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EDUCATION: THEN AND NOW

I'm certainly not an expert on education. I'm not an expert on raising children either. Yet, I cannot help but compare education and teachers when I attended school and then years later when my children went to school, and what goes on today. I think there are more problems today than we ever had seventy years ago.

How can children go through 12 years of schooling and graduate, yet not know simple arithmetic, how to read, and the basics of the English language? With all the new theories, all the new equipment, all the additional courses the teachers are forced to take, yet young men and women cannot make change in the grocery store, or write so badly that one can hardly read it, due both to poor penmanship and improper English.

The history of this nation is replete with stories of men and women who were born into impoverished homes (such as Abraham Lincoln) and yet rose to great heights. They had little education, but they schooled themselves (sort of self-schooled as well as home-schooled). They seem, today, to learn and remember more about sex than they do the wonderful history of our country. The latest, of course, is the pre-school theory, that every child deserves a rich rewarding experience in a pre-school environment.

Our school did not have a Kindergarden. We went into First Grade at five years of age, period. That seemed adequate for kids then. For some reason, it is not today. Somehow the teachers got the job done and we graduated, and many went on to college and led normal lives. I did not go on to college; what you read here is from a mediocre student who graduated from high school at 17. I still write to friends who graduated at 17 and 18, and their letters are adequate in all respects, including penmanship, better than what the youngsters (and even their teachers) turn out today. Some of my old friends went to college, some did not, but they put many of today's students to shame either way.

We had tests and if we did not pass them, we were failed. Too many failing marks and the student was "left behind" as the class moved on. The motivation was to keep up with the rest of the class, because it was no fun to be thought a dummy, and to have your best friends in a class ahead of you. YOU did not graduate if you did not pass your finals in high-school. It was that simple. Life is like that; it is a challenge, and if you pass everyone so that they "feel good", you're not helping them at all. You are enabling them to get through without doing the work, and they'll expect the same of real life. Real life is not that way at all.

Personally I wonder if it isn't the Teacher's Colleges and all the new theories that screw up the students the most. Personally, I even think the Teacher's Unions have too much influence, negative influence on the kids as well. Personally, I think all today's Politically Correct crap also interferes with their education, both teachers and students.

AS AN EMPLOYER

There is another way I can cite to explain the differences over the years and that is as an employer. First, as a ship's officer during the war, I met every single member of the crew and gun crew. There were a few who signed the Ship's Articles with an "X", but other than that, just about every signature was either very clear or at least decipherable. And, we had constant discussions, often about American history, and most sailors had a very good grasp of the subject. After the war I interviewed and hired scores of sales people, young men and women, and never experienced what you go through today with hiring. I know. I saw the differences as they changed throughout the years. More and more High School graduates seemed to have difficulty spelling, filling out Applications for Employment, doing simple tasks, taking and following orders, and then we noticed the inability to do simple arithmetic, like making change.

One employer gave me a file folder with more than 50 Applications he had saved over the past few years and I was astounded at the number of errors in them, the lack of comprehension when answering simple questions. We questioned whether the kids were just dumber or there was a problem in the school system in Los Angeles. Neither of us had gone to college, but we were certainly far ahead of these applicants. Some of them had college degrees while others were in their second or third year of college. What had happened between the time we attended school and now, and why?

A NATIONAL PARANOIA

Now there is another problem and it's all about weapons, knives, guns, and who knows what else, as well as drawing pictures of weapons. It is assinine.

From the time I was 12, I carried a knife in my pocket, and I carried it all over the world in fact, but now, I am essentially disarmed, as all kids are as well. The latest is also the paranoia over box-cutters, because ridiculous regulations required pilots to surrender immediately and that stupidity allowed some fanatics to take over a few airliners and crash them into buildings.

The problem was not the boxcutters! The problem was the stupidity that obligated the pilots to surrender the airliner when under attack!
If every country had immeidately surrendered when Hitler attacked, London would have storm-troopers patrolling the streets to this day.

Ed Davis, former Chief of Police of Los Angeles was right when he titled his book, Hang 'em at the Airports. No one paid attention, hence the big losses we suffered and today's paranoia about a kid taking boxcutters aboard an airplane.

Well, he was stupid to challenge the government in that manner, but the government is stupid because it has allowed it to become such a national issue. Hell, it ain't the government, is it? It's the MEDIA. Moronic meddling media smart-pharts! We've become a nation of imbecilic pansies, hastening lemming-like to our doom because of the ridiculous anti-resistance position taken by the media, the liberal insufferable wishy-washy smart-pharts who influence public opinion. Ouch. Jeeeezzzzzzzz.

Whatever is happening to our children may well be sandwiched between all of this, the teachers and the media, with the constant interference in their personal lives. We're not teaching them to be independent; we're taking all of that away from them. We're not schooling Davey Crockett's, we're schooling namby-pambies. We're not schooling heroes, we're schooling sissies.

Oh yes, some schools will do better, much better than others. And, yes, some students will resist, but the liberal establishment does not want that. They want conformity. One way to instill that conformity in school children is to insist on these politically correct attitudes and actions, and punish those who do not conform to this silliness. Boxcutters? Boxcutters and Zero Tolerance are merely a methodology to drain the children's minds of resistance and bring them into the realm of conformity and, eventually, socialism. That's the way I view it.