Essays & Poetry (mine or others) pertaining to historical and current events and burning social issues.

Thursday, December 6, 2018

School Daze


Image result for images of one room school housesOne Room Schoolhouse on Pinterest Augustine FloridaImage result for images of contemporary high schoolsImage result for images of one room school houses
I feel like I am living in a dystopian world. I am supervising
 teenagers at a local high school and they have an assignment
 in Google Classroom, so all I have to do is take roll and
 stand back and wait for the magic to happen.
However, this generation of students aren't very magical.
 They have smart phones that give them the illusion of
 having all the answers right in their little hands.
Students  these days are incredibly naive and clueless.
Earlier today we had a presentation: Run, Hide, Fight.
The point was to try to imbue these smart- phone- alecks with
survival skills. Isn't it innate that when a human feels threatened
 they do those things automatically? Who dumbed these
 youngsters down? Public school? Or perhaps the entire culture.
When the nightly news hawks the next $1000. dollar
 Apple phone and the schools arm their students with their
 own Chrome Books, have we gone too far?

Some capitalists (aka 1 percenters) are getting rich by sucking
 those below them dry. The ad industry propagandizes not keeping up
 with the Jones's so much as taking over the world.
 Video games and other Internet time stealers, make this
 new crop of teens believe they can get/have whatever they
want. And therein lies the problem of entitlement and lack
of appreciation for anything given or done for them.
They have been taught that they can have the best of everything.
Shame on the adults who didn't bother to give them some clue.     

Teachers agonize over the future of our country because
the number of responsible young people has shrunk significantly.
 Who's going to run things when these folks are supposed to
take over? Baby Boomers are living longer, but how the heck
 long can they live?
Some of us try to warn the brighter ones, but the number of
conscious ones is shrinking. Will this be looked back on
 as a Dark Age in our history?
 It is disheartening to me how many times young people wail
when  they are asked to to read.
Reading passes information acquired by one generation on to
next so they won't have to reinvent the wheel and more important
 things. Some examples of what could be lost: Essential services
like medicine and law could founder within the next couple decades
 if there are only a few people who are ready, willing and able to
 carry that torch. Police and Fire fighters. And you can forget about
 Shakespeare!
 Does  anybody else see a crisis brewing when kids nowadays need
 to be taught how to survive a school shooting?
.This brings me to Darwin's Natural Selection. When I listened
 to a colleague explain the power point regarding their survival
I sensed an overall boredom. Survival skills  should be inherent.
It's no joke how many people die in car crashes while trying to text.
 People are even falling down holes intended for maintenance workers.
If a man-hole cover is off and someone on their phone is walking
 in that general direction, is it okay to holler a warning? Remind me again,
 Why did we get rid of one room schools?   Raintreepoet, pondering.