It’s no big revelation that our society is going to hell.
If you’re a Right-Winger, it’s because Obama is the devil and we’ll all be Socialists saluting a solid red flag with one big star on it. If you’re a Left-Winger, it’s because we’ll all die from lack of affordable health care. If you’re in the middle, it’s because both sides are so goddamn crazy that you’ll go batshit insane from osmosis.
However, right and left isn’t what really drove home the subject title.
No… a grade school teacher I know gave a student a “C” on their report card. Well, “gave the student” is really correct; the student EARNED a “C” through careless work. While the student is bright and quite smart, s/he has a bad habit of rushing through work and not checking anything. As a result, mistakes are made. My teacher-friend told the parents at mid-term “So and So is very bright, but s/he needs to slow down a little and check their work”. But when the reports cards come out and s/he is awarded a “C” for their shoddy and careless work. So the kid goes home crying and the next thing you know, the parents have called requesting a meeting – not with my teacher-friend, but with the principal of the school. They are livid that their precious little fuck-up got a “C”.
What is wrong with this picture?
The parents were told their child was making the mistakes that resulted in their AVERAGE grade. Did they speak to their kid? Did they check the kid’s work to see if Einstein was being more careful? No. They went about their lives, hoping other people would raise their kids. And when that didn’t happen, they couldn’t wait to point their fingers at someone.
Now, hey – not all teachers are perfect and my teacher-friend isn’t the greatest teacher to grace the halls of academia, but MOST teachers are doing what they do because they love kids and helping them learn is very fulfilling. Let’s face it, the good ones aren’t paid what they’re worth so it ain’t the lure of easy money pulling people into the teaching profession. So, when a kid brings home a “bad” grade, it’s probably not the teacher being vindictive. In fact, the teacher probably feels a bit of guilt over that bad grade – to them it could be viewed as a slight bit of failure. So to “blame” the teacher for anything less than an “A” on a report card falls on two or three shoulders, and the teacher is NOT one of them.
As long as we, as a society, continue to rely on others to take care of us and then blame them when they don’t provide 100% of what you expect, we are going down a spiral path to fucked-up-ed-ness. You see, contrary to belief, it doesn’t take a fucking village to raise a child. It takes one or two loving and caring parents. And when it becomes time to lay blame we need to listen to the words of the late, great Michael Jackson by starting with the “man in the mirror”.
