The Rough Draft

I feel like going off on a bit of a rant. I hurt my back last week and I must say being in constant pain or in the, “Here a nice sharp pain for you to remember what you did was stupid,” sort of way your body rebels against you, gives you a sort of pissed of and grumpy focus. And as my mother always says, “I don’t suffer fools gladly.”

So that being said, I’m not going to get into our current political boondogle. I mean who can keep up with those fuckwits anyway?

Nah my bag this week is as it usually is, tilting at the windmill of mediocrity that seems to pervade general society these days. Case and point being my daughter’s english class.

Now I’ve had issues with this class all year. They watch films as opposed to reading books and stories. I’m guessing they’re going for that whole picture being worth a thousand words sort of thing. Or it could be the teacher doesn’t trust the reading level of the grade 12 class. Me, I just think it’s pure laziness on the teacher’s part. So when my daughter brought home a C- grade… I was to put it mildly, not too happy but when I looked at the class average and saw that it was the same grade (only a few points higher than my daughter’s mark) I was even… less happy. A bit of digging and it turns out her other classes are also a C- average with another climbing to a C+ which still only gives you a C average if you’re adding this all up in your head.

Now I’ll be the first to say I don’t put much stock in English teachers. I can count the the number of them that made a difference in my life on one hand (well, one finger, no not the middle one). Every other teacher I’ve ever had was a working writer and they sure as hell would never let me get away with anything in the C range. However it would seem our school system feels otherwise. After all, if your in the middle, critical thinking doesn’t really matter. What matters is a big screen TV and a nice car. Instead of, “Big Brother is Watching You!” We’re urged to consume. Wasn’t that George’s advice south of our border? Fight terrorism through shopping.

We owe it to ourselves to do our best in everything we put our hands, our hearts or our brains to. We need to step back into our kid’s lives and teach them what they’re not getting at school and we need to applaud the teachers who do make a difference and get rid of the ones who don’t.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got some shopping to do… C’mon! It’s only thirty two days till Christmas.