Mamacita says:  Many years ago, I was teaching Public Speaking in a small farmland high school in southern Indiana. My students’ assignment, one week, was to give an informal “how-to” presentation, a brief demonstration of something they personally knew how to do.

That week, we all learned how to crochet a chain stitch, how to do macrame, how to carve a simple wooden toy, how to change a tire, how to juggle, how to put a belt on a broken vaccuum cleaner, how to put a zipper in a skirt, how to make various color combinations of Easter egg dyes with food coloring and vinegar, and how to make homemade ice cream.

We also learned how to put a suppository up a cow’s butt, how to take a horse’s temperature with a rectal thermometer, and how to neuter a bull calf.

It was a really interesting week. I’ve never been able to look at a rubber band or a razor blade the same way since.

You know.  Those people, places, events, and stories that EVERYBODY knows?

Or, rather, these days, knew. . . .

The universe is incomprehensible only to those who don’t have any imagination, and imagination is available only to those with the ability to make connections.

I’ll go a step further, so get your dukes ready to put up.

After a certain age, the ability to make connections is dependent on one’s personal choices.

Small children are prisoners in their homes, and must rely on their parents, or other adults, for their surroundings and what they’re exposed to.  Good parents, of course, make sure their children are surrounded by fairy tales, nursery rhymes, stories of all kinds, poetry, plays, lively discussion that requires knowledge and invites participation, encouragement, sharing, generosity, etc.  Poor parents set their kids in front of the TV and go about their business.

It is only by exposure to the universe that we can hope to make sense of it, and discover that sense is the least of it.

The more we know, the more we CAN know.  This requires vocabulary.

The more words we know, the more connections we can make.  The more connections we can make, the more we can understand.  The more we can understand, the more we know.  The more we know, the more we want to know.  It’s a cycle, a not-vicious circle of wonder and wit and whimsy and understanding and the wanting to understand more and more and more.

Sadly, all some people want to know is when Jerry Springer is on tonight, what’s for dinner, and who won the game.  Their children’s questions are answered with variations of “How would I know?” and “Don’t bother me; I’m exhausted.” and “Ain’t that what you go to school for?”  And worse.

We are facing a planet run by people who know nothing that isn’t literal.  They are very good (or not) at bubbling in answers, making their mark heavy and dark, but who have no idea where the planets got their names, or why William Tell shot an apple off his son’s head, or what the words “homogenized” and “pasteurized” mean on the milk carton.  Heck, tons of “educated” people couldn’t even pronounce “homogenized” or “pasteurized.”  Or read them.  Or know that the words on the outsides of our food cartons, bottles, etc, indicate what’s inside.

Or that Humpty Dumpty was far more than an egg.  Or even that he was an egg at all.

Our nursing homes (well, not mine!) will be chosen by people who speak only one language (you know, the proper one. . . .), can’t read music, don’t know the point of origin of anything, give up at once if something is difficult, don’t have anything whatsoever memorized (except the TV Guide listings), will tip the coat-check girl more than they’re willing to pay the babysitter, and think Jeopardy is boring.  The fate of the planet will soon be in the hands of people who will have to Google every simple thing because they don’t have the skills or schema to hold anything much in their heads.  They know what kind of bedroom furniture Brittney or Angelina or Lindsay have, but they couldn’t name a single living scientist.  Music consists of four chords and a lot of near-rhymes.   They know jokes about Helen Keller but they don’t know who she really was.  Or even THAT she really was.  They can’t write cursive, or read it.  And they’ve got thumbs like Popeye’s from texting 24/7 instead of paying attention to the world.  Many of them wouldn’t know who Popeye is.  Or that those big constantly tapping thumbs are “opposable.”  Or what that even means.  Of the world of inferentials, they know nothing.

This current trend of schools not requiring memorization, homework, or the actual earning of merits has got to end.  There are already far too many stupid people in the world; we don’t need any with a diploma in their hands.  A person who doesn’t earn it doesn’t deserve it.

A diploma is only for students who have proven knowledge.  A diploma is not for showing up, self-esteem, or keeping friends together.  An employer has the right to assume that a diploma represents actual earned merit, and that every holder of a diploma is literate enough to not only survive in this world but also to help others survive.  I have no problem whatsoever with holding students in a particular level until they themselves, with no outside help, prove “master enough” to earn the right to move up a notch.  Promotion is not a right; it’s the consequence for earned proof of literacy.

By not requiring that our students earn as much knowledge as possible, and by not requiring that students prove it, we are ensuring that our planet will be flushing itself down the toilet of repeated history, misunderstandings and lack of understanding, and the extolling of ignorance as the norm, instead of the shameful and easily remedied thing that it actually is.

Bring it on, youngsters.  If you have the schema to do it.

P.S.  I am not afraid of the word “stupid.”  It is NOT the same thing as “ignorant.”  We are all ignorant in many areas, but we are only stupid if we refuse to try when we have the chance.  And yes, there are an awful lot of stupid people out there.

P.P.S.  If you are not a careful reader and try to accuse me of being insensitive to special needs students, please see the above paragraph.

I worry about the future for different reasons than most people’s reasons.  I worry about the future because present generations aren’t learning about the past.

Seriously.  Our students don’t seem to have anything to make connections to, these days.  They believe ridiculous things on Facebook updates.  They don’t associate Lincoln with the Civil War.  They think the Disney versions of fairy tales are the original versions.  They don’t know that the Little Mermaid died.  They don’t know any nursery rhymes.  They can’t finish a line of poetry.  They don’t know why Paul Revere rode through the streets.  They don’t understand the difference between a comparison and a contrast.  They are uncertain about antonyms and synonyms.  Most of them have never used a thesaurus.  Some of them have never heard of a thesaurus, and when they hear the word, they think it’s a dinosaur.  Most students think a dictionary is good only for a definition, and if they don’t know how to spell a word, they can’t find it.

I worry about a future wherein the so-called “educated” population has nothing filed away in their heads, but rely on Google to find out the simplest things.  I worry about a future that has me picturing, in my head, surgeons googling the whereabouts of the spleen with the patient on the table.  Already, we have a population that doesn’t know how to do math without a calculator.

TV shows make stupid people seem like the norm, and ignorance seem like the ideal.  Our schools are emphasizing conformity and punishing creativity.  Physical ability is trophied even while much of the population’s physical ability is atrophied.  Academic success is pretty much ignored lest some kid’s self-esteem suffer because he/she can’t do “it” as well.

Excellent work that, a generation ago, would have been put up on the wall so all could see and benefit and honor it, is now hastily shunted away because not everybody can do that well.  Kids who can’t do that well now no longer have examples of what things could be like if they worked harder, etc.  Bright, fast kids are advised to slow down, and ignorant teachers “reward” them by giving them more of the same or, even worse, relegating them to the hallway where they spend the day tutoring slow kids.

I worry about the future because people know nothing about the past these days.  I worry about the future because people are spending the present letting other people think for them.

What kind of future is in store for our children if they are not taught about the past, and encouraged to do things more than one way, and encouraged to apply and connect this with that, and that with the other?

Education is about connections.  If our students have nothing in their heads, lives, or experiences, what sense can they make about anything?  How can things be relevant if there is no relativity?

I’ve had students who couldn’t follow the directions on a box of brownie mix.  Oh, they could read the directions, but they weren’t sure about teaspoons, tablespoons, and measuring cups.  Imagine.

Speaking of “imagine,”  I’ve had students who had a hard time imagining anything because imagination requires connections, too.  Image-ing is possible only with prior knowledge – schema.  How can we create the “magic” part of “i-mage-ing” unless we know as much as possible about as many things as possible?

The more schema we can bring to the table, the more connections we’re able to make.  The more connections we make, the more we can understand.  The more we understand, the more we learn.  The more we learn, the more we know.  The more we know, the better able we are to cope and improve the universe.  Not to even mention those  sofa Jeopardy wins.

As for those teachers who advocate “no memorizing, no studying, no homework, no proving knowledge or mastery, and almost total dependence on electronics,” I have only this to say.

Bullshit.  You’re all full of bullshit.

And this from Mamacita, who advocates tech so thoroughly and enthusiastically that my students who don’t use the social networking that they were told to use are left out of the announcement loop altogether.

P.S.  Dear Students:  Midterms are this week.  If you skived off class and didn’t check Twitter, Facebook, Google +, or email, you’ve got a big surprise coming.

And if you aren’t able to make connections, it won’t do you much good to show up, anyway.

Your kid is raised. Stop raising him. If he’s still an immature weenie, let life hand him/her some consequences. It’s about time somebody did.

Love, Professor MeanJane

P.S. Your kid is nineteen years old and still can’t remember to bring a pencil to school. And no, he can’t borrow mine.  There are no soul-sucking “community school supplies” at this level.   If he wants a grade on a test, he can go down to the bookstore and invest in a two-dollar collegiate-licensed pencil. Yes, they are too expensive and yes, it’s ridiculous. At Target he can get a whole package for a dollar, but then he’d have to remember to bring one to class.

You are not allowing your kid to grow up, and he doesn’t have what it takes to do so himself. This is your fault. Back off. Let him struggle and fail, and then perhaps he will struggle and succeed. No, this is NOT being cruel. Cruelty is keeping your kid a kid too long, and doing all the work for him. Step back and don’t give in when he comes crying to you about how hard life is.

This is one of many reasons why I am a firm believer in mixed-age classes. At this level, I’ll have students from 17 to 80 in one room, and each has something invaluable to give to the other. I think every kid needs at least one adult who is not responsible for raising him/her, and I think every adult needs to be around kids for whom they are not responsible for raising.

Something else that’s wonderful?   We don’t really have many discipline problems at this level, and if we do, the student is escorted out of the building immediately. As such students should be at ALL levels, so our nice hardworking kids might be able to climb higher and see farther and accomplish much more, without being constantly albatrossed by discipline problems that are allowed to get worse each year by spineless administrators and parents who can’t see beyond their own child.

Remember Helen Keller, who had to be removed from her doting parents’ home in order to be educated properly, because her parents were so sorry for her that they gave in to her every whim and turned her into a smelly obnoxious beast who demanded her own way and got it in every situation. Poor little Helen, let her have it; she’s been denied so much! Annie Sullivan, however, knew better. Why can’t modern parents and administrators see it?

(Helen Keller has been in the top five of my top ten “most admired people” list since I was a small child. )

I am a firm believer in playing my best with the hand I’m dealt, but that only works when there are 52 cards to be dealt. Add “just a few more,” and the rules are changed, and it becomes a different game.

Life is good. Dig it.

And when life isn’t good, dig it anyway. If you keep digging, you’ll strike gold eventually.

Chaperone for free. That was me.

At this dance, some of the boys came up to the principal and told her that one of the toilets in the boy’s bathroom was stopped up and when it was flushed, it turned into Mt. Vesuvius.

The principal turned to me and told me to go in there and fix it.

You see, our janitor was a man of principle and did not do toilets. Or vomit. We used to wonder what he did with all that time he saved by not doing his job, but there was a tv in the janitor’s workroom that was always blaring so we assumed he was watching educational videos about plumbing and stuff.  We knew he must be in there because his other pasttime whilst on the job was shooting baskets in the gym, and that darn pesky dance had usurped the gym.

I knocked on the restroom door, got no answer, opened it a crack and called out a warning, and walked in.

The offending toilet was the one on the end, and when I took a good look I instantly realized it was stopped up and overflowing like Mt. Vesuvius. Oh wait, that was what the boys had already told us. Well, they were right.

I sent the boys to ask for a plunger, but they couldn’t find the janitor. We figured he was watching the tv in the janitor’s workroom down on the elementary floor so nobody could find him and make him do his job so the noise wouldn’t bother anybody at the dance, but nobody would answer the door when we knocked, at either workroom.

Back to me.

The principal now tells me that if I don’t get that toilet unclogged soon, it will flood the hall and we’ll have to send the kids home early from the dance, which was not possible as they were all dependent on their parents for rides, and all the parents were all at Wendy’s, celebrating three hours of freedom, and wouldn’t take kindly to cutting it short because some kid (not theirs) laid a loaf in the can.

I was told to unclog that toilet in whatever way I could.

Cut to the next scene, where Mamacita is kneeling on the sticky floor beside a toilet in a junior high boy’s bathroom, with her hand stuck in the hole up to her elbow, wiggling her fingers to help disperse the, uh, cloggage. My audience was large and ever-growing. Several boys told me it was the coolest thing they’d ever seen. Yes, I like to impress my students with bathroom humor.

Listen, I wouldn’t do that in my OWN bathroom, but I had to do it in a nasty junior high boy’s restroom during a dance. I will never be able to hear “Sk8r Boi” without thinking of that moment.

I got ‘er done. I flushed. Mt. Vesuvius was gone.

I stood at the sink and washed my arm over and over and over.  Then I mopped up the bathroom floor and the hallway with a mop made of a wad of paper towels on the end of my arm.

Nothing could happen now to make this night worse, I took comfort in thinking.

On the way home, a tire came off the truck and rolled down the hill.

Hark! Do I hear music in the distance?

“He was a sk8er boi she said see ya later boi. He wasn’t good enough for her. . . .”

The tow truck would have gotten there sooner had it not been for all the ice on the roads.

When I got home I stood in the shower for about three hours. I haven’t bitten my fingernails since that night.

I kind of expected the principal to, you know, THANK me for doing that, but I suppose “it took you long enough” will have to suffice.

We’ve got children who not only wouldn’t know how to climb a tree to save themselves from a bear attack, they probably wouldn’t know any better than to assume the bear was a sweet thing that welcomed a Kodak moment.  We’ve got children who’ve never walked around their own block without at least one adult present.  We’ve got children who have never in their entire lives played in their own back yard without adult supervision.

Our kids have never organized their own games, made their own friends, walked to the neighborhood store, jumped rope, been outside after dark, put lightning bugs in a jar, or gotten dirty without a scolding.

Today’s kids get passing grades without really passing, sports trophies without really playing, and attendance awards even when they’ve missed six days for orthodontia appointments.  Bullies receive more sympathy and help than their victims.  Disruptive students are allowed to remain in our classrooms, destroying the learning opportunity for other kids.  (Disability or not, no child should be included IF that student presents a danger to other children, or in any way prevents other children from learning.  I’m not backing down on this one.)

These kids have no organizational skills because all their school supplies are in big bins that everyone helps himself/herself to – many of these students will go to college and expect their professors to provide the pencils and paper.  How do I know this?  I am a college professor, and every semester, at least one younger student wonders where the paper, pencils, paper clips, and staplers are kept.  When they are told to supply their own, these students are absolutely flabbergasted.

Many kids these days would not know what “flabbergasted” means.

Their playgrounds look like the toddler room in the church basement, not a single pair of jeans has had to be patched, they’re chastized if they get dirty, and they have never had a broken bone or stitches from just being a kid and playing in their lives.  Simple falls, slips, bumps, and bruises are Benadryl foddder.  They’re not allowed to climb because they might fall.  They can’t whirl and twirl because they might fall. They can’t run because they might fall – or make some child who can’t run as fast feel bad.  They can’t throw or kick baseballs or footballs or kickballs because someone might get hit, or get upset at witnessing another child’s skill.  Imaginative play is forbidden lest it include a pirate sword or a finger gun or some kind of sexist, non-PC labeling.

What’s next?  No walking, because they might fall?  It wouldn’t surprise me.

Many kids are not allowed to make their own friends because unless the parents can also be friends, it just ain’t happening.

Children are allowed to run wild in public places, eat and drink anywhere they want, talk during movies, and pretty much rule the roost in their own homes and anyone else’s, too.

Excuses, reasons, and rationalizations are made for all misbehavior.  It is never the child’s fault.  He can’t help it.

Many children eat what they want whenever they want it.  Parents are so afraid little Lulu and little Tubby will be hungry or their self-esteem will be eroded that they cater to these little monsters in every way.  If anyone objects or finds fault, that person must be a child-hating ogre who just doesn’t underSTAND how sensitive Lulu and Tubby are.

Teachers are too strict and require too much.  Theater patrons who glare have forgotten how it was to be a free-spirited child.  Restaurant servers and customers are just hateful selfish beasts who ought to appreciate children and not expect them to be sentient. Fast-food restaurants FORCE families to eat there every night, and that we are all fat isn’t our fault -it’s the restaurant’s fault for MAKING us go there.

Am I in a bad mood?  Not at all.  I am actually more amused, in a head-shaking, disgusted, sarcastic, snarky way, at so many young parents these days who are making it so difficult all the time when it really shouldn’t be.

When people allow children to be in charge, life is going to be hell.  Plus, these parents are also responsible for encouraging their children to grow into adults who must be ever entertained from without, who can’t sit still for thirty seconds, who have poor eating habits, shoddy entertainment preferences, and a sense of entitlement and blamelessness that should shame the nation.

P.S.  Parents who allow their children to be in charge DESERVE the hell they are nurturing.  Is that harsh?  Bite me.  The truth hurts.

Yes, I am aware that such things have been said about the younger generation for thousands of years.  That doesn’t make it any less true.

I love children too much to stay quiet.  We need to nurture them, love them, cherish them, and require them to genuinely grow up, and that means, to have the knowledge and skills to take care of themselves and of others.

Nobody has the right to be helpless unless he/she really is.

Someone asked me what I really wanted to do in my classroom.

What do I really want to do in my classroom?  What have I ALWAYS wanted to do in my classroom?

I want to take each student, individually and collectively, by the shoulders and give them a shake and lift them up in the air and tell them to REACH.  I want to yell in their faces that life is short and the universe is amazing.  I want to point to the night sky and tell them that if they need perspective, it’s all up there.  I want to tell them that a book is a little universe full of awesome people doing cool things.  I want to tell them to play.  I want them to laugh at a lot of things that make dull people turn up their noses.  I want them to comprehend that each of them is blazingly beautiful, inside and out.  I want them to realize that each of them has a story to tell that nobody else in the world knows, and that we all want to hear it.  I want them to understand that mature adults aren’t really mature according to normal standards, and that we must be mature to realize that.  I want them to never, ever, lose their sense of “play.”  I want to tell them to turn off the TV and go outside; that’s where the cool stuff is.

I want them to hang out with people who don’t look like them.

I want them to try new things and go new places.  I want them to economize on necessities and splurge on creativity and imagination.

I want them to soar, higher and higher, in their heads if nowhere else.  I want them to not be afraid to venture forth and make fools of themselves.

I want them to sing in public and climb on the monkey bars no matter how old they might be.

I want to tell them not to let anyone tell them something can’t be done, because a lot of the time, it just needed a different perspective.

I want to help them comprehend that most awesome things are not comprehensible, just appreciable, and I want them to appreciate awesome things.

I want them to understand that, except for childbirth and insemination and peeing standing up, both sexes can do pretty much anything they want and should be able to do those things without any kind of put-down from others.

I want to show them that it is our differences that make us who we are, that nothing can be truly beautiful without a flaw, and that following the crowd didn’t work out all that well for lemmings.

I want them to stand up for what is right and to speak out when speaking out is needed.  I want them to understand that bad politicians are elected by people who choose not to vote.  I want them to volunteer, and share, and take good care of their own and other people’s possessions, and ask before touching.

I want them to understand that everything is connected to everything else, that nothing really stands alone, not even the cheese.

And, of course, learn the 8 parts of speech and the basic spelling rules, so they won’t look like tools when they express themselves in any and all ways.  :)

And world peace.

Now, how do I get all that on a departmental syllabus?

I had spent the first two and a half  college years declaring and changing majors; I was interested in so many things, it was hard to choose just one or two.  Then I remember Dad saying something about how if I didn’t declare a major and actually stick to it he was going to cut me off, blah blah blah, and suddenly an education degree started looking pretty good, not to mention easy, and please, teachers, don’t start in on me for saying that because we all know it’s true, more’s the pity. At least, back in the seventies it was true, for it was the era of “If you don’t want to take math or economics, etc,  you may substitute something else and have it count,” which explains all those diverse endorsements sprinkled all over my teacher’s license.

I hated math, so I took PE. All the biological science labs were at 7:00 a.m., so I took School and Community Health and Advanced Expository Writing. Astronomy and Geology both met at night, so I took them both, and I LOVE them to this day. LOVE them!!!!!

I didn’t exactly write my own degree requirements, but I might have messed with them a bit.  Or maybe, more than a bit.

I signed up for Advanced Mammalian Physiology one semester, although it did have a 7:15 a.m. lab. I had a perfectly good, logical reason: My boyfriend was in that class. I went into it with no prerequisites, no interest, and half-comatose because it was so early in the day.  I’m really not interested in much of anything at that hour.

I liked it at first.  Surprisingly, I did pretty well at first – I tend to throw my whole self into things I like -  and then, a full week AFTER drop-and-add was over, we had our first lab. We were each given a live frog and told not to give him a name.

It was too late. I have always anthropomorphized everything (ask my kids!) and my sweet little froggie was named Prince Charming the very moment I lifted him out of the box and made him my own, because he looked exactly like the Frog Prince in the Classics Illustrated, Junior, comic book I read in second grade, which, by the way, I still have.

My instructions were to spread-eagle Prince Charming in a corkbox, pin down his little hands and feet, and make an X-shaped incision on his little white tummy. We were then instructed to fold back the four triangles of skin, observe his beating heart and inflating/deflating lungs, aim a fan at him, and time how long it took the internal organs to stop functioning.

I walked out and never went back. I walked out with Prince Charming in my pocket, and I set him free in the River Jordan, the gorgeous big creek which flows all over the IU campus. A raccoon probably ate him, but that’s still a better fate than death by having your internal organs exposed to the gush of air from a fan and having the whole ghastly thing timed.  Arlo would have been proud of me. *

It was too late to drop the course, so even though I was actually doing quite well on the tests and small group discussions, I failed the class because my labs were all zeros.

I have never regretted that decision.

*Parents, this little film and its sequel are wonderful; order now and let your kids experience the fun and the excellent lessons.  Also?  Your kids will be singing “That’s Amore” all over the house – what fun!  (I bet most of you saw this movie on TV when you were kids.  I still love it – and the sequel.)

I know! Let’s give the majority of our attention, time, and money to the nice kids! What a novel thought.

The lowest common denominator doesn’t deserve it. The cream does.

Nice people are the cream. Mean, stupid  people are the dregs.  Mean, stupid people who choose to remain so are scum.

Let’s focus on the cream, shall we?  Brave, kind people, like the teens in this video.  Not creepy jerks, like some of the other teens in this video.

If you don’t know which is which, you’re one of the creeps.  Just to let you know.

The students who don’t seem to do as well at this level are those fresh out of high school. Not all of them, of course, but of those who have and give the most problems, most are right out of high school.

This semester, every student who has asked for special privileges or exceptions, or who has excessive unexcused absences, or who has behaved poorly or inappropriately in any way, or who has plagiarized, or who has expected paper and pens handed out like Halloween candy, has been a younger student, a year or less out of high school.

I wonder sometimes if it would be better for us as a society to require at least a year of full-time employment before a student is allowed to go on to college. Would it help these young people develop a sense of pride in workmanship, in rules, in discipline, in a paycheck? If even one student learned – and probably the hard way – that a sense of entitlement and a fierce, protective mommy are actually detrimental to the personal advancement and growth of an adult student/citizen/worker, it would be worth it.

A year of full-time employment might also help a student to decide if college is really the route he/she should follow. Hopefully, it would be, but maybe not right away.

Then again, for many students, a year in a factory, or in construction, or on a farm, or in retail or foods, might well be the deciding factor in a kid’s decision to go back to school and get the kind of education that would mean never having to do such work again.

Before all non-athletic field trips were prohibited here, our high school used to take all the juniors to the local General Motors plant. Back then, probably half of the kids would end up working there in a few years anyway, and of the remaining students, some recoiled in horror at the very thought (after seeing vats of molten metal and hearing the ’scared straight’ anecdotes of the workers) and applied themselves anew to preparing for college, while others listened, fascinated, and changed their track to a Rose Hulman/Purdue engineering mode.

But oh well, no more field trips except for the athletes. Those buses were needed to transport the teams a hundred miles to a game, anyway, which is of course more important than some life-changing field trip that might help a student make a decision that would put his life on a career track. Go, team, go.

One of the problems is, most of the big factories, those places where the non-college people were pretty much guaranteed a good job with benefits, are gone now, farmed out to other countries, outsourced, so the Mothership can pay the workers less and therefore make more money for themselves. But who do they think is going to buy all those cheaply-made cars and other merchandise? Their laid-off workers? This is not a very good way to promote brand loyalty, or any other kind of loyalty. People who have no job are not in the market to buy very many things, hello, CEO dimwads.

My student population is motivated in many different ways. It’s not like a high school classroom, where the goal is (sadly) to make a high score on a standardized test. That’s no motivation for a student. Or for anybody else except big government and clueless administration. No, my students’ motivations are important, and life-changing. If they had been allowed to tour the General Motors plant, some of the decisions they are making might have been made earlier, but that’s a moot point. My students are back in school and they want very much to do well. Most of them are. A few of them aren’t, but I haven’t given up hope yet. School takes some getting used to. As their instructor, I don’t have to worry about prepping my students to do well on one big stupid poorly-written standardized test. I just have to worry about helping them find success, and NOT the kind where I diddle about with the statistics so students who are doing poorly will think they’re doing well and have fake high self esteem. I mean, REAL success. Genuine self-esteem.  The earned kind. There is no other.  Anything not personally earned is a joke.

At this level, they get what they get, and they know that; therefore, what they get is a source of pride. Or shame, as the case may be. Both are earned results, and every kid in the universe knows the difference, and why some kids get one and some the other. The only people who don’t seem to understand are those fierce protective mothers, administrators, and the PC cops.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m a fierce protective mother. But a parent who consistently stands between his/her child and the results of that child’s actions, is doing the kid no favors. Let the consequences fall, and let the kid deal with them. He/she earned them, after all. And not all consequences are bad, remember. Let the kid reap the good stuff, too, IF it was earned. Not actually and truly and equally earned? It means less than nothing, and is worse than a bad joke.

Oh, and in case there’s a sentient person out there somewhere who didn’t know: those gift-grades, given so a slacker can “graduate” with his/her classmates, are BAD, BAD THINGS. A student who chooses to earn a zero should get that zero, not the 65% that another student might have worked hard for. Whoever thought up that 65% minimum should be dragged out into the streets and shot. We all get what we earn, and if we don’t earn it, we shouldn’t get it, whether it’s points or percentages or salaries or anything, in fact, in the world.  We do not deserve what we did not earn for ourselves.

I’m proud of my students. I will miss them, after this week. They did well.

Except for those few slackers, of course, but you know what? They had the same chances and choices as the others, and they chose poorly. Let the consequences of those poor choices fall on their heads, and let them deal with it themselves.

Those who worked hard? Congratulations. Those who did not? Well, there’s always the summer session, or the fall semester. Try again. And this time, do it right.

Cripes, I love my school and my students. I wouldn’t waste my meanness if I didn’t care. It takes too much effort.