At the Counter: Bemoaning the State of Affairs in our Schools

Verble on a rant:

Far be it from me to bemoan the state of affairs in our schools, but what I saw at my children's open houses was absolutely deplorable.  De-plor-a-ble.

OK, I get that we're embracing new tech.   Bring their tablets, they can use them to read the assigned books.   Cool.  They can even use them to link to the textbooks, which are now online.  That I think is great.  It's better than having the kids lug around a ten pound tome that they're never gonna crack open anyway.

But what I can't abide is this utter lack of concern for the language.  The teachers themselves can't even spell. I saw at least two grammatical errors in every teacher's handout.  Some benign, some egregious, but they were there!  On their printed pages!

Honestly, the teachers were so much more interested in showing us how their new online home-interactive website is just like Facebook for Schools!  It's new, It's wonderful!  See how the kids are already interacting with each other.

Yeah, it was all like:

- teacher im confuse bout the hw bc i wasent ther in class

or

- how do u lode adobe reader i cant read the textbk

or

- does anybody got 5 words in spanish 4 the homwork


What the HELL?  What the holy hell?

If language is our cultural DNA then America is filled with a mass of broken chromosomes.
How do we expect our kids to learn a foreign language when they can't even spell their own?
At the beginning of the 20th century, literacy was at 5%.  At the end of it, ILliteracy was at 5%.   Now we've PISSED it all away in the space of one generation.

All the money has gone into smartboards and not into the bodies needed to impart that information.

Even a bad teacher could be mediocre with a smaller size classroom, but even a fantastic teacher, if that class is over 22 students, is simply a ringmaster in a circus, trying to keep the elephants from trampling the audience.

Thank God these are the last kids I'll ever have, because I really do not see how they have a chance.   Not a chance in hell.  

But then, what do I count for?  I'm old, outdated, in the way.  Me, with my fancy ideas of cultural literacy, understanding of history, language as cultural DNA, and the use of language as a way to express ideas, hopes, dreams.

All just frittered away in sext messages and porno pics.  Here, let's tap our phones together and share that photoshopped pic of our teacher naked in leather bondage gear.   Yeah, Jimmy!