete dingbat. She would stare vacuously during dinner and jump in the conversation on a topic that had passed 10 minutes before. But it wasn't just a matter of zoning out or not paying attention or being bored with the conversation. If it were just that it would be tolerable. She calls my uncle (strictly through marriage), several times a day to ask his opinion of the most mundane things, and for advice on the most simple decisions. And she's a teacher. Behind her back the whole family marvels at the fact that she was actually given a certificate or license of some sort to do this. So begins the cycle of ignorance. Idiots begetting idiots. The next generation becoming just a little bit slower than the previous. The mediocre of this generation will go on to teach the next. There are, of course, those special teachers that have a gift for teaching, along with, I suspect, a huge amount of patience. But these are few and far between. I can't blame my cousin's lack of enthusiasm or ability for learning entirely on teachers, though. He must have some deficiencies of his own, along with some passed down from his parents. God, I feel like I must be getting old because I am on the verge of lapsing into reveries of "When I was his age..." Oh, what the hell. When I was his age, I was whizzing through advanced algebra, making my own lunches for school, and was probably about 10 times more creative than I am now. And yet, here's a kid that doesn't know how to open a can of soup; who can't figure out how the stove works, and takes an hour to complete 19 math problems. He doesn't seem to have a single creative or original thought in his over-indulged cro-magnon boy head. He is completely helpless. In the hole of his sheltered, pampered existence, he is pathetically waiting for mommy to cut his meat for him. He has no responsibilities and yeah, you could say he's spoiled. I find it viscerally sickening that a person could have such a wealth of opportunity at his feet and not feel compelled to take advantage of it. There's nothing in this world that he feels passionate about. There's not one thing he's started that he hasn't given up within weeks. The dusty, cobwebbed skeletons of a bike, a keyboard, a cello, a computer, a skateboard, a telescope and various instruments of pleasure or learning stand lonely and untouched in the corner of the garage. I can't imagine being 13 and not knowing how to ride a bike. If his parents don't take him somewhere, he just doesn't go. And so I fear he's missing out on life's experiences. He sits idly on days off from school thumbing his Nintendo pad or staring vapidly into the giant screen television set. It's hard for me to reconcile the notion of ‘kids growing up too fast these days' with the reality of my cousin's pathetic existence. It wouldn't hurt to take just a little bit of responsibility or autonomy at that age. Okay, so I'm jealous, in a lot of ways, of my cousin. What can I say? I am jealous of the money. I wish I would've had all those nifty toys when I was growing up. Granted, a four year old probably doesn't need a computer yet, or, for that matter, a Swiss bank account, but having some toys to stimulate growth and creativity is a luxury to a lot of kids. Who knows, maybe if my parents had had the resources available I'd be a dancer or a soccer player or a cross-country skier on the US Olympic team. I just might have had the time and money and opportunity to do the things my much-lower-income-bracket self never got to do. So why is it, that with so many options of things to fill time with, my cousin chooses television and complacency? I'm not sure of the answer to that, but it won't happen at my house. For at least 3 hours a week he's going to have to grow up. If he wants to fill that bottomless pit he calls a stomach, he'll have to fix his own meals. I refuse to break the bank and my back on his habit. And he's going to have to do some thinking on his own, too. He's like a paraplegic learning to walk again. Teaching someone how to think for themselves is a harder task than I had imagined. Coupled with my lack of patience for stupidity, I guess I made the right choice by not going into teaching. So, for all my bitching about teachers doing a lousy job, I have come to realize that my cousin's failings have only somewhat to do with his teachers. It has more to do with his parents' overindulgence and everything to do with his own lack of motivation. And maybe, just maybe, it has the tiniest bit to do with me, his tutor....but probably not. So teachers, I applaud you, because you do a decent job, despite everything. |