Yesterday, the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (whoever the hell "They" are.......), issued the findings of an international survey ranking reading skills, knowledge in science, and mathematics, of the students of twenty four nations.
Which nations?
The United States, Japan, Germany, Korea and Finland....to name some of them....
Actually, all of the members of the OECD participated (thirty, in all) including eleven non-member nations.
Why the study?
To see if children know more or less.....
And many other things too.....
The OCED seems particularly curious to know HOW knowledge is used by the young....
Exactly what knowledge they have.....
There is the distinct stench of "thinktankology" to all of this hullaboo over reporting about what the "worlds" kids know, or, do not know......
In a few days, especially in the "West", the report will be forgotten entirely.....
We in the West, already know our children cannot read very well.....that they are media and computer driven, and are dependent upon sources of information they could not identify, if they were hit in the face by them....
We know that nameless, faceless, "educators", provide "education" programs, our "States", buy and distribute to local school systems.....
We know these programs are a national crime.....
That most of them do not work....
We know that an overwhelming majority of American students leave high school unready for a college education.....
We know that being "too smart" is not a good thing (socially), in our schools...
We know (in our heart of hearts), that academically gifted "black kids", are scorned by thier peers....
White kids, too......
We know the effects of a lack of economic success upon a child's, "soon to be adult", self esteem, in the United States......
We know how economic failure, after high school, is the ultimate American societal insult....
That if you do not have the "toys", you cannot play with the "boys"......
So, when a child cannot read because teachers failed them, they cannot think....
And when they cannot think....
They end up in a dead end job....
They work it long enough...
And they get angry...
They turn to drugs and alchohol...
They get pissed at the world.....
In the most extreme cases...they become comedians.....
Im kidding, boys and girls....
I was pulling your leg......
Right?
Of course we reward our children and encourage them.....
Who could have possibly spread these lies about the American education system???
Everything is correct.....
Everything is perfect....
Am I incorrect?
No?
Is there something wrong about education in this country.....?
Is there something about American parental attitudes failing our children...?
What do we know about our children?
What do we really know,
About......
What they do....?
And what they know...?
And what they do not know....?
And who they are?????
Do we give them medals, for NOT contracting a venereal disease by the age of thirteen......or, giving child, by way of drug abuse or just plain parental neglect.....????
But let us not go to the projects just yet....
That is a "Black" problem....
Right?
Let us go to YOUR house.....
To your safe, (and hopefully paid for), middle class home....
To a place you thought none of the "world's" ills could touch you....especially upon this "fruited plain".....
To a place of such delusion, that it staggers the minds of those who actually read current statistics about our society....
About how much failure, you, as American parents created.....
You are the guilty ones....
You let morons working for the "State"....decide your children's fate.....
You gave them your kids.....
You gave them your blood....
If your kids were killed by an unknown......
Or raped......
Or humiliated.....
Or even embarrassed you with the local "authorities"....
You would do the right thing.....
You would be down at the court house in a minute....
Right......?
Of course you would......
Because you are good people....
Concerned people.....
People beleiving in the "American Dream".....
Perhaps living it at this moment.......
So how come your kids cannot read to a level of fluency?
How come YOU cannot read to a level of fluency????
How come thay cannot understand anything except the ethic of entertainment?
How come they are so removed from the affairs affecting them most?
(Ever heard of Iraq?)
How come seven out of ten of them cannot name the Governor of their own states?
How come?
Are you, as a parents, complicit in this "unederucation"?
I think most of you are........
But I cannot be sure, can I?
But what if I could be sure?
What would I do to you?
What punishment would you deserve?
Do you think of it in terms of punishment for your lack of action against a societal educational degeneration?
Pretty fancy words, dont you think?
Well, what did the OECD report say?
Well, in a nutshell.....
Americans are not worth a damn, educationally....
If we were...we would be able to think, in a "crititical" manner......
Our children might be able to pay attention......
If we were really educated....
We would see a lie as a lie....
(Ever heard of Iraq?)
We may not be able to do anything about poverty, social injustice, the treatment of the aged, the hideous state of American medicine, and a President who lies and murders everytime he exhales......
But at least our children would know well the smell of bullshit... if they could read, they might begin to think.....
And if they could think.....
God help us........
All of us old bastards would be dead, or at least on the run from them....
If they could think, they would ask "why was there was a Cold War?"....
They would ask why Africa is becomming "depopulated".......
They would inquire about their father's Viet Nam experience.....
The fact is....they would think a lot about a lot of things.......
If they actually did think....
But, much to us old folk's relief...
Our kids do not know how to think....
Because we did not tell them how......
Because, there might be a possibility of change in this world.......
If we actually taught them how to think....
Thank God American children cannot read!!!!!
As an old person, and one never having pretensions to real thinking, I sought out the best advice I could find....
I caught the first plane available to Frankfurt, Germany........
Rented a car....
And got my "unread", American ass, to Heidelburg, Germany.....
I was troubled about the state of American "undereducation".....
I wanted advice from the wisest man on the planet....
I drove straight past wizened guards, onto the grounds of my friend Albert Speer.......
Oh quit being such a goose livered shit!!!!
Al Speer is the finest man I have ever known!!!
A stand up guy!!!!
Twenty years in Spanday Prison....
Not a godamn whimper.....
(For gods sake, where have the real men gone?)
Not only was he a competent architect in his own right....
He was the best friend of "Da Dolph" himself!!!!!
Yessir!!!!!
Adolph Hitler!!!!!
A man to be reckoned with!!!
A man with REAL views on education.....
Especially reading!!!!!
The man who walked with the aging dictator when times were bad...!!!!!
In the snows of Berchestgarten.....
When shadows were long and thoughts deep......
Damn right....!!!!!
It was a time when men were men....
And sheep were scared.....
It was a time intolerant of the failure of the education of a nation....anyone stupid enough to let the "Fatherland" down, by allowing a pack of self serving zipperheads at any "School of Education", in any so called "college", to serve crap up, they knew falacious, to the "Children of the Blood", was an "Enemy of the State"!!!!
And there are plenty of enemies....
Plenty of "Schools of Education"...
(Dont you just love that phrase?)
Let us pick one out.... say the "Watson School of Education", at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington......
A place where the "Fatherland" matters less than tenure........
Where careers are made up....
Out of thin air.....
Where fantasy is reality....
Where "teachers" are produced like bars of soap....
Of course, I related these complaints to "my friend" Al.....
I poured out my heart...
He looked past me, to the broad prospect of his estate.....
Into another time.....
He was thinking of lies ....
He was ruminating upon lost vision....
His nose was running ....
I handed him a Kleenex.....
And after a bit of personal maintenence....
He began a story I will be happy to relate, the next time we get together....
In the mean time, be sure not to think too much about anything......
Personally.........
Thinking......
Gives me a headache.............
Comments